By Lisa DiCarlucci

Twitter, the micro-blogging phenomenon, grows increasingly every day. While its popularity has been infectious among the general public, celebrities have also jumped on the bandwagon. A typical twitter following which once contained New York Times breaking news, colleagues, and friends can now include the likes of musicians, actors, and paparazzi princesses. Perez Hilton has a twitter which he updates frequently with his usual celebrity gossip but is also constantly tweeting back and forth with the celebrities themselves. This past week he has been tweeting to Miley Cyrus and Heidi Montag about their support of gay rights. One tweet would be enough and justified, but it has turned into a conversation of complimenting each other’s character and sharing random statistics. The cause is great and worthy, but what are they trying to prove via twitter?

For journalists, twitter has become a valuable resource for sharing news and information, establishing network connections, and gathering sources. For celebrities, it has become a marketing tool. Half of the celebrity twitter accounts, such as that of Britney Spears, are clearly generated by her P.R. representatives. The others, such as Miley Cyrus, who seem to be tweeting personally give off the air that fans are getting an inside look at their everyday lives. In reality though, Miley only follows 34 people herself and they are just her fellow celebrity friends. If celebrities really want twitter to be a powerful tool for their fan base, there needs to be interaction. The beauty of twitter is how it establishes a two-way conversation between people that may never interact in person and celebrities are destroying that.

Twitter has also become a competition amongst celebrities to see who can get the most followers. Ashton Kutcher has approached this with more tenacity than his tricks on “Punk’d’, making sure than the likes of Anderson Cooper eats his dust. Sure they are raising money for charity, but it’s clearly just a P.R. scheme to gain attention. This is not what twitter is about and it takes away some of the sites legitimacy. Twitter, when used at its potential, is a database of useful and interesting information. Seeing Demi Lovato tweet about how much she loves her BFF Selena Gomez and having Nicole Richie and Joel Madden tweeting to each other from different rooms in the same house just seems completely irrelevant. The shallowness and fakeness of their tweets are so apparent. Heidi Montag: No one cares how much you say you love Jesus, we’ve seen your show, the jig is up!

While it’s nice to think that you have an intimate view of celebrities moment to moment, knowing what Oprah ate for dinner is not going to make your day any better. On the whole, celebrities have given twitter a serious downgrade, except John Mayer, who happens to tweet hysterical and philosophical things daily. As for the others, take a lesson from Mayer, grow a soul and tweet me back.