It's All About Who You Blog

Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 0808 hrs

Thanks to the internet, and blogging in particular, we have entered a new phase of connectivity with society: the ability to have 2-way communication directly with celebrities.

In fairly recent memory, the only reasonable way "common people" (such as myself) could communicate with celebrities was by writing them a letter and sending it to some mysterious Post Office box. The results were often lackluster, as a reply was generally never received. This often raised the question, "did my letter ever reach [insert celebrity name here]?"

With more celebrities blogging, not only are we able to get a better feel for who they are as people, but we are afforded the opportunity to communicate with them directly — at least in the case of those whose blogs allow comments.

I've been reading Graham Linehan's blog for a while, and recently replied to one of his posts. In less than an hour, he had replied. To me. By name.

Penn Jillette — of whom I've been a fan longer than any other celebrity — has a video blog over at Crackle. Viewers are invited to submit their own video comments, which I did, and to which Penn replied, once again mentioning me by name (well, screen name, anyway).

I also have evidence in the form of Google Analytics, which suggests that both of them visited my blog.

I'm not one to be easily star struck (perhaps because I grew up in acquaintance to a few A-listers), but I have to admit that when Penn Jillette and Graham Linehan talk directly to me, even if by blog-proxy, that's pretty damn awesome.