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Stephen Fry, Lily Allen, does the Celeb exodus spell the end of Twitter?
Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus and Courtney Love. These are just a few of the high-profile names that appear to have sparked a celebrity exodus of social networking website Twitter.
As celebs begin to quit in their droves, Stephen Fry has become the latest big name to threaten an end to minute-by-minute updates.
And with nearly one million followers, a Fry exit could spell disaster for the website that made its name by attracting the best-known personalities on the planet.
Fry’s quit threat came after a fan accused him of being boring, to which he responded, “I’m obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone.”
Following the post, Fry was bombarded with thousands of messages pleading with him to reconsider – begging the question, are celebrity updates the cornerstone of Twitter’s success, and if so, could Twitter sustain its winning formula minus big name input?
To put some perspective on its reliance on big name updates, when Miley Cyrus ended her love affair with Twitter last month, one fan threatened to cook their pet cat if she fails to return to the micro-blogging site.
Earlier this year, movie megastar, Denzel Washington, and Curb Your Enthusiasm actor, Larry David, were amongst a host of celebrities to quit the social network, leaving Twitter users wondering if the end is nigh.
But it’s not just the world of celebrity that a downturn in Twitter’s popularity could influence.
The Twitter effect has even managed to infiltrate the political arena, most recently acting as the playground for debate on Professor David Nutt’s dismissal as the leading drugs adviser to the British government, following his well-documented row over the legality of cannabis.
Lord Drayson, the Science and Innovation Minister, commented on his Twitter page that he would be “asking why he was not informed, getting facts, and finding a solution”, in regards to Nutt’s dismissal.
November 2nd, 2009
What a depressing story.
Firstly, Stephen Fry is a self-confessed bipolar ‘type’ and his mood swings have led to erratic behaviour in the past. His ‘follower’s comments of ‘boring’ were perfectly justified, since many (including Stephen’s) posts are made up by ‘witterings and musings’, largely containing trite and trivial info of a daily dose of doings. To be ‘offended’ by this seems extremely over-sensitive of Fry and since this occurred, he’s patched things up with the guy concerned and all’s well.
What’s most bizarre and almost disappointing is the request to ‘retweet’ calls for Stephen to ‘not leave’ Twitter, as if he’s some linchpin of the whole social site itself. He’s a grown man who can come and go as he pleases and this elevation to Twitter guru is all a bit distasteful, to me.
Furthermore, perhaps it’s time that the celebrities who use this site to propel their careers (not necessarily the case in SF’s tweets), should put some thought into actually engaging people, responding to messages once in a while and resisting the temptation to constantly SPAM ‘fans’ with their tawdry tat touting.