The Rules of (Celebrity Twitter) Engagement
Source: Kevin Connolly’s Online Meltdown Reveals He’s No Ladies Man
Summary: Kevin Conolly (E from Entourage and Ryan from Unhappily Ever After, which is where I first fell in love with him) tweeted about hockey. Katie Nolan from Guyism tweeted him back. Connolly DM'd her and told her she had a cute picture. Nolan, obviously over the moon, screenshot the message and posted it on Facebook. People commented on the post and started giving Conolly a hard time. He found her page and lost his shit. There was a lot of back and forth and in short, it was ugly.
Thoughts: Jezebel readers seem to think Connolly was in the wrong on this one, but I disagree. Sure I didn't think he needed to spew racial epithets at people, but Nolan broke the three rules of celebrity Twitter engagement.
Rule #1: It's really not that serious.
Celebrities in real life are regular people who make a lot of money. Celebrities on Twitter are regular people who have a lot of followers. I get it. Kevin Connolly said you have a cute profile picture, but if that is worthy of a screenshot and a post to Facebook you need to get out more. I have a few celebrity phone numbers and a few celebrity Facebook friends and I just geek out with my close circle of friends and my mom. I learned an important lesson in my teenybopper days: no one wants to be friends with a fan so chill out.
Rule #2: What happens in DMs stays in DMs.
If a celebrity wants the whole world to know what they're saying to you, they will (@) mention you. If they want to keep it private, they will DM you. Why would you then take that DM and make it public? That makes absolutely no sense. For all we know, Connolly thought she was cute, saw what she did for work (which probably includes interacting with celebrities on a regular basis) and took the bait. For her to completely fan out on him was unexpected and for her to put him out in the open like that was completely unacceptable.
Rule #3: What happens on your timeline is YOUR responsibility.
Nolan tried to hide behind the fact it was her followers writing these insults, not her. I'm sorry but Facebook is only as free as you let it be. I talk about a lot of controversial things on my Facebook page, mostly because I like to cause trouble, but also because I like to read what people think, but everyone knows there is no freedom of speech on my timeline. If you say something stupid, ignorant, or just downright rude, your comment will be deleted and you will be blocked/banned/reported as spam. By accepting friend requests from strangers and allowing people to subscribe to my updates, I have essentially made my Facebook timeline a public forum. And public forums need to be moderated or people will start selling weight loss pills, sneakers and other nonsense on it.
Conclusion: Nolan dropped the ball for this one and she doesn't get a pass just because an article came from it. Kevin, I still love you and you can DM me any day of the week. Good luck on your new show. I'll be watching.