‘Bret Easton Ellis Really Likes Tweeting’: A Study of LiteraryCelebrity in the Digital Age

Dr Christelle Davis

Slide 1 This paper is a study of literary celebrity in the digital age, focusing on the social media habits of contemporary author Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis is a prolific user of Reddit, Grindr and Twitter and uses social media and an independently produced podcast as not only a way of expressing himself, but to actively communicate with fans, readers and celebrities.

Slide 2 This paper will analyze howEllis negotiates and self-promotes his celebrity status via interactive media, focusing exclusivelyon a study of his use of the social media site Twitter for the year 2013. It asks the question: What is the purpose of Bret Easton Ellis’s use of the social media platform Twitter? Since relatively little is known about this

subject, a Grounded Theory approach was used.

This paper will try to unravel the specific purpose of Ellis’s online activity and in doing so will draw conclusions aboutthe culture of literary celebrity, the online powerof an individual, the valueof online fame and the construction and maintenance of an online image.

Slide 3 Why is Twitter so Important?

Twitter is an online socialnetworking website and micro-blogging service thatallows users to post and read text-based messages ofup to 140 characters, knownas “tweets”. Launched in July of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter is now in the top 10 most visited internet sites. By the end of 2013 Twitter claimed a user base of more than 645 million with an average of 58 million tweets per day.

The main tools on Twitter are: @ (used to directly

tweet another user), RT (used to retweets)and # (hashtags used to categorize a subject)

Slide 4 Twitter and Celebrities

Many celebrities ranging from actors and actresses, to musicians, directors, chefs and sports stars use twitter to engage with their colleagues and fans. From the point of view of afan Twitter offers an opportunity to satisfy their interest in a celebrity and generate a feeling of closeness. From a celebrity’s point of viewTwitter offers a formal connection with a fan in a safe forum with no reciprocal obligations. A celebrity has control over whether they read, reply orblock a fan.

The results of the 2009 study by Stever and Lawsonof celebrities’ twitter habits concluded that celebrities ‘use twitter toreach out to fans and make relationships with them more “real” ‘.

According to Marwick and Boyd in ‘Seen and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter’, celebrities use Twitter to present an apparently authentic and intimate image of themselves in order to meetfan expectations and maintain important relationships (with other celebrities or fans). If the use of Twitter is successful it will provide the illusion of an uncensored look at a celebrity’s life.

Slide 5 Literary Celebrities on Twitter

A literary celebrity is defined as an author who has an established media profile, both offline and online. As Reelke Grimmer wrote in Lip Magazine in 2012, it is a necessity foran author to have an onlinepresence these days.

Twitter is a place where readers can engage with

their favourite authors andwhere authors can share writing tips, favourite quotes and gossip from the publishing world. As a recent Guardian article putit: ‘A huge virtual literary salon.’ Twitter accounts may appeal to publishers because authors can do most of their own promotions. To summarize, literary celebrities use twitter to engage with readers, interact with other authors and promote their own writing

Slide 6 Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and screenwriter who shot to fame when his first novel ‘Less Than Zero’ was published in 1985.

Ellis’s writing features autobiographical elements, recurring characters, extreme violence and references to popular culture such as movies, music and celebrities.

Ellis is often labeled as the poster boy for the

Blank Generation- a group of writers that emerged in the late 1980s including Jay McInerney and Tama Janowitz. These writers were as famous for their partying and celebrity connections as they were for their novels- stories that mostly focused on young characters who sharedtheir enthusiasm for music,LA nightclubs and drug use and heavily critiqued the consumer culture of the 1980s and 1990s. Ellis in particular is well-known for references in his work to everything from high skin care products to designer clothes. Ellis’s identity as an author is intrinsically linked to hisown characters, so much so that he even wrote a novel with the main character called Bret Easton Ellis.

As of March 2014, Ellis hasapproximately 440,000 followers on Twitter, around 2000 tweets and follows 203 other users. As a user of Twitter he most well-known for two ‘events’:

Slide 7 1. The use of Twitter in March 2012 to draft ideas for a sequel to his novel American Psycho.

Slide 8 2. The ‘twitter war’ between Ellis and Norm MacDonald over his objection to Alice Munro winning the Nobel Book Prize in October 2013.

Slide 9 Method:

As previously mentioned themodel for this study was inspired by Stever and Lawson’s 2009 paper Twitter as a Way for Celebrities to Communicate with Fans: Implications for the Study of Parasocial Interaction. In that study, the twitter habits of 9 celebrities were studied using Grounded Theory Open Coding.

My study began by downloading the Twitter history of Bret Easton Ellis for 2013. There were 400 tweets for this period.Each tweet was then coded using Grounded Theory Open Coding.

Slide 10 The first round of coding used very general pre set codes, I was not sure what I was going to find or exactly what I was looking for. I generated 3 pre-set codes:

1. Origin – whether the tweet is a @, RT or original tweet.

2. Audience – is it a tweetto a public figure or a private person.

3. Serious or humorous intent.

Second set of grounded theory codes: Emerging codes

As the study continued, it emerged that these initial set of codes were incompatible with the data I had to work with. Ellis almost never tweeted

another user and most of his tweets could be classified as ‘serious’. I noticed other patterns and trends in his tweets that Ipreviously was unaware of. Therefore, I created a listof other emerging codes that were more in line withEllis’s output on twitter. These codes were adapted and refined as the coding process continued, until I felt satisfied with these 11 eventual codes:

1 personal taste, reaction, like/ dislike on movie/tv shows/actor/ actresses/ director

2 personal taste, reaction, like/ dislike on books/author

3 reference to own writing/ work4 comments about twitter itself5 quotes (not RTs)6 sharing of personal information7 promotion of own work, writing or something he is

affiliated with8 messages or replies to individuals on twitter9 RT of other's messages10 personal taste, reaction, like/dislike, opinion on

any other subject11 personal taste, reaction, like/ dislike on music/

musician/ song/ album

Slide 11 Results:

A total of 400 tweets from 2013 were coded for analysis. Some tweets did feature more than one themeor topic and were coded as such.

The most popular topic of Ellis’s tweets were in reference to movies, television, actors or actresses.

The second most popular theme was the promotion of his own work, writing or something he was affiliatedwith.

And the third most popular theme was the sharing of personal information.

Slide 12 As for the rest of the results, there is a wide margin between the most leading results and the other 8 codes:

8.01% of tweets were personal taste, reaction, like or dislike of a book or author.

6.75% of tweets were quotes.

6.75% of tweets were personal taste, reaction, like or dislike of another subject.

5.27% of tweets were personal taste, reaction, like or dislike on music, amusician, a song or music video.

5.27% of tweets were a reference to his own writing or work.

1.47% of tweets were RTs ofother people’s messages.

1.05% of tweets were comments about Twitter itself.

0.42% of tweets were a message or reply to an individual on twitter

Slide 13 8.01% of tweets were personal taste, reaction, like or dislike of a book or author.

6.75% of tweets were quotes.

6.75% of tweets were personal taste, reaction,

like or dislike of another subject.

5.27% of tweets were personal taste, reaction, like or dislike on music, amusician, a song or music video.

5.27% of tweets were a reference to his own writing or work.

1.47% of tweets were RTs ofother people’s messages.

1.05% of tweets were comments about Twitter itself.

0.42% of tweets were a message or reply to an individual on twitter

Slide 14 Discussion:

I’ve identified 4 key discussion points based on the results of this study, relating to how Ellis uses Twitter.

Slide 15 1. To Express Personal Opinions

Firstly, it needs to be noted that Ellis’s interaction with other Twitter users, whether theyare fans, critics or real-life acquaintances is severely limited. Unlike other users, both celebrityand non-celebrity, both in the literary world and outside of it, Ellis is notusing twitter as a means ofsocial communication as he very, very rarely communicates directly with other users or RTs other users’ messages. His usage of Twitter is almost alwaysone-way and focuses on his output. Therefore his primary use of Twitter is to not to engage with others, to build relationships or to ‘reach out’ to fans, instead it isto express himself, to share his own opinions and critiques.

Slide 16 2. To Influence Others

We need to remember that this output has an audienceof nearly half a million other users, who by choosing to read, respond to and promote his tweets are opening themselves up to be influenced by his opinions and promotions. A large number of Ellis’s tweets have the purpose to influence and persuade his followers. He assumes the identity of a pop culture expert, mostly in the fieldof movies, always using language that impresses that his opinions are validand important.

Slide 17 3. Self-Promotion

On the other hand, Ellis does use Twitter in severalways that are similar to other celebrities. Firstly,he focuses on the promotionof his own work or writing.For example, in 2013 this mainly involved the promotion of the feature film The Canyons, of which Ellis was a screenwriter. Therefore Ellis is using Twitter as a marketing

tool, the purpose seeming to increase awareness, increase the audience or raise money for the projects he is affiliated with.

Slide 18 4. To Reveal Personal information

Finally, Ellis uses Twitter to divulge personalinformation, such as discussions he’s had with his boyfriend, who he was meeting for dinner and short memories of his Hollywood past. The purposeof this usage seems to be in line with Ellis’s need to create an online personaand maintain the image created via his autobiographical novels, interviews and on his own podcast. In this usage, he is in essence treating Twitter as a writing tool and himself as a character.

Slide 19 Conclusions:

In conclusion Ellis has demonstrated the ability tomix autobiographical data with personal opinions on both high and low culture and in doing so he has successfully engaged in theperformance practice of being a celebrity.

Which, according to Marwick, is not an externallabel but a created role that involves ongoing ‘maintenance of a fan base,performed intimacy, authenticity and access andthe construction of a consumerable persona’.

The voice that Ellis has established for his online writing is significant. It is so predictable in subject, tone and style. We can see that Ellis has constructed a persona for Twitter, not unlike a character in a novel. On Twitter he is the writer with the strong opinions, enviable social life and busy working life. In orderto maintain this image, hisinteraction with his audience needs to be one-

sided, as remote and isolated as any character in a novel or movie.

Furthermore, the constant pop culture references continue the exploration ofthemes and issues raised inEllis’s novels: consumerism, the emotional connections we have with films and music and, obsession with celebrity.

I believe that this research allows us to make further connections betweenhow celebrities use Twitterand social media. Ellis cannot be the only celebrity who has constructed this online persona to promote his own work and express his opinions. In an age where most fans believe they are getting closer to or have greater access to their idols, this study proves that the gap between celebrity and fan or authorand reader is actually widening.

Furthermore, based on this research, it is my opinion Ellis is effectively resigning himself to role

of the distant, unreachablecelebrity and utilizing a parasocial communication method. While he continuesto refuse to engage with his fans and audience and limits his output to these three main streams Ellis will remain a detached and remote online character, writing his own story.