Tweet Misery

Imagine how much sooner the Hollywood studio system would have collapsed if stars back in the day had had the option of Tweeting or writing on each other's Facebook walls.

For most of the 20th century it took a barrage of lawyers, publicists and press agents working overtime to keep stars like Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin out of the papers or jail, and even then the peccadilloes of these film legends still landed them in constant trouble. But at least there was a mechanism in place to protect movie stars from themselves.

Now celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Courtney Love are only too eager to air their sordid family laundry and minimal grasp of the basics of grammar in a medium that exposes their rants to millions of people in real time.

If Marilyn Monroe had been able to Tweet about her relationships with the Kennedy brothers, her life might have had an entirely different outcome -- or it might have ended even sooner. I can imagine her posting her current mood online the way people do today, but in her case she'd select something like "slutty/suicidal."

Take a look at just a fragment of Ms. Love's Tweets about her ongoing custody battles for Frances Bean, her daughter with rock legend Curt Cobain. It's sad to see a woman cut off from her child (who just turned 18 this week) and trying to rationalize the mess to herself and her indifferent daughter, but is this the forum for such jumbled, personal emotion?

i shouldve hooked up in some loveless marriage to a powerful hedgefund guy then youd be safe, im sorry i didnt. for your sake.i love you.

im done, you arent dumb you know what youve done what youve sold i couldnt shelter you from them i suppose its my fault, im so sorry bean. x

and im sure her dog., everyone else has a fucking agenda , that chantel if i see her shes a goner thats for dammed sure. grosspig≥poisonkids

with that that kid s=mustr ee somne accountability or shes going to believe thier insanity narcissism and lies, one human loves her truly ME


at her most vulnerable and feed her uttter bullshit based ona FORGED forensically proven to be FORGED operating agreement, so well have fun


she a little baby; sheltered to SOME degree, phony cop raids, seeing her mother cuffed for no reason other than i found out and theyGRABHER

The wall that once kept us from seeing that celebrities are as misguided and fallible as we are has been eroded, and in its place is a 24-hour gossip cycle that makes them seem as mundane as the rest of us. It makes me nostalgic for the days when movie magazines told us the stars were different from us, even if we never really believed it.