Cult of Personality: Celebrity

You know the irritation of having a song playing over and over in your head. Yesterday for me it was Living Color's, Cult of Personality. It bothered me so much that I got out of bed and went to the computer to look up the lyrics. I was startled.

The words were poetry, vital today as the day they were written. It is really the theme song for being a celebrity.

.....I know your anger, I know your dreams

I've been everything you want to be ....

We make a celebrity by seeing in them something we admire or desire. We put those things as well as that person on a pedestal. Smart celebrities know they are on that pedestal and display that "public image" that will keep them in the public's good graces.

.....Neon Lights, A Nobel Prize

Than the mirror speaks, the reflection lies

You won't have to follow me

Only you can set me free

We have seen countless celebrities rise and fall. (EX Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson) When celebrities "public image" cracks we are faced with reality, their humanity, which is that they are fallible, deeply flawed people. After we see them for who they are we then have a choice to follow or not. It is like a shooting star as it goes across the sky, it captivates us, but who pays attention to where it falls?

.....I see the things you need to be

I'm the smiling face on your TV

In reality the only power a celebrity has is the power we give them. If we did not follow them would we know or care about their products? Would celebrities get those million dollar endorsement deals? The worst thing for a celebrity to do is to tarnish their image and take their public for granted.

We are followers in the "cult of personality". We worship a graven image of celebrity, not the reality. It seems caution is in order....

Living Color, you were prophets!

Warning about Social Media

I was explaining the other day to my mom about what Twitter was and that I started a blog. She looked at me like I just said a barrage of foul, dirty words. Her immediate concerns ranged from privacy issues to legal implications of what I could possibily write and how it could come back to bite me. I quickly dismissed most of the concerns but than later that night it hit me, "what could be the down falls of social media?"

It was late and I was not sleeping (as usual) so I went on Google and searched my name. I know that a lot of people tease saying that is narcissistic but it was really was an eye opener. You do not know what is on the web until you search. I scrolled through about five pages and found most shockingly a website that was devoted to statistically complying my information on Twitter. (Website hint: buzz) It gave a pie chart of all the people that I talked to most, how many tweets that I did that month and the hash tags (#) I most often used in my tweets. I found out that big brother was watching and he indeed wants to know everything I tweet.

My grandfather always had a saying, "never write anything you don't want the whole world to see". We all know the more experienced we get on Twitter, everything we tweet is there for the whole world to see. (i.e. mean tweets) I have made it a priority to say only things that I mean. People have false comfort in thinking they can take back a tweet by a delete because as we have seen with famous celebrities in the news, there is always someone watching and ready to jump on you.

Another powerful tool on Twitter is the hash tag. They are great for people who want to search out others with common interests. I did though have one celebrity find one of my tweets and replied even though I never used their handle and hence they would of had to go out of their way to find. I was suprised they had the time to find it, but if I publicly say it, they have the right to find it.

I devote my blog to my Twitter interactions but I have to say someting about Facebook. If you publicly like any celebrity or public figure page by clicking the like button, anything you say or do on that page from there on in is for the world wide web to see. I have never been ashamed of anything I've publicly liked. (I am really too old to be shy about much of anything) But be aware of what you do, knowlege being power, since there has been too many news stories about people who do or say something that later gets them fired because their employer found it, not hired because a future employer found it, or you don't get into the college of your dreams because an admission officer finds it.

My only real advice is "Tweeters beware" and Google yourself once in a while. ;-)