The first celebrity twitter page I chose was Chelsea Handler’s. I think that she is absolutely hilarious and I watch her show all the time, so I figured that her Twitter would be equally entertaining. Upon looking through her tweets, it is very obvious that Chelsea herself is “speaking” because of the humor, sarcasm, and profanity that marks so many of her tweets. Her personality on her talk show matches exactly tone of her messages on Twitter. I think it’s interesting that she uses profanity on a pretty regular basis since so many celebrities are incredibly guarded with their words and how they present themselves to the public. Chelsea is entirely unapologetic and very upfront with her feelings/words, which is what leads me to believe that it is actually Chelsea tweeting as opposed to a manager. Chelsea tweets a great deal of photos, which helps her followers feel much more connected to her since they are candid, personal pictures that she shares with the public. She always tweets the picture with a silly comment, which adds to the enjoyment of seeing whatever it is that she is experiencing. This certainly helps Chelsea develop her ethos since it leads her followers to feel they know the true Chelsea better—seeing into her personal life, hearing how she feels about whatever she is currently going through, etc. help her become more of a developed person as opposed to a distant celebrity of which no one knows anything about. She does not appear to converse with anyone else, but she does promote her nutritionist’s new book and reference certain celebrities that will appear on her show soon. Visually her page is very understated, with pink and black and one of her book covers as the background picture. This works well with the colors most frequently used in her talk show, so her actual twitter page helps build a more cohesive brand image that Chelsea Handler fans are most likely familiar with if they watch her show as well as follow her on Twitter. Oddly I do not feel like she is in the tabloids that often, even though she is becoming a very well known celebrity. The pictures she tweets herself are generally of other people, so there really are not many pictures circulating of her right now. She generally presents herself as a laid-back, carefree girl with a sense of humor, and her tone on her twitter page matches that quite well. 

I then chose to look at Britney Spears’ twitter page, which was nearly the complete opposite of Chelsea’s. Britney is obviously using her Twitter page to promote her upcoming album as much as she possibly can. Not only do practically all of her tweets have something to do with her new CD or an upcoming performance, but the background of the page as well as Britney’s profile icon are the album cover. The overall effect is pretty unfavorable—it seems as though she is trying too hard to leverage Twitter as a promotional outlet. So yes, with regards to kairos, Twitter is definitely an opportunity for Britney to push her new album. I keep hearing that this is Britney’s comeback, but I feel that she’s over-doing it on Twitter. It is pretty clear that Britney is not tweeting herself, especially since some of the tweets are even signed by her manager. None of Britney’s tweets unveil any of her personality, which is very different than Chelsea’s tweets since hers were full of character and sass. Britney’s page does not enable the follower to assess her ethos, pathos, or logos much at all. One interesting thing I noticed was her tweet at Christina Aguilera. Since the two singers have long-since been compared to one another, there has always been a sense of rivalry between them. However, they both seem to be completely supportive of one another. Christina tweeted first to Britney wishing her well on the upcoming album, and Britney responded about the new show that Christina will be on. The two “appear” to get along well with each other, which is one interesting but misleading element of Twitter since no one knows if either was genuine in their tweet.

I think that where Britney is incredibly obvious about how she is using Twitter to promote herself and new album, Chelsea is much more sly about promoting herself. Where Britney explicitly names her album—repeatedly—Chelsea makes jokes about her job, her upcoming performances, and more. And yet the effect is the same in that it informs followers of her upcoming shows. Chelsea’s candor is much more appealing than the up-front promotional tone of Britney’s page, and the excessive use of the “Femme Fatale” cover art on Britney’s page is obnoxious.

Social media and its interactive nature allows a person’s personality to shine through. With this in mind, I feel that Chelsea utilizes social media appropriately and effectively while Britney does not. Chelsea has the advantage in that she is a comedian and tweeting is much more conducive to a sense of humor as opposed to a great singing voice. However, Britney’s use of social media as an advertising outlet is very in-your-face, which is an automatic turn-off to most people. Social media is supposed to be fun, and it seems that Chelsea is having a much better time with her Twitter page than Britney is.