Tuesday, June 15, 2010

FAKE(?) CELEBRITY TWEETS!


-twitters! Up and coming new vocabulary for internet users around the world

Twitter is a microblogging service that allows each individual to post multiple entries relating to their daily activities, the rise of twitter in these recent years has been one of the most observed internet trend from analysts across all fields.

According to the Guardian columnist, Addley(2009),” twitter” is the hottest new word, mentioned in many articles British local and national newspapers . Despite the steady rise of popularity per month, it wasn’t until the actor Stephen Fry demonstrated how twitter can generate amazingly wide publicity that Twitter became the biggest buzz that it is today.

Following the media awareness of Twitter’s potential, countless celebrities joined the bandwagon and started to tweet their lives to the public, amongst them are many of those that some say are better kept private; for example Ashton Kutcher posting pictures of Demi Moore’s bum, Madonna and Jeniffer Aniston dumping their boyfriends.


-aren’t you at least slightly curious of what celebrities do every day?
click on picture to follow link

Surprisingly, controversial stories like this are by far, the most popular ones that propelled twitter to where it is today, there’s just so many amongst us that are so curious about what our favorite celebrities do daily. I don’t follow any celebrity in particular, but if given the chance I do want to know what their activities are like, it doesn’t hurt to be a bit curious right? ;)
Controversy surrounding celebrity tweets

So we all know Celebrity tweets are the bomb! Who wouldn’t be interested in the lives of these successful figures? But are they the real thing?

-another article by the Guardian, (2009), about 50-cent ghost tweets
click on picture to follow article

Most should be posted by someone other than them, with their consent, it’s not entirely fabricated of course, but it does have PR managers involved around it. They don’t always have the time to update their tweets every now and then. Maybe some are real, but mostly it’s someone else, for the most part, we don’t really mind. But how about something that’s ENTIRELY FAKE?

Highly controversial example of these “fake Tweets” (!? No no) include Dalai Lama’s account, just imagine the divine being tweeting his daily spiritual encounters. More recent ones include Shaq O’Neal and Steve Jobs impersonators.

-exposed fake accounts!
In my opinion, it’s just like every other thing online, the perks that comes with online anonymity has always been a double-edged blade. Some of us might not care at all, but most of us shouldn’t have too much trouble if we’ve been in the internet for this long. We aren’t that naïve to believe every other thing we read on the internet. Besides, I believe Twitter is doing their best to handle this issue, they don’t want anything to jeopardize their potential multibillion online gold mine.


REFERENCE LIST:

Addley, E (2009), 'The rise and rise of Twitter', The Guardian, viewed 13th June 2010,

Luft, O (2009), 'Ghost Tweets: are celebrity twitters for real?', PC World, viewed 13th June 2010,

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