Respect Authority

The Kutchers: a private people

Leave it to Ashton Kutcher to fuck everything up. 

Less than eight hours after news surfaced that tech start-up Twitter was in negotiations for a tweet-based reality television show, celebrities that include Ashton Kutcher and …Ashton Kutcher, lambasted the idea, saying he’d pull his Twitter feed before allowing himself to “get stalked.”

In a statement, Twitter and its production partners — the geniuses behind reality stalwarts like The Biggest Loser — said the new show would put “ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.” What that means is anyone’s guess, but I personally take it as some sort of “Find The Celebrity” Amazing Race type show, an idea that didn’t sit well with either Ashton or Demi Moore, who also said she’d cease tweeting if the show came to pass as described. 

It’s not that I can’t understand celebrities wanting to dodge the limelight sometimes. Were I any moderate degree of famous, I’d probably invest in dark sunglasses and ill-fitting hats as well, parading around the city in disguises until some determined photographer catches me buying a family-sized pack of miniature Hershey bars at Duane Reade. But we’re not talking about normal celebrities — we’re talking about Ashton and Demi. We’re talking about a couple that purposefully got on the Twitter boat early, sharing with fans nonsensical personal details about Ashton’s movie, or Demi’s oral surgery, or Ashton’s affinity for his wife’s naked ass (see above). We’re talking about two people who saw a social networking tool that does nothing except promote minute-by-minute life-sharing, and jumped on it. 

So really Ashton, what’s the worst a Twitter-based show could do? Surprise famous people? Make them look silly? Embarass celebrities by having would-be comedians secretly film them living their day-to-day lives and then freak them out with some sort of highly orchestrated prank?

You’re right — sounds pretty awful.

In an all-advised moment of TV indecision last night, I stumbled onto one of MTV’s various Inauguration-related events, ostensibly a ball or concert or some other type of public spectacle meant to remind 13- to 20-year-olds (Yes, I made that demographic up) that politics is important for them too.

On screen, MTV veejay Sway was chatting with Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore about their recent public service announcement promoting usaservice.org, an Obama-affiliated Web site that helps people find community service projects in their area. The idea: to remind us that giving a buck to the homeless guy outside Grand Central doesn’t count as “community service” – and in many cases two hours at a soup kitchen is more significant than $20 spent on a charity.  Oh yeah, and turn off the lights when you leave a room. 

In principle, I admire the effort. No matter how open-minded, tolerant or forward thinking our population becomes – and is bound to become as born-and-bred generational racists are succeeded by the MTV Youth – we are not so much known for our extraordinary contributions to volunteer work. This isn’t to say that there aren’t millions of people, young and old, volunteering their time and energy to charitable causes at this very moment; simply that there are many millions more people who aren’t. Read More ›