Social media has helped to minimize the distance between celebrities and fans. Fans today can talk directly with some of their favorite stars by simply logging onto the Web.
During Social Media Week in February, Viacom held a panel discussion with four reality TV stars for "The Future of Social Media Interaction Between Fans and Entertainers." Panel guests included Cody Alan from CMT's "Hot 20 Countdown" and nightly syndicated radio show, "CMT Radio Live with Cody Alan", Drita D'Avanzo from VH1's "Mob Wives", Nev Schulman from MTV's "Catfish" and Ivy Winters from Logo's "RuPaul's Drag Race". The panel focused on MTV Insights' approach of "zero distancing between fan and artist."
The reality TV starts discussed how they use social media sites like Instagram and Twitter to connect with their fans and how it makes fans feel more involved in their television shows. A trend has developed where fans tweet during the airing of their favorite reality TV shows and the castmembers also tweet during the show to engage the fans.
They accept the fact that viewers of the show want to feel connected to them on a more personal level and update their social media pages often. "I deliberately set aside time to do it every single day almost. I do set aside Sundays though as my gadget free days. I just try to avoid it on those days. I think it's about balance," said Cody Alan. He joked about how his signature black hat has become more popular than him on Instagram. Nearly all of his Instagram photos are of him wearing his black hat.
Nev Schulman from MTV's "Catfish" once did a live video during a show airing and had fans talk about the show with him via Twitter with the hashtag #catfish. He says sometimes fans even ask him for advice about online dating, the concept behind the show. "Generally people really do reach out via Facebook and Twitter to solicit my help," Schulman said.
Mob Wives' Drita D'Avanzo talked about how she enjoys interacting with fans.
"I do it because I want to, so it's not overwhelming to me," D'Avanzo said. "I have fun with it, I find it to be fun."
She also talked about how her fans make memes called "Dritaisms" that consist of her photo with their favorite quotes from her. A fan favorite is when she said, "Haters are like crickets. They chirp all f%&#ing day and you walk by them and they shut the f%&# up."
Ivy Winters is still getting the hang of social media and wasn't introduced to it until he became a contestant on "RuPaul's Drag Race." He said if it wasn't for the show, he would not have even known about Twitter. "I'm a grandma at heart", said Winters. "At times it does get very overwhelming because I'm still getting used to it. We're only a few episodes into the new season. I tend to find myself at night before I go to bed instead of watching a TV show, I find myself on Twitter or Instagram updating everything", said Winters.
Making an effort to connect with fans by sharing photos via Instagram or answering fan questions on Twitter is one way reality TV stars show appreciation to their devoted fans. Closing the distance between fans and artists helps fans feel more connected to their favorites.
