Twitter

The way Facebook replaced Myspace in social media, Twitter has quickly risen in popularity among celebrities, businesses, and people all over the world. But 2009 was filled with ‘tweets’ that even further violated the privacy of celebrities, and 2010 looks just as bleak. Sure, they tweet voluntarily, but does E! news need to broadcast their every thought? And do we really need to know what the world thinks of Mariah Carey’s dress on the Golden Globes red carpet? The exploitation of Twitter by Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and various other entertainment news sources eliminates any initiative to find stories. Just ‘follow’ every A, B, and C class celebrity and you’re bound to find something interesting. Throw in a comment, or “no-comment” from that person’s rep and you’ve got yourself a two-minute ‘breaking news’ segment. The fast paced, instant gratification of Twitter serves as another step toward the destruction of journalism. Just this once I will praise Miley Cyrus for deleting her account. While Facebook and Myspace facilitate friendships and networking, Twitter simply serves as a celebrity GPS for TMZ and an easy-way-out for entertainment reporters.

Award Show Season's Slow Start

It’s January, and that means it’s award show season! The People’s Choice, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards inaugurated the series of star-studded events. This year, however, there has been little variation among nominees and winners in all categories. Actors like Sandra Bullock, Jeff Bridges, Michael C. Hall, Mo’Nique, Christoph Waltz, Julianna Margulies, Drew Barrymore, Kevin Bacon and Alec Baldwin won both the Golden Globe and SAG award in their categories, as well as the cast of Glee and Mad Men. The shows basically parallel each other with few exceptions (mainly because the Globes awarded more categories- director, screenplay, etc.)
Bullock also received a People’s Choice for her work in The Blind Side, while Inglorious Basterds and Glee won best movie and TV comedy for the People’s Choice and the SAGs, respectively. While the winners are all deserving of these awards, the other talented nominees deserve some recognition. Otherwise, why have so many awards shows if they do not offer a diverse list of honorees?
But we can be sure that the Grammy’s (January 31st) will offer new nominees, and optimistically, I look forward to the Academy Awards (March 7th) for a little variation.