The Hexacoto

Why are people so excited to be followed by a star on Twitter?

On a reddit community that I visited, someone posted a screenshot of a famous porn star ‘following’ him back on Twitter. Responses of congratulation and envy followed soon after.

On my Facebook news feed, every now and then, some of my friends who are very into social media would post about how Rihanna or some other famous star started ‘following’ their Twitter feed, and that they “omg can’t breathe” or “am dying right now” or some equivalent.

Why does it matter that someone whom you’ve never met or will meet in person ‘follows’ you back on Twitter? We are in a culture of chasing stars, and the peripheral semblance of contact with them leaves us in a frenzy.

When these stars follow one on Twitter or any other social media, do they even really care about updates on what you post? It seems unlikely that a popular singer would want to know what you had for breakfast, what song is your groove right now or look at the heavily-edited photo of an impending storm on Instagram.

Yet the lay followers of these stars wait fervently for the just-as-seemingly mundane updates about their lives — Getting their nails done at a salon, grooming their dog, recording at the studio.

Maybe people just want to know that their stars lead normal lives too, and that Twitter gives these stars a semblance of that. And when the stars have chosen to make one privy to be voyeurs of their everyday, it makes peoples’ hearts all a-flutter.

And not to mention, a lot of these Twitter accounts are probably run by the PR staff of the stars.

How do these stars choose who to follow back? Well certainly they usually only follow back users who already have a huge following; why else would they want to befriend a no-name? And then what? Popular Tweeters are prolific Tweeters, so the stars are probably going to have to ignore the deluge of constant updates from that one new Tweeter.

So effectively including people into their social circle so that they could ignore them.