Oprah does it. So do Shaquille O’Neal, Lance Armstrong, Britney Spears, Sarah Palin and Sarah Silverman. Ashton Kutcher does it more than any just about other celebrity.
In fact, everyone who is anyone — from your favorite actor to the guy in the next cubicle — is tweeting these days, thanks to the popularity of Twitter, the social-media site where users write what they are thinking or doing 140 characters at a time. Using Twitter’s reply system also lets users communicate with celebrities, see celebrities communicate with each other, and feel a little bit like they have broken through the wall that surrounds famous people.
Or have they?
The thing about the Internet in general and social networking sites in particular is that it is so unregulated, says John Abell, New York bureau chief for Wired magazine. That means all sorts of Twitter fraud, both big and small.
There are Twitterers pretending to be others. The best examples of these are cwalken, where a sardonic writer adopted the style of actor Christopher Walken (the feed has since been shut down), and the feed of someone pretending to be St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.
Mr. La Russa actually sued Twitter last spring, saying the impersonator caused damage to his reputation when he made light of two former Cardinals who had suddenly died. The feed was taken down, and the case was a settled out of court.
The confusion sown by such fraudulent accounts has resulted in Twitter instituting “verified accounts.” Twitter will vouch for the authenticity of those accounts.
Twitter’s terms of service agreement says that parody impersonations are allowable, but the writer must make it clear it is a parody account. A good example of this is the Darth Vader feed, which has more than 100,000 followers and is “pretty hilarious,” says David Johnson, associate professor of digital media at American University’s School of Communication. Typical post: “Old Jedi never die, they Just fade away, literally.”
Meanwhile, Twitter rules say “non-parody impersonation” is not allowed, and Twitter outlines procedures for reporting an impersonator.
“The real issue is owning your brand,” says Mr. Abell. “There can be potential damage to the brand when people attempt to be you.”
What is happening more often, though, is people pretending to be someone else — with that someone else’s blessing. While there are hundreds of famous actors, writers and athletes using Twitter, it is unknown whether the tweets are genuinely coming from their head and hands, or an intern is doing the tweeting.
Real users include Mr. O’Neal, Mrs. Palin and Mr. Kutcher, who has more than 3 million followers. Singer Jason Mraz is upfront about the tweets — he has his “staff joyologist” Tricia Huffman doing the writing. Miss Spears recently fired one of her Harvard-educated ghost Twitterers. The New York Times recently outed rapper 50 Cent as using a ghost writer. There most likely is a staff of savvy social networking writers behind the feed Barack Obama.
The questions remaining are these: Is it really that difficult and time consuming to write 140 characters? And does anyone care that someone else is doing the writing?
They should care, says Joel Comm, author of the book “Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.”
“I think if you are not tweeting for yourself, then you are taking the social out of social media,” he says. “You are missing the point of what it means to connect with people. It is not just about the 140 characters. A lot of tweeting is being real, about sharing stuff and giving people a glimpse inside your life.”
Mr. Johnson says tweets — whether from the famous person themselves or someone else writing on behalf of that person — are a chance to hold a meaningful conversation with a million people. He calls Twitter posts and replies “nothing different than listening to chatter,” in a manner similar to tuning in to a police scanner. It is a chance to be engaging, which sometimes is too daunting a task for people.
“Katie Couric once called the concept ’inane,’ ” says Mr. Johnson. “I say, ’Don’t blame Twitter because you are boring.’ It is a tool, and it is only as good as you use it.”
Mr. Abell says it is hard to determine whether followers really care whether they are hearing from the actual celebrity.
“I think people have a much more direct link in this context than ever before,” he says. “Two generations ago, if you wrote to a movie star, you would get a signed picture back, and you would believe the star signed that picture. It is not as simple a time, but I am not sure it really matters. It is not like a famous singer lip-synching - that would be rude. I don’t think there is any particular expectation that these are a person’s thoughts and he typed them directly on his keyboard. If people completely outsourced the brand, though, I am sure people would not like it.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.