Stephen Fry And Other Things

It appears we are living in the dawn of adolescence in the lifespan of the new internet point of interest: Twitter.

When I had come across Twitter, some time a year and a half or so ago, it was a fun distraction and not much more. Since then, many friends of mine have joined and have become, I’m afraid, addicted. Nearly as addicted as I’ve become, it seems.

You see, when Twitter was in its infancy, no one was really sure what to think of it. (“Oh, so it’s like a blog, but I can only have 140 characters? Wait, does that include spaces? My god, it does?“) It seemed a silly idea, the way it was first presented. “Tell your friends what you’re up to!” brought images of “Making a sandwich, brb” followed by “Right, I’ve eaten the sandwich, and now I’ll have a nap.” followed by “Nap was great, now I’m eating an orange.”

Actually, now that I think of it, I’ve posted very similar tweets myself.

Anyway, I say we’re now in the adolescence of Twitter, because people are starting to catch on. Those of us who were poking and prodding about it in its early stages, curious and a bit frightened of it, have been here for ages and are now quite comfortable with it. But now, the media and all sorts of celebrities are going “Ooh, Twitter? What is Twitter? It sounds so new and fun!” and so you get people like Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, or Puff Daddy joining in flocks. Even Deepak Chopra has a Twitter page.

One such celebrity face to grace Twitter, is that of Stephen Fry. I’ve been a fan of Stephen’s work for years now (A Bit of Fry and Laurie, with House star Hugh Laurie, for example), and learning of his presence on Twitter was one of the reasons I never tried to give the service up. I suppose he’s partially responsible for my addiction, you could say.

But the problem is, you see, that in talking about the celebrity stampede to Twitterdom, whenever I mention Stephen Fry’s name, I find myself met with blank stares and the confused raising of eyebrows and utterances like “Who is Stephen Fry?”.

If you’d like to know why Stephen is worth following, and tweets such as the following aren’t reason enough:

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all my Irish followers and to all those non-Irish who just like getting drunk – any excuse.

We are twitterers. We can take satire from those who don’t get it. We are strong. Do we have lives? Hell, yes. More than enough to share.

There is also the fact that he shares wonderful photos and videos of his globe trekking life. Photos from Singapore and Africa, of Brazil and of Spain, of Australia and- Well, you get the idea. He posts such interesting things and ideas, all while staying grounded and connected to his fan base (which is why Twitter makes such a fantastic tool for celebrities).

The below videos are from an episode of Jonathan Ross (who also has a Twitter page, by the by) in which Fry and Ross talk about Twitter and what it means to the world of technology.

Their Twitter talk begins at the start of the second video, but I’ve included Stephen’s entire segment because he talks about many other things as well:

I highly reccomend searching out other videos of him on YouTube, if you were entertained by those posted above. (a search of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” offers most of his best bits)

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EmpireOnline has a great bit entitled That Guy from That Thing, in which they highlight some of today’s best character actors. People you’ve seen in plenty of movies and television shows, yet are never sure of their name. It’s a fun article.

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This short, but interesting read delves into the Christian take on Easter versus the holiday’s original roots.

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They’ve finally made a flying car!

Too bad it’s so expensive.

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Right. I’ll be getting myself a cup of coffee and doing some household chore type things like now.

You still have plenty of time to contribute questions to the latest Q&A Questions Blog.

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