celebrity gossip, academic style

You might not know it, but this weekend is PEDAMUNDO. Not a word, you say? Well John Mayer made it up while playing ‘create a word’ with a Spanish speaking friend. He tweeted it. Those who spoke Spanish (amongst his 1.3 million ‘followers’) told him it approximated to ‘drunken party world.’

And so it was on. He soon tweeted “This Friday and Saturday night will be known around the world as Pedamundo. The second weekend of June every year,” then “Pedamundo is coming… The official kickoff to Summer partying. For the people, by the people, in the people.”

Mayer began off-handedly started describing pedamundo, all in broad terms.

When the lyrics to Sweet Child O’ Mine describe your life story, that is Pedamundo.

You know that buzz you have 2.5 drinks in where everything in the world feels achievable? That is Pedamundo.

He then retweeted several followers suggestions for the meaning of Pedamundo:

LOL! RT @noliebro If you could listen to every Beach Boys song instantaneously, it still would lack the feel good summer spirit of Pedamundo

Fantastic!! RT @PhilJFry Live Update from Australia: In honour of Pedamundo, Super Freak is played continuously on major radio networks

RT @bobmaron Midtown Manhattan…. Times Square traffic completely blocked off for Pedamundo tonight!! Expecting over 1M visitors!

And my personal favorite: RT @prossel Here in Canada we’re celebrating Pedamundo in our usual way-being extremely polite, murdering seals and listening to Rush!

Between the first declaration of Pedamundo (Wednesday, June 10th) and Friday, Pedamundo moved in and out of trending topics (for those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, they chart the ten most tweeted ‘topics’ on the side of the screen — today, for example, Iran’s two presidential candidates, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi were both trending topics), before reaching second place late Friday afternoon. Entertainment Weekly blogged about it mid-afternoon. When I checked on Friday afternoon, I had to refresh every few minutes to see the hundreds of thousands of tweets citing/commenting on/describing their own Pedamundo.

At 5:45 EST, Mayer announced that he’s be appearing on Larry King Live to discuss Pedamundo — which I can’t seem to find, and may or may not have in fact occurred.

So what does it mean — and why the hell is it important, or worthy of a blog post? In the grand scheme of things, isn’t this rather insignificant? Well, perhaps.

I addressed some of those questions in my recent piece for FlowTV, which you can find here.

But this particular incident highlights a number of themes:

1.) John Mayer has ingratiated himself to hundreds of thousands of otherwise half-way fans. For while Mayer’s albums sell in the upper thousands, the 1.3 million who follow him are not necessarily fans of his music. Rather, they are fans of his personality. The same goes for Ashton Kutcher: his over 2 million followers are not Kutcher fanatics. Many, like myself, haven’t seen his recent films — but his name is inexorable from Twitter, and he prompted hundreds of thousands to join (in particular during his ‘race’ with CNN).

2.) As such, this event will become part of Mayer’s ‘star text.’ In other words, what Mayer ‘means’ to the world — what his image signifies, what it means to be a Mayer fan — is shaped by this event. In concert with his other lightharded, self-depricating, whimsical tweets, this particular event contributes to an image of Mayer as fun-loving, whimsical, silly, etc. etc.

3.) This event will raise his visibility. Mayer has dated celebrities (Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, amongst others), he has treated them somewhat poorly, he has recorded several albums. But he is not a star. You might think that creating a Twitter trending topic out of a nonsensical word is a silly and forgettable. This will and already has put Mayer’s name in the papers — which is exactly why Mayer maintains a solid Twitter presence. Do not discount the fact that he is prepping to release a new album — whose process he has been keen to Tweet over the past few months, and which he’s been posting regular Youtube musings/updates (see below). As I allude to in my Flow piece, the development of a Twitter ‘personality’ (which contributes powerfully to your non-Twitter image) is the new frontier for those stars hovering between the A- and B-list.

Mayer-produced video on ‘Battle Studies,’ his forthcoming album

4.) One tweet can control the discourse of millions. Usually such discursive power is reserved for presidents, enormously popular movies, and catchphrases from viral videos. We could liken the virality of the Tweet to the flash mob, but the reach of the celebrity tweet is far broader — and less action-based. A flash mob is PHYSICAL — people DO things. Whereas those ‘celebrating’ pedamundo are hanging out, drinking, being happy — it’s more a recognition of a state of mind than a pillow fight in the middle of San Francisco, a no-pants subway ride, the recreation of the Beyonce Single Ladies Dance in Piccadilly Circus, or the ‘Hammertime’ invasion of a Sunset Boulevard store.

[Quick digression: While the pillow fight and the no-pants subway ride are ‘authentic’ versions of the flashmob phenomenon, the last two are in fact commercially-sponsored ‘events’ to promote products: Trident for the former, AE’s Hammertime show for the latter. The producers of each realized the viral potential of a YouTube rendering of the event — note that the Hammertime video is skillfully edited and shot in HD — and thus co-opted the markers of the ‘authentic’ flashmob (diversity of participants, astonished reaction from those in the area) to best market their product. This is obviously in the future for Twitter — but how, and when? One answer might be that it’s already occuring: the product John Mayer is selling IS HIMSELF.)

5.) Finally, ‘Pedamundo’ will likewise contribute to the image of Twitter. Someone recently commented on another FlowTV piece that “Ashton Kutcher is the worst thing to happen to Twitter.” For those deeply invested in the image of Twitter as a powerful social networking tool (and different in scope and function than Facebook) I can see how this would be true. But for better or for worse, millions of users signed up for Twitter as a result of the Kutcher/CNN race — and much of its ‘popular,’ non-media-industry allure is rooted in celebrity contact.

While I’m certainly biased in considering the star/follower interaction (and the discourse about it) as the most interesting thing happening in the ‘Twitterverse,’ I also don’t think that it necessary takes anything away from the other (very valuable) functions of the site. I follow Kutcher, Mayer, and several other compelling stars — but I’ve also made contact with dozens of scholars in my field, many of whom I’d be otherwise wary of ‘friending’ on Facebook (too personal) or sending an email (too formal).

So maybe I’ll post on Miley Cyrus’s “break-up tweets” some time in the future. They’re too hilarious to be ignored.

Just a taste…

In the meantime, I’d love your feedback and/or feelings towards this particular phenomenon — and the perception of celebrity tweeting (and its effect on star text in general).