In Social Media, You Need To Be Careful What You Say And Do – especially if you’re a known commodity, brand, or actor.
Why? Because even if it’s a Direct Message on Twitter or a Facebook email, both seemingly private, everyone nowadays has the ability to take screen snaps… and blog… and tell an embarrassing story about any of us, famous or anonymous.
Reading this Katie Nolan-Kevin Connolly interaction (which I’ll get to in a minute) sparked my thinking about what we can learn from the mistakes of the well-known.
So let’s look to the world of professional entertainment for lessons. I put these lessons in the category of Don’t Do. Some may seem obvious to us, but it’s worth a refresher.
-If you’re a rich celebrity whose address is easy to find via the Internet (or even by buying a Star Map or taking a Hollywood Celebrity Bus Tour), Don’t tell the world via Twitter that you’re out of town. You may get robbed… like Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, and Paris Hilton. Because everyone knows where you live and that you’re not there.
-If you’re a celebrity of any kind, Don’t keep taking pictures of yourself naked on your phone (or leaving them in your email). Phones and email accounts can be hacked, and there are lots of pathetic-yet-clever people working painfully hard to get ahold of those photos and disseminate them to everyone online… including your parents, presumably. If we’ve learned anything from Blake Lively and Scarlett Johansson, it’s Don’t Do this.
-If you’re a Hollywood big shot of any kind, Don’t act like a lunatic in a lengthy email exchange, like this one between Mark Brazill (“That 70s Show”) and Judd Apatow (most comedies). It’s an oldie but goodie. Emails get leaked. And then you’ve told someone to “get cancer” and we’ll all know it. (Also, I’d add to this – If you’re a hate-filled homophobe, Don’t email a professional humorist (best-selling author David Thorne) saying only “I have read your website and it is obviously that your a foggot.” The humorist will take you apart with jokes and wit and then publicly put up the email exchange to make you look like the moron you really are… So, actually, Do email David.)
So, anyway, back to the newest Don’t – Don’t Think Social Media Will Stay Private.
Check out comic/actress/writer Katie Nolan‘s interaction with Entourage actor Kevin Connolly. Now, perhaps Kevin has another side to this story, but regardless, he comes off in quite a bad light. Can’t be good for his image. But it is fun for us to read!
You can also watch Katie on Guyism‘s Speed Round – a daily comedy in the style of headlines-and-humor like SNL’s Weekend Update or The Daily Show.