Tag: celebrities

The Curious Case Of Celebrities & Internet Culture

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarer

I’ve written about this before, but I’m bored and tipsy and I find the subject fascinating. What interests me is celebrity interaction with people who write (or whatever) about them online.

My general assumption is celebrities are too busy doing “dope shit” in the real world to worry about what any one person is saying about them online. However, as I’ve written before, I suspect there is a spectrum of celebrity awareness.

On one end there are celebrities who are so famous and so busy with having a Real World Life that they have no idea what any particular random blogger or Twitter user might be saying about them. They have people for that, as they say. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum are those celebrities who are — no matter how big they are — so insecure that they troll Twitter using burner accounts, etc.

I really am a nobody. I may be pretty interesting, but I’m living in oblivion and there’s no reason any celebrity would have any interest in me whatsoever. The only notable exception to this general living-in-oblivion happened when I was living in Seoul.

I’ve written about all of this before, but, in general what happened is way back when, in the Before Times, I had a strange affinity for picking on the then-New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee and her strange byline. Now, being much older, I doubt I would care at all that she went by “8.” as a middle name. So what.

Jennifer 8. Lee

But this was a different era of the Internet and I was in Seoul, so when she visited South Korea while working on a book, I find myself having dinner with she and her friend Tomoko. (Who worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal, if remember correctly.)

The thing about Tomoko is she was a stereotypical Blue Check Liberal (well before those were a thing) to the point that she, right in front of me, went on at great length about how people who taught English in South Korea (that would be me) were, essentially the fucking scum of the Earth. I don’t think it registered at the time to her what she was saying and who she was saying it to.

But, lulz.

Anyway, I’m much older and much wiser now. It takes a lot to get me excited when it comes to celebrities. I check my Webstats obsessively and occasionally I’ll write some random thing about this or that celebrity and someone from NYC or LA will look at it and I pause and wonder if it’s someone connected to the celebrity I wrote about.

Now that I’m older, I’m very blasé about catching the attention of a celebrity. I just don’t care. Live long and prosper, guys. One day I believe — in my heart at least, that I’m going to be a celebrity.

You never know. It could happen. I am writing a novel, you know.

The Mysterious World Of Celebrity Online Engagement





by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If I somehow magically came into a sizable chunk of money, I have the proper skill set to necessary to start a decent Website like the late, great Gawker. One thing I’m obsessed with is my Webstats. Something about seeing the origin of the few people who look at this site is very addictive. If I was running a major site like Gawker, I would be extremely obsessed with what, exactly, was popular on the site and how to make sure those things were written about as much as possible going forward.

One thing I’ve noticed is I spend a lot of time ranting about fascism coming to America and what gets the most engagement? My occasional post about celebrities. It makes you wonder what’s going on. One of the biggest mysteries about the world of celebrities is how much they interact with the online world. My guess is there is a spectrum. On one end there are celebrities who are very active online via burner accounts, etc and then on the other end there are celebrities too busy being, well, celebrities to care.

The only reason why I think a lot of celebrities might be active online via burner accounts is they’re extreme narcissists to begin with and why wouldn’t they want to know on a personal level what people are saying about them? It is interesting that many, many major stars are — at least on a superficial level — completely off social media. It’s for the best, of course, but it makes you wonder how they pull it off, especially the younger ones.

Of course, they may not pull it off. It’s possible that far fewer celebrities are completely off social media than you might think. The thing that is so frustrating, is there is definitely a marketplace for something like the old Gawker. And, yet, the obstacles are enormous.

You would have to have a huge amount (in real terms) of startup money. And, even then, the world of 2003-2004 when Gawker was launched is ancient history. I only look at three or four Websites on a regular basis these days, so to start a new celebrity-infotainment site like Gawker now is probably a bridge too far.

Anyway, why do rando losers like me even care about this kind of shit? I have a novel to work on.

The Strange Case Of Celebrity Social Media ‘Burner Accounts’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

This is almost too boring a subject to discuss because, well, I’m no so naive as to think any celebrity would ever be interested in me burner account or no. While I like to think of myself as interesting, I’m not THAT interesting. Also, really, even if I miraculously managed to gain the attention of a celebrity using a burner account — so what? What are either one of us going to get out of it?

I might get a day’s glow from knowing a celebrity gave me a moment of their time, but that’s about it. They, meanwhile, have no upside to talking to some middle-aged schmuck like me. So, I have a very high bar to such encounters. You can’t just tell me you’re a celebrity, you have to prove it in several different ways.

The burner account — or purported burner account — type I don’t get is the one where a celebrity doesn’t even hide who they are. Those are the ones I’m the most suspicious of. That really doesn’t make any sense. Doesn’t make any at all. It’s very perplexing. But celebrities are human too, I suppose, and they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us, may far more so to be a celebrity in the first place.

Anyway. It’s definitely an interesting situation.