I have an odd habit – I collect snippets of celebrities’ musings about social media. For instance, this from Mike Skinner:
one of the things I’ve come to lately is that social media isn’t really for content providers, it’s for the people and if you place something on the internet, that’s all your social media done….
That’s social object talk, that is. Also, more recently, Drake’s worries about the Tumblr generation:
Instead of kids going out and making their own moments, they’re just taking these images and living vicariously through other people’s moments. It just kills me. Then you’ll meet them and they’re just the biggest turkey in the world. They don’t actually embody any of those things. They just emulate. It’s scary man, simulation life that we’re living. It scares me.
Not that I always agree with what they have to say, but their perspective can sometimes be quite interesting. Probably because their view of interaction via social media is quite different to yer average. After all, whereas many people are concerned with getting someone (anyone!) to notice them online, celebrities have a surfeit of attention to deal with.
A few years back there was a Twitter search tool (I can’t find it now) that allowed you to swap your keyword for another in the results that were returned. Putting your name in place of @ladygaga and seeing the flood of messages (not all of them pleasant) was eye-opening.
With social media you can’t check into a hotel under a fake name for a bit of respite. The fans are always there, screaming outside the window.