Various news sources have even come up with headlines like "Bronx Zoo's missing cobra 'speaks out' on Twitter" and "Missing cobra found: on Twitter!" Some have mentioned the animal's "celebrity status" and it got me thinking about how crazy it is that a simple story can blow up and become so popular. Well, granted, the snake's venom is deadly and it has been four full days since it's gone missing. The story is also fodder for those with the creative gumption to do something with it. It has been the brunt of many jokes on late-night television infotainment like The Colbert Report and Conan, has been turned into t-shirts, and now, someone has created a parody Twitter account. These are some good examples of textual poaching - these people have repositioned a simple news story for their own gain. In the case of @BronxZoosCobra, the anonymous twitterer has become a pseudo-celebrity within the Twitter community through comedic one-liners.
What is even more interesting is that I don't even care about the real cobra anymore because I am so caught up with @BronxZooCobra. The Twitter feed has given the real snake a personality and a point of view. Similar Twitter accounts have done the same by personifying animals (@common_squirrel), movie characters (@Lord_Voldemort7), and even ghosts (@AsaPackersGhost). Twitter has created a new medium to share comedy and wit - a new medium in which to become a celebrity.
Morgan, I think your post makes a really cool point. I usually think of YouTube first when it comes to the idea of a medium in which to become a celebrity, but it seems that Twitter is the newest medium. Twitter, in all its capacities, is really booming right now in all areas of media and communications. It's become a social marketing tool, a social networking tool, a way to spread news and other information quickly, and now it can add "a way to become a celebrity" to its list. Pretty cool if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Morgan that we now have a new platform for celebrity creation in Twitter.
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin's use of Twitter is brilliant in the way she keeps her name in the limelight; the main stream media has begun to pick up tweets and report on them (a good example of the way in which all these platforms ultimately converge or will converge).