Alice Marwick and Danah Boyd state that "celebrity practice [of Twitter] involves presenting a seemingly authentic, intimate image of self while meeting fan expectations and maintaining important relationships"(140). If this is the case then Irish comedian, Aisling Bea has this down pat as her account offers her followers an authentic look into the kind of person she is. Whatever the tweet may be about it will almost always have some sort of humor to it which can be seen as her downplaying her own celebrity status which makes her appear very genuine and down to earth to her followers. More often than not she is poking fun at herself, negating any sort of superiority over her followers that other celebrities may feel. As a comedian it is her job to make people laugh, but her tweets seem more like a reflection of her personality than some sort of need to affirm her career to people.
Since the majority of her followers are people who find her funny Bea can pretty much tweet about whatever she wants, not needing to target any specific audience. With this kind of freedom her tweets range from her personal life to her career to politics. Although she does occasionally advertise products that companies have either sent her or she purchases herself, given her personality though these obvious ads are easily defused through humor.
Besides advertising her own appearances on various shows or stand-up performances she also frequently tweets about her friends projects. This can be seen as Bea using her status to direct her followers attention to her friends so that they may receive some additional exposure. She does the same for various charitable organizations, but takes a more serious tone with these tweets, showing that she is more than just someone who makes jokes for a living.
Even though she has broken out as celebrity and travels a lot for work she remains very much in touch with Ireland as she has been active in political movements such as Ireland's
Repeal the 8th, an abortion rights campaign, and other women's rights events. This gives her followers a clear idea of what Bea stands for, which may alienate some of her fan base but also makes her account a more authentic representation of who she is.
Her more serious tweets don't receive nearly as many likes as her humorous ones though and this could be because the majority of her followers only follow her for the laughs; she is a comedian after all, not a political pundit. With this in mind it would be interesting to know what would happen to her account if she were to completely remove any sort of humor from it. It does seem that in order for a comedian to have a successful twitter account they should integrate their sense of humor into their tweets. So in some ways Bea's account is somewhat restrictive in what she is able to do. She may tweet whatever she wants but she has to adhere to what her audience expects of her and that is a joke.
Works Cited:
Marwick, Alice, and boyd, Danah, “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter,” Convergence May 2011 vol. 17 no. 2 139-158, http://www.tiara.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/marwick_boyd_to_see_and_be_seen.pdf
Bea, Aisling (@WeeMissBea). "Big shout out to all the criminals..." 4 Dec 2016. Tweet.
Bea, Aisling (@WeeMissBea). "Not the way Dunkirk wants to be remembered..." 12 Apr 2017. Tweet.
Bea, Aisling (@WeeMissBea). "Thanks so much to everyone who came..." 28 Mar 2017. Tweet.
Bea, Aisling (@WeeMissBea). "My mother, the hero..." 26 Mar 2017. Tweet.
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