John Lennon would have loved Twitter
Commentary: He would have grasped the social media
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — John Lennon would have turned 70 years old Saturday. And I have a feeling that if he were among us today, he’d be tweeting up a storm.
Let’s move past the usual fascination about what kind of music Lennon would be creating and whether the Beatles would have gotten back together.
Me? I’m curious about Lennon, the great communicator. Above all, the thread running through his life — encompassing his gift for writing, singing and playing rock-and-roll songs, as well as his devilish wit — was his rare ability to communicate and connect with people.
Media master from the start
Lennon had a lifelong fascination with whatever passed for “the media,” beginning with his youth in Liverpool. As a schoolboy, even before he became famous for playing the guitar and writing songs, he devised “The Daily Howl,” a collection of his stories, poems, drawings and cartoons.
Lennon once told an interviewer that if rock-and-roll hadn’t given him direction after Elvis Presley hit in the mid-1950s, he might have gone on to find work as an illustrator or a cartoonist.
After he became a famous Beatle in the 1960s, Lennon was impressed with the media’s ability to influence the public and shape its attitudes. He manipulated journalists brilliantly, especially when he and Yoko Ono launched their peace campaign in 1968 and 1969. They staged such media-friendly events as the bizarre “bed-in for peace” in Montreal, and even their wedding became a public spectacle.
As a media junkie, Lennon would have seen the possibilities of the social-media breakthroughs of the 21st century and loved dabbling in them.
Yes, I am suggesting that Lennon, who was shot and killed by a deranged “fan” on Dec. 8, 1980, would surely have embraced Twitter. It makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Tweet-in
Generally, Twitter is perfect for celebrities because they can reach their audience on their terms, without having their message filtered through the media and risking being misquoted.
For openers, Lennon had a quicksilver mind, which would have been perfectly suited to 140-character blasts of his unique wit and wisdom.
Lennon was also a genius at self-promotion. He could have employed Twitter to publicize his music, his and Yoko’s causes and his political beliefs. As Twitter is an ideal communications tool for journalists to post their work and expand their audience, imagine (!) what someone as famous and charismatic as Lennon could accomplish.
Twitter would also suit Lennon’s style of presenting anthems in the forms of lyrics and song titles. Twitter is designed for brevity.
Lennon thought in slogans throughout his career. Wouldn’t it have been cool if we could have been exposed to his 21st-century follow-up to the likes of “I’d love to turn you on” or “all you need is love” or “come together” or “give peace a chance” or “instant karma” or “imagine there’s no heaven” or “power to the people” or “whatever gets you through the night” or “que pasa, New York?”
By now, Lennon would have seen the potential in Twitter to further his activism. Let’s imagine that Lennon by now would have turned to environmental causes. He could surely have used Twitter to his benefit by soliciting donations or spreading the gospel to his followers — and I reckon that he’d have hundreds of thousands of them, at the very least.
Lennon still resonates today. To mark the birthday milestone, EMI is releasing a series of remastered Lennon solo albums (which sound terrific). A feature film about his school days in Liverpool called “Nowhere Boy” (a twist on Lennon’s song “Nowhere Man”) is coming out in the U.S. Even the Quarrymen, Lennon’s ragtag teenage band before he teamed with McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, is re-forming and touring America.
No doubt, a natural-born skeptic like John Lennon would have watched the proceedings with a mixture of cynicism (that people are cashing in on his fame) and pride (hey, it was his fame, right?).
You know how we’d all know, for sure? He’d be tweeting up a storm.
MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you think that John Lennon’s life would be like today and all through the years?
Jon Friedman is a senior columnist for MarketWatch in New York.
― yeah ilxor stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment. (ilxor), Friday, 8 October 2010 16:52 (fifteen years ago)