To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter Alice Marwick Microsoft Research, USA danah boyd Microsoft Research, USA Abstract Social media technologies let people connect by creating and sharing content. We examine the use of Twitter by famous people to conceptualize celebrity as a practice. On Twitter, celebrity is practiced through the appearance and performance of ‘backstage’ access. Celebrity practitioners reveal what appears to be personal information to create a sense of intimacy between participant and follower, publicly acknowledge fans, and use language and cultural references to create affiliations with followers. Interactions with other celebrity practitioners and personalities give the impression of candid, uncensored looks at the people behind the personas. But the indeterminate ‘authenticity’ of these performances appeals to some audiences, who enjoy the game playing intrinsic to gossip consumption. While celebrity practice is theoretically open to all, it is not an equalizer or democratizing discourse. Indeed, in order to successfully practice celebrity, fans must recognize the power differentials intrinsic to the relationship. Keywords celebrity, intimacy, micro-celebrity, performance, self-presentation, Twitter Introduction Networked media is changing celebrity culture, the ways that people relate to celebrity images, how celebrities are produced, and how celebrity is practiced. Gossip websites, fan sites, and blogs provide a plethora of new locations for the circulation and creation of celebrity, moving between user-generated content and the mainstream media. The fragmented media landscape has created a shift in traditional understanding of ‘celebrity management’ from a highly controlled and regulated institutional model to one in which performers and personalities actively address and interact with Corresponding author: Dr. Alice Marwick, Microsoft Research, 1 Memorial Drive 12th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Email: amarwick@microsoft.com Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(2) 139–158 ª The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1354856510394539 con.sagepub.com