I talked to someone famous on social media and here’s what happened

Posted on by Madeleine Fournier

Social media are a permanent part of everyone’s lives and they’re almost impossible to get away from. While sources contradict each other and claim social media are both good and terrible, it’s mostly about how we navigate these sites and the way we interact on them. For example, I was called nasty names anonymously on social media while in high school, but I met a great friend and pen pal through a program on Tumblr, so I think it evens out.

Probably the most interesting thing about social media is the way people are able to interact with celebrities. Many celebrities run their social media sites themselves, and we plebs are able to contact them and have discussions with them in ways that weren’t possible even ten years ago.

This tweet below, for example, was my first time tweeting at someone relatively famous. Shangela, most famous for appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race, hosted Syracuse University’s drag show in 2014. I tweeted at her and was surprised that she tweeted me back because I wasn’t used to interacting with celebs like this.

Even Jimmy Kimmel is capitalizing on fan/celebrity twitter interaction with his reoccurring Mean Tweets sketch. Some celebs, like author J.K. Rowling, reveals her opinions or information the Harry Potter series left out, to the delight (or dismay) of fans.

According to Ethan Zuckerman, author of Rewire, “Internet users spend more than one of five minutes online on social media sites like Facebook,” (197). This means that we are able to connect with celebrities in real time every second of every day. This is more connection than we’ve ever had throughout history. Regardless of whether you think social media sites are bad or how you handle interacting with your favorite celebrity from How to Get Away With Murder, internet celebrity interaction is here to stay, and hopefully get even better with time and practice.

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