The celebrity Twitter backlash

Twitter dominated 2009 with celebrities, businesses and the general populous alike using it to promote themselves and their products. However it appears that a backlash is steadily growing against the social media site as celebrities begin to drop it in order to stop embarrassing themselves, whilst others deem it "
undignified".

Even those desperate for fame in the US have dropped the social media site, due to their own inability to censor what they say leading them to come under fire for bizarre ramblings. Most recently, reality TV star Tila Tequila has been criticised for publicly blogging about the father of her unborn child as well as using her Tweets to publicly grieve for her dead fiancee last year.

With celebrity tweets becoming more and more common, publicists are constantly scrambling to react to 'tweets' or updates sent out by actors or writers that may go against official strategy or policy, especially when they're used in industry publications, blogs and other forms of Social Media.

"A bit pointless to be honest"

As a result, many celebrities are being pressured to drop the network either by their management or due to the large amount of venomous responses that come with putting yourself 'online' so publicly. The likes of Miley Cyrus and Chris Brown have all ditched Twitter following abuse tweets and even well established Tweeters like Stephen Fry seem to change their mind about staying with the blogging service every few days.

Last week, Ricky Gervais deleted his account after only sending five Tweets saying he "didn't see the point" in the service.

"I just don't get it, I'm afraid," Gervais wrote on his blog. "I'm sure it's fun as a 
networking device for teenagers but there's something a bit 
undignified about adults using it. Particularly celebrities who seem 
to be showing off by talking to each other in public."

He added: "If I want to tell a friend, famous or otherwise what I had
 to eat this morning, I'll text them. And since I don't need to make 
new virtual friends, it seemed a bit pointless to be honest. Also I've got the Web site and I don't have to restrict things to 140
 characters. My tweeting was becoming like a tabloid version of this 
blog, and I couldn't even put important stuff like this up.""

Even celebrities that are multi-billion dollar brands such as Oprah Winfrey have had a hard time on Twitter, with users complaining that her tweets were just another means of promoting her "lifestyle": "The domination of her "book" club will put an end to literature as we know it. Imagine what's going to happen when she starts pimping out her feed. Books, magazines, movies."

Then of course there are the reports of certain celebrities using 'ghost writers' to promote themselves, leaving many Twitter followings feeling increasingly frustrated with those using the service solely to promote themselves.

However, surely this disenchantment with celebrity twitterers comes about seemingly because we've challenged the rich and famous to break down the walls surrounding their lives and they have responded...destroying any sense of mystery we may have once had. Perhaps Twitter should return to being the network of choice for young teenagers and those with something to say and promote rather than the narcissistic types that have yet to realise that no-one really cares how many followers they have.

Relevant articles:

How Hollywood embraced social media | The many users of Twitter | Obama: Doesn't use Twitter

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