“Celebrities Read Mean Tweets”

Jimmy Kimmel has a segment on his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, called “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets”. Celebrities read really crude and rude tweets while R.E.M’s song “Everyone Hurts” plays in the background. While it is hilarious and they are making light of the tweets, there is still a disturbing unidentified aspect. There are people writing these messages, tagging people, and posting them. Kimmel even says he, “…gets bombarded with hundreds of insults a day.” Celebrities are not the only people who get mean tweets. Everyone else gets them too. Canadian Safe School Network posted a mock video of “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets”. They replaced celebrities with teens. Teens read crude and rude tweets that their peers wrote. Whether it is to a celebrity or not, writing disturbing, painful and life altering messages is bullying. The internet is an open network and everything is permanent. What kind of public discourse do we want to encourage from our entertainment media? Healthy? Divisive? What are we celebrating when we hold up hatred? How much power does a message under 140 characters have?

To see the videos you can find them on YouTube channels “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Canadian Safe School Network”.