Twittilating

Social media and celebrity have become an inseparable pair of concepts. It all started with Myspace, when we, as crazed teens, began befriending our favourite bands or comedians. Then they commented on our profiles, or told us about secret gigs. We freaked out.

Nowadays, social media has grown up. We have Twitter. The latest in the growing revolution of social media, Twitter is a rising phenomenon, though not as widely used or even recognised as Facebook. It provides us with unprecedented access to the biggest names in the world, allowing a glimpse into the life of the rich and famous, and not-so-rich and not-so-famous. Whether it’s the @LangwithGhost feed or Twitter queen @LadyGaga (who has the most followers, at well over ten-and-a-half million), the site is growing in popularity. Unlike Myspace, Twitter doesn’t require you to accept a friend request, unless their tweets (status updates) are set to private, you just follow someone and they appear on your feed. You can follow people that don’t follow you, and you’re not required to follow back your own followers.

If all this talk of following and tweeting is too much to bear, then rest assured every Twitter virgin has the same problem. There are also hashtags (the ability to make particular phrases searchable, for example “#VisionIsTheBest”) that help you track particular tweets, and direct messages (DMs), as well as Trending Topics (the most popular hashtags or tweets, in a clickable list). You can mention people by typing “@” and then their username (so you might say “In the library with @pv91”). What does this have to do with anything though?

To the disgust of many ‘tweeps’, Justin Bieber (@JustinBieber) is one of the most popular phenomena in the Twitterverse, trending on an almost daily basis, and having a horde of diehard followers who take any opportunity to retweet (or RT; when you repost something someone else has tweeted) or mention him in their tweets. @LadyGaga is another, who occasionally will just announce that her followers should make something trend. Minutes later, your TT (trending topics) list is full of #BornThisGMA or #PawsUp. Magic.

With every craze comes satire, and Twitter is home to thousands of spoof, parody and joke accounts, mimicking and mocking almost every sphere of life. Whether it’s comedic takes on celebrity ‘characters’, or practical jokes, Twitter runs amok with spoofs, meaning they’re also tightly regulated by the site itself. None are quite as popular as Gaga or Bieber, but the biggest and best is probably the infamous @ShitMyDadSays, run by a 29-year old who posts quotes from his 74-year old father.

Seems boring, but @ShitMyDadSays is home to such gems as, “See, you think I give a shit. Wrong. In fact, while you talk, I’m thinking; How can I give less of a shit? That’s why I look interested.” And, “Nah, we don’t celebrate it. Don’t know who St. Valentine was, don’t give a shit, and doubt he wants people screwing in his memory.” With over 2 million followers and only 140 tweets (remarkably low), @ShitMyDadSays has since authored a book, runs a blog, and has commissioned a hit American TV show.

More direct satire comes when someone decides they want to parody a celebrity or other notable figure. So after the Egypt protests in Tahrir Square, a litany of Hosni Mubarak spoofs were created, though none stuck. Closer to home, @CherylKerl is one of the bigger spoof accounts, boasting over 52 thousand followers. ‘Cheryl’ tweets phonetically in colloquial Geordie, including “Cheekee gets! Mei accent’s canny *Hoo noo broon coo – The reein in Speein steys mainlee in the pleein* #xfactorusa,” or, “A fren inveetd uz tur a Bucks Fizz reception bur Ah telt hor naa thanks. Ah divint leik Eurovision choons me man #BBCwedding”.

I contacted Cheryl through Twitter (an @ mention and a DM, you follow?) and a back-and-forth email exchange yielded some responses, in character, of course.

She tells me all about the response to being on Twitter. “Aww, itz bin lovalee Paul man pet. Peepil love reading aall aboot whar Ah ger up to in mei Supahstah leif. It keinda gives them a lift oota thor ern dull an boring leives.” It didn’t help her stay on the American X Factor however, though Cheryl tells me that that was a relief.

“Ah didden reelee leik America coz the aall talk funnee oot thor an tha.” Their food wasn’t up to scratch either.

Cheryl joined Twitter about 18 months ago on a whim – all the other celebrities were doing it, after all. Since then she’s had a book deal (Woath it? Coase Ah am, pet), mentions in the national press and constant publicity. She tells me that she wants to write another book, “a new classic, mebbes a bit leik Dickens, Shakespeare aw Kerry Katerna.”

The future looks bright for Cheryl. She might do the UK X Factor (though I’m told to keep that “unda yerz hat faw noo man”) and wants to record the rock opera that she’s written. “Itz called ‘Bonny’ and itz aall aboot this gorl who’s a bit keinda odd and she just gans doon the awcades an pleyz Space Invadaz aall dee.”

The future is bright for Cheryl, but for other tweeps, their existence is a little more controversial. @AlQaeda rose to fame after one little message, the fifth most retweeted of 2010: “Just noticed Twitter keeps prompting me to ‘Add a location to your tweets’. Not falling for that one.”

‘Al Q’ wouldn’t tell me his real name, a result of other Twitter users not quite getting the joke. “Some of them (cluless Americans or humorless jihadis) might try to express their disapproval directly,” he tells me. He joined after reading a Time magazine article about Al-Qaeda’s use of social networking, and decided they should have a Twitter account. It was the beginning of a rocky road.

The initial response was fairly limited, but nowadays most tweets get “a decent number of retweets.” Al Q has around 40,000 followers, and he says that “responses range from “OMG this is so funny!” to “DIE TOWELHEADED SCUM!'”

Al nearly wrapped up the account after Osama bin Laden’s death. “It would have been an appropriate time to end it, but I couldn’t resist the urge to have him comment on his own death. For anyone who’s interested, by the way, bin Laden is neither in Heaven or Hell: he’s in Celebrity Limbo.” Indeed, bin Laden shares a room with Elvis, “which has been something of a shock for both of them.”

Though recognising that terrorism is a sensitive issue, Al Q thinks that it’s “important to laugh at tyrants and monsters like bin Laden and his followers.” Has he gone too far then? “I accept that some people won’t find it amusing, but I like to think that it’s more than cheap laughs.” Nonetheless, he’s inundated with messages that either think he’s real (“Jesus loves you and I forgive you for Jihad. Please stop Jihad and please have love for all the people of this world. God bless,” from @kuss86) or find him inappropriate (“Bad taste!” says @Julybird).
Anonymity is key, then, and Al Q tells me he’s not really concerned about that falling away. “I assume that the security services have already worked out who I am,” he notes, “and have – correctly – concluded that @AlQaeda is just a joke: If they haven’t, we’re paying them too much.”

Between @ShitMyDadSays, @AlQaeda and @CherylKerl there are a whole list of parodies, whether that’s @Queen_UK, @Jesus_M_Christ, or Vision’s very own little parody of ex-editor Daniel Goddard: @ShitOurDanSays.