Channeling Our Inner Celebrity Through Twitter and Social Media

• July 17, 2009
• 74 Comments

After I finish the new (unannounced) book that I’m feverishly writing, I plan to finally pursue “Internet Famous – The rise of micro celebrity and the end of privacy.”

Alexia Tsotsis (disclosure, she’s a dear friend) recently wrote an intriguing article at the LA Weekly entitled, “Is All of Hollywood the Bitch in Twitter’s Sex Tape or Just P. Diddy?”

She links to a recent article written by A.J. Keen, author of the controversial book, Cult of the Amateur, in which he defends TechCrunch and Michael Arrington in the Twittergate scandal. In his article, he also observes that technology start-ups have become the “hottest celebrities in America… receiving the same kind of obsessionally intimate coverage from the media that was once reserved for kings of pop like Michael Jackson or Elvis.”

He is a brilliant thinker and writer. If you read his book today, I promise it will resonate with you at a level that was previously impossible, especially now that we’re much more humbled by Web 2.0 than when we were initially enthralled by it.

However, his quote, if for a moment, opened up the mental floodgates that have held back so many psychological reflections and cycles of personal introspection over the years related to the socialization of the web and media. I could have started my next, next book, right now. Instead I simply commented on Alexia’s post, and I elected to also share the unabridged version with you here.

“To further expound on Andrew Keen’s perspective, I believe that Twitter is a media darling simply because we, the bitches, choose to tweet about our lives relentlessly. It is with undying aspirations that we subconsciously yearn for recognition. If Twitter is popularized and actively discussed in the media, then it somehow justifies our obsession with sharing everything about who we are, what we love, and what we’re doing. It’s not necessarily technology companies that are becoming the ‘hottest celebrities in America’ because of their shiny new features, it’s us psychologically channeling our subliminal desire for recognition and micro celebrity through these social networks, that transforms them into the celebrities in which we can live through vicariously. It’s a Freudian form of quietly, but surely, provoking varying forms and levels of desired Web-based fame that transcends online and offline through a series of passive-attention seeking behaviors.”

#internetfamous

With Social Media comes great responsibility…

Please also read, “Significant” and “The End of the Innocence.”

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Social Median, or Facebook

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