This post is actually for a couple of International Tweet friends of mine. Hey Jenna @Jenna_Jlh (Note I didn’t use your Real Name!) and of course my “Adopted” Daughter Marie @JLH_Aholic (say hey to my “Adopted” Granddaughter Luna!). It should be noted that this post refers to a lot of negative aspects of how some people tweet. I am not referring to either Jenna or Marie. Go ahead follow them. Nice People.
Ever since I developed TWG’s Mobile Blog I have been watching how celebrities on Twitter interact with their followers/fans. Celebrities use Twitter for a variety of reasons. Some use it just to post about the Charities and other Causes they support. Others just use it to stay in touch with their particular set of family and friends which of course is what the special follow<–>follower relationship is for! Still others are simply “Tweet-Aholics” who tweet about anything and everything that occurs in their lives. (Gee, they must be just like the rest of us!)
A few “Stars” actually have their Twitter account set to private so the general public can not tweet them or see their tweets. This is of course their right as a Twitter user and as people in general. I suspect that most celebrities being quite aware of their Public Image as being part of their success do keep their accounts public not because they are necessarily inviting Fans to interact with them, but simply because they want to appear accessible to their fans! That is why I started TWG’s Mobile Blog in the first place. I thought it unique that some celebrities actually did Tweet Back Their Followers! I simply wanted to support those particular Stars!
Now to answer the question that is on Jenna and Marie’s mind. I have observed that Jennifer Love Hewitt has a unique set of fans/followers on Twitter. Many of them, like you two are just appreciative admirers. A large group of them are quite obsessed and tweet JLH to the point of “stalking,” and are very possessive of the young beautiful Star. Of all the celebrities that I follow for TWG’s Mobile Blog Jennifer has the only set of fans that actually include her @TheReal_Jlh user name in every single tweet they tweet, even when it is obvious that at the moment that they are tweeting, Jennifer herself is not logged in!
Granted they do this out of the hope that Jennifer will see their @Mention of her the next time she logs in and reply to them. But because of my technical knowledge of how Twitter actually works, the mathematical odds of this tactic actually working is very slim at best. I, as most users Twitter do, have very few followers on both of my Twitter accounts ( @TWGsMobileBlog and @twg_tweet ) and I do not as a rule automatically follow everyone who follows me. I do check my few @Mentions for the @TWGsMobileBlog because I have asked visitors to the Blog to send me tweets with names of Stars that they would like to see listed as Stars Who Tweet Back . But could you imagine getting thousands and thousands of @mentions every day!
No one and in particular, Jennifer Love Hewitt, has the time to actually check that many @Mentions. It is just not humanly possible. I have actually mentioned this fact to some of Jennifer’s followers and I got “Twitter Jumped” with all kinds of tweets that suggested I was some kind of anarchist suggesting that Jennifer could not possibly reply to every @Mention. Yes as all of the stars listed on my Blog, Jennifer does reply to her followers. But I am afraid Jennifer’s unique set of fans have “Shot Themselves In Their Proverbial Feet”. The Tactic of @Mentioning Jennifer in every tweet has back fired!
Think about it! Thousands and thousands of tweets filling her @Mentions feed every hour of every day. And that is technically all that the “Time Line” and “@Mentions” columns are on Twitter, just RSS feeds (RSS = Really Simple Syndication). But unlike the RSS feeds used by Websites, Blogs and News Agencies that have limited people who can submit to the feeds, Twitter @Mentions feeds can be added to by anyone with a Twitter account. At last count that was what BILLIONS of people and probably thousands of robot follower apps that can tweet without human assistance.
As you both and every other Jennifer Love Hewitt follower have noticed, her “Tweeting Style” has changed. She now seems to just tweet Good Morning, maybe a couple of tweets during the day and then a Good Night. Periodically she does still reply to followers, but not as often as she use to. It is almost as if she went to “Tweet-Aholics Anonymous” and got cured. LOL. I do not believe the reason for the change is any of the narcissistic obsessed reasons that many of her followers think.
It may be that before she was just between projects and had more time and now that she is working on something she just can’t tweet as much. I suspect how ever, that it has something to do with her crazy tweet about wanting One Million Followers.
Jennifer has always struck me as a very intelligent person. I don’t think she is so unaware of how technology works, that she really expected to get that many followers! At least not right away. I really suspect that tweet was an experiment to see how her “Followers” would react. And react they did. If you recall, some of her “faithful” followers condemned her for just thinking of her follower numbers. (This is why I mentioned Jen’s intelligence. She new it was a ridiculous and arbitray number). Some followers being so self-centered only considered how this would effect how often they would get replies or RT’s (Re-Tweets for non-Tweeters) from Jennifer implied she was “abandoning them”. Sorry “Lovelys” ( term used by Jennifer for her fans), you failed the test! Think about it. It was right after the Million Dollar tweet that Jennifer’s style changed!
I am only guessing here, but I suspect it was a clever, very kind and compassionate way to send a message to all her followers that she appreciated all “the Love”, but that she wanted to be there for ALL her followers not just a select few. How else would a kind and generous person like Jennifer actually tell her fans to “Chill Out!” with out actually permanently offending them?
I know some of Jennifer’s followers are young artists that have chosen her as a mentor of sorts. Imagine having your entire life under constant scrutiny, the paparazzi, the pop-media, even the regular media all constantly feeding on you like ravenous sharks. Being a fan of a celebrity is not a license to treat them as objects. Celebrities are people who yes, have chosen a career predicated on being in the public eye, but they are still just people who deserve the same rights as the rest of us. If you achieve fame? Would you really want thousands and thousands of @mentions of your Twitter user name every day? Then only to be condemned or criticized because you didn’t have time to reply to everyone? I actually know of celebrities who make it a point not to repeatedly reply to the same people on Twitter and to “ration” the number of responses to followers every day just to make it as fair as possible to everyone.
For the fans of not only Jennifer Love Hewitt, but any other celebrity, if you truly want to be their friend treat them as such. “Tweet Unto Others As You Would Like To Be Tweeted” Stop stalking them with @mentions in every one of your tweets. Follow them Yes! When they Tweet Good Morning, tweet Good Morning back. When they tweet something funny, tweet them an LOL or a 
. If they Tweet a cute picture, go ahead and comment on it. Bottom line just truly be their friend not just a fan. Tweet with no expectation.
Now I will end with this. I know of one Celebrity (NOT Jennifer Love Hewitt) that actually notices my @mentions and when they are noteworthy will reply. Now this Star does not follow me. I don’t expect her to. I am a stranger to her. But still she replies often enough that it is as if she does follow me. She has 10′s of thousands of followers, just like JLH. She gets @mentioned very often. Why does she reply to my @user name? (or names actually LOL) Simple. I tweet her as real live human being and not just because she is a Star. Celebrities get flooded with fan requests on Twitter and in real world. Be a friend. Simple.
As Always Tweet On!