Social media has come a long way in the last couple of years. Remember when it was socially incorrect to handle invitations, break-ups etc… by e-mail, and we were supposed to send a letter or, heaven forbid, pick up a phone and actually call someone? I hear the phrase “I hate talking on the phone” more and more. Nowadays a lot of my communicating is done by text message, and I get a lot of my breaking news from Twitter.
Twitter, for the uninitiated, (both of you, pay attention!) is like the world’s biggest chat room, a microblogging service that limits your expression to 140 characters or less. If you’re feeling hostile toward the world, you can scream your heart out into cyberspace. Dave Chappelle in town? You can bet your ass there’ll be 10,000 people with a bottle of vodka converging on Pioneer Square. It’s a marvelous time-killer at work. But one of the best uses for Twitter?
Celebrity stalking.
Yes, celebrities love the Twitter. Some embrace the concept and impart witticisms. Many use it as a promotional/marketing tool. David Lynch gives you the weather report from LA. There are people who impersonate celebrities, with hilarious results. (Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi and Sarah Palin are perfect examples of impersonation done right.) Others give you a peek into their world. You see that celebrities are real people too. Well, maybe not in Paris Hilton’s case. (I had to unfollow her; my IQ dropped twenty points every time I read. I traded up to Sarah Silverman.)
I’m especially fond of local celebrities, the ones with intelligent things to say. I get lots of amusement from the Portland podcasters, which is nice because dial-up internet makes it a chore to listen to them. I get the condensed cream of funny. News people impart a personal take on the news, something they can’t really do on-air. Which is a long-winded lead up to the point of this post:
Photo courtesy of KGW.com
One of my favorite news people (and Twitter-buddy) is returning to Portland airwaves Thursday evening. Yep, Stephanie Stricklen is baaaaack!
Stephanie has been on the PDX news scene for a decade and a half, a fixture at KGW. She’s the host of Live @ The Square, a locally produced news-lite show that gives you the headlines and then proceeds on to the important things in life, like Portland nightlife, advances in technology and celebrity sightings. It’s produced live at 7 PM weeknights from the studio at Pioneer Square, and can also be seen (sans commercials) at KGW.com.
I’d like to sound all noble and say I’m a fan of Stephanie’s because of all her hard-hitting news updates, but that would be stretching it. Fact is, I started paying attention because she’s so damned cute. One day, as I exited the TriMet office, I saw her standing on the MAX platform, interviewing passersby about electric cars. Normally not at a loss for words, I panicked. YIKES! She’s coming at me, with a microphone! I jumped on a train, realizing after the fact that I had a perfect sound byte. (”I’m boarding my electric car now.”) No, I was positively dumbfounded. I kicked myself for being a chicken.
In retrospect, it was probably for the best. I could not have trusted the words that would come out. When a stranger tells a woman, “You have a purty mouth,” the two things she hears are banjos and the sound of her own footsteps running away. I’d spared us both the indignity.
Stephanie achieved a new level of respect from me when she made what some considered a broadcast faux pas; she showed some emotion during a particularly heartbreaking news story. (To this day it makes me puddle up when I think of it.) She took a lot of heat for that, but I’m glad her supervisors didn’t punish her. If I wanted a grumpy old man giving me the news, I’d watch Bill O’Reilly.
After Live @ The Square took off, big news of a personal note came down: Stephanie was in the family way! I and about 2,500 others followed the gestation of baby Elle, and Twitter was ablaze in early June as her delivery date approached. As the saying goes, everything came out okay. Now baby Elle is teething, and is as adorable as her mom.
Live @ The Square hasn’t been the same. Joe Donlon has been doing an admirable job filling in, but I’ve missed Steph. Steph is returning tonight, November 5, for her first broadcast in months. Do you think her Twitter-stalkers would let an event like that go unnoticed? Hah! Before I could get the words out, a Tweet-up was being planned. While I don’t expect things to get to Dave Chappelle levels, (and don’t bring vodka this time) I figure a nice crowd of well-wishers and fans will be milling around, huddling under umbrellas if the forecast is correct.
Won’t you join us? A little before 7 PM, Thursday November 5th at Pioneer Square. Come to Portland’s living room and welcome home Portland’s sweetheart.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You are so not a stalker like Betsy said. But I was expecting a ponytail so I didn’t make the connection.
THANKS and nice to meet you face to face.