Hello! It’s Groundhog Day today and, to commemorate that event, we’re going to be doing the same thing that we did on this day last year: Not writing about Groundhog Day. Instead, we’re going to be writing about Benicio Del Toro because, as you may or may not be aware, he’s recently joined Twitter. Here are seven reasons that you should follow him.
1. It Might Be Him. Given the level of interaction that he has with his followers it seems unlikely that @BenicioDToro is the real Benicio Del Toro; after all, most celebrity tweeters have little or no interaction with their followers, with some choosing to interact only with other celebs and some not even tweeting their own stuff at all, leaving it to PR minions. Still, given that it’s Benicio Del Toro that we’re discussing, you might expect him to behave a little differently than say, Paris Hilton or Newt Gingrich. You’d probably expect the unexpected from him. So perhaps it is him.
2. It Might Not Be Him. Fake celebrity tweeters are all over Twitter. Some of them are sad, deluded individuals who contribute nothing of interest to proceedings, and some are brilliant, witty, insightful and passionate about spoofing the people they purport to be, or – for fear of litigation – don’t purport to be. I will say this; if it isn’t Benicio del Toro then, whoever it is, they’re doing a damned fine job. Such a good job, in fact, that they probably deserve to be Benicio Del Toro, replacing the real version. After all, pretending to be someone else is, fundamentally, acting, and if Del Toro is being spoofed then the spoofter clearly deserves the promotion. We should still follow though, because if it turns out that it isn’t really him, British followers will be able to sigh, grumble and rant, and American followers will be able to concoct bizarre law-suits for emotional distress suffered or for mail fraud (whatever the hell that is). Essentially we all win.
3. Interaction. He retweets lots of nice things that people say about him (we’re hopeful that he will retweet this). Hmm, you might be thinking, that sounds a little self-serving, but since I’ve been following Benicio Del Toro, my timeline’s been full of people saying nice things, which is a genuine change from the norm. Usually my Twitter feed consists of “Piers Morgan’s a cock” and “the Daily Mail want to shovel us all into ovens” endlessly tweeted and retweeted. So perhaps positivity and kindness will make Twitter a better place. Or maybe they won’t. He also responds to people. Not just glib, cursory responses, but actual considered, thoughtful ones about acting, upcoming projects and the roles he chooses. He just seems really, genuinely nice.*
4. Be An Early Adopter. If you follow Benicio Del Toro now, you’ll be seen as an early adopter and that’s always cool. Well, unless you’re an HD-DVD-9 user (the HD-DVD-9 user?) or a clog-revivalist in which case it isn’t. And if you’re both of those things you’re really in trouble. Anyway, if you follow him now, you can impress people by saying “I was in the first couple of thousand people to follow Benicio Del Toro on Twitter” or, if you’re not talking to an audience of geeks, you could should keep that quiet.
5. He Follows People Back. This might not sound intrinsically interesting, but for a celebrity tweeter, it’s unusual. It’s also a brilliant spectator sport, because every time he returns to Twitter – and we’re probably not helping here – Benicio Del Toro has many, many new followers to follow back. As this snowballs (and it will), how will he cope? Will he have to give up acting, meals or sleep to spend his time following everyone back? Will he be reduced from a fine actor to a haggard, pallid man sitting in a darkened room dressed only in his underpants endlessly clicking the Follow button as he desperately struggles to catch up? This is more exciting than a soap opera.
6. The Beard. Benicio Del Toro’s beard is one of the most awesome, luxuriant, manly examples of facial fuzz there is and we should all see that in our timeline every now and again. For men, it would be inspirational, a paragon of masculine virtue that, if we look at it long enough, might just rub off on us. For women, it would be aspirational, a paragon of masculine virtue that, if they look at it long enough, might just rub on them. Let’s face it, a proper beard is something we all love and if you follow Benicio you’ll see it a lot in your timeline.
7. Quantity. The most surprising thing is not that Benicio Del Toro is tweeting, retweeting and responding to people (after all, that’s how most of us non-celebrities use Twitter), it’s that he’s responding in such quantity to people. He’s tweeting hundreds of times a day. Yes. Hundreds. It must be quite a Herculean task to tweet that often (@7Reasons manages to tweet four or five times a day and there are two of us). And it’s not just the sheer dedication to tweeting that’s amazing, it’s the potential consequences. After all, he’s retweeting things that people are saying about him, and then they’re retweeting his retweets of the things they said about him, and then their friends are replying to the retweet of the retweet – and probably retweeting it themselves – and then they’re following him and saying nice things about him which he’ll retweet and the whole process starts again (but bigger because there’s now a wider circle of people involved). Essentially, BDT (How I wish he had a shorter name) is going to break Twitter and probably the internet as well. And if you follow him, you’ll be the first to know when that happens.**
*The bastard!
**Probably.
