Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Twitter Theory: And Will The Real Baron Cohen Please Stand Up?



The First Post, and others, need to make their minds up about Twitter. In strict order of posting time - from earliest to latest - we have:

  • First: "Big Business" getting a social media lesson, or at least some to-die-for link bait by raising some personal opinions from a single 15-year-old, and you'd have to hope his vast peer group, that say that Twitter is not for da kidz.
  • Second: The Sasha Baron Cohen one-joke confection that is the feature film "Brüno" is a gurt great box office smash hit with American Film Fans.
  • Third: Brüno "gets the snip" (ouch) to cash in on under 18s through a softer rating. And,
  • Fourth: Alas, a flock of bad reviews by tweet kills the campfest goose that lays the golden egg.

    Except teenagers aren't bothered by Twitter. You just told us didn't you? Perhaps it's the decision to Brüno-lite the thing that gets up the collective "yoof" nose? Or perhaps the pass-for-18 and 20s to 30s - who do tweet - demographics were running out of steam? Hence the self-mutilation?

    Whatever it is the PRs for the film are managing a steady stream of headlines and stories. Lots and lots of uses of the creepy crawly Brüno publicity shot. Which is what they're after after all. And, quite clearly, the kid's opinion is no better and no worse than any other anecdotal "evidence".

    For the record. My kids Myra (16) and Ian (13) DO! NOT! TWEET! (their caps). But then again they didn't do facebook for the longest time, but now they do. And they're both back into MSN also. Neither use mobile voice or data tech much. Ian has iPod and a mobey he barely uses, Myra doesn't use her mobile AT ALL. I'd guess the Tweet thing will be along in a week or two. Herd resistance. Then a veritable Tweet flu epidemic.

    TRIVIA TIME: Sasha's da-da Dan Baron Cohen spent some quality time in Manchester in the 80s leading a motley crew of would be community thesps through their dirty reality comm-dram pieces via Manchester Frontline in Hulme, M15 when it was still "the Planet Hulme, where the Hulmans lived". Later also in Derry. Hulme, also the location a few years earlier for the intense Trevor Griffiths co-scripted REDS. With Warren Beatty also losing the chains from his typewriter, we're told.

    How has the worthy and arguably right up itself, certainly serious, certainly political Baron Cohen brand been dragged into such ill-repute, such swatches of lycra and irony, and such an essentially vacuous oeuvre? [Discuss]. Will perhaps come back to the great Trevor G and his late-lamented cousin and Christie Hospital alumnus "Dodgy Danny" one of these days. Meanwhile kudos to whoever stopped the R in Reds getting turned on its axis. That would make it a "Ya", and any fool know that Yes, that's German.

    As a final footnote I will reveal to Dan BC (left) that some if not many of his hard-pressed struggling community members were in fact no more and no less than slumming luvvies. Sex and drugs and rock and roll. And all that.

    Though possibly better at blending than Rupa's lusty crusties - "Tarquin, pleased to meet you, but could you jolly well call me Warty Cock if you would be so kind", and "Venetia, likewise, but please do call me Pondy Vadge".

    [Note to self: Have I lost it a bit at the end there?]

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