Actor, director, humanitarian, and kick ass Kentuckian George Clooney is not on Twitter. He’s also unsure why any famous person would want to be.
In a recent interview with Esquire Magazine, Clooney questions why celebrities, who are already in the public spotlight, would want to subject themselves to the minefield that is a service like Twitter.
Here’s the relevant bit from Esquire’s interview:
If you’re famous, I don’t – for the life of me – I don’t understand why any famous person would ever be on Twitter. Why on God’s green earth would you be on Twitter? Because first of all, the worst thing you can do is make yourself more available, right? Because you’re going to be available to everybody. But also Twitter. So one drunken night, you come home and you’ve had two too many drinks and you’re watching TV and somebody pisses you off, and you go ‘Ehhhhh’ and fight back.
And you go to sleep, and you wake up in the morning and your career is over. Or you’re an asshole. Or all the things you might think in the quiet of your drunken evening are suddenly blasted around the entire world before you wake up. I mean, when you see, like, Ashton Kutcher coming out going, you know, ‘Everybody leave Joe Paterno alone,’ or whatever he said, you just go, ‘Fifteen minutes longer and a thought process and probably you wouldn’t have done that.’
Kutcher didn’t actually say “Leave Joe Paterno alone” – what he did say was “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass.” I’m willing to bet the reaction would’ve been the same either way – not very good.
Still, Clooney has a point. At some point, you’re probably going to say some dumb shit on Twitter. Everybody does. The only difference is that when I say it, nobody sees it before I have a chance sober up and delete my tweet. When a celeb with millions of followers does it, it’s national news.
And don’t think that famous people are somehow better at navigating the Twitter minefield than the average user. Famous people say some absolutely ridiculous things on Twitter. Not only that, but Twitter users are brutal.
See? Who would want to subject themselves to that?
Lots of people, actually. Lots of famous and non-famous people alike. That’s because it’s fun. There’s a huge draw to having a constant audience – at least Twitter’s banking on that. George Clooney isn’t wrong here – Twitter is especially dangerous for public figures.
But I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who wish he’d go full Anthony Weiner.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
