This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The great thing about Twitter, and the curse, as well, is that you can instantly spout your thoughts — 140 characters at a time — to anyone in the world.
Also, on Twitter, all thoughts are equal: The billionaire and the college kid, the superstar and the homebody — they all get the same amount of space. Although it's likely that more people are paying attention to what the superstars and billionaires are saying.
So to which superstars should you be giving your Twitter attention? Here are 10 of the most interesting that I keep tabs on:
Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) • One of the most Twitter-savvy celebs out there, Milano (formerly of TV's "Charmed") updates regularly about her acting jobs, her sports-fashion line and her favorite social causes. She's currently pregnant, so there's a lot of impending baby discussion. She once got into a running Twitter conversation with the Old Spice guy, which was quite hilarious.
Eliza Dushku (@elizadushku) • The former "Buffy" star is like a slightly younger version of Milano: Busy, opinionated and fun-loving, with lots of projects in the works (such as producing a biopic of Robert Mapplethorpe). She's also a Red Sox fan, which balances Milano's Dodger blue.
Paul Feig (@paulfeig) • The director of "Bridesmaids" and the Utah-filmed "Unaccompanied Minors" has an acerbic wit, usually aimed at himself. Sample tweet: "Someone told me to teach my dog to 'heel' and I thought they said 'heal' and now he's a doctor and his malpractice insurance is killing me."
Zooey Deschanel (@therealzooeyd) • As you might expect from the actress/folk-rocker, her tweets are sunny and charmingly off-kilter.
Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) • The comedian (and voice of Remy in "Ratatouille") is one of the funniest guys on Twitter. He was particularly brilliant just before the falsely predicted end of the world this month. One tweet: "Macho Man Randy Savage was the only one who could have fought the Rapture demons. And God took him. IT'S HAPPENING, PEOPLE!"
Elizabeth Banks (@ElizabethBanks) • For a big-time movie/TV star, Banks' tweets are refreshingly normal, as she discusses anything from ice cream sandwiches to "American Idol." (She also announced her casting in "The Hunger Games" via Twitter.)
Kerry Washington (@kerrywashington) • The actress balances the mundane (like her workout schedule) with the high-minded, as she's also involved with the artist-activist group The Creative Coalition.
Kevin Smith (@ThatKevinSmith) • OK, so his self-serving rants go on for multiple tweets, he swears like a longshoreman, and he divulges way too much information about what he and his wife do in bed. That said, the "Clerks" filmmaker knows how to mobilize an army of fans via Twitter better than anybody.
Diablo Cody (@diablocody) • The "Juno" screenwriter has been a sporadic tweeter of late, though the recent cancellation of her TV series, "The United States of Tara," prompted an outpouring of commiseration.
Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) • Deprived of his speaking voice and always a quick adopter of new technology, Ebert at first resisted Twitter but now he's found a second home there. He'll post 20 or more a day, from one-liners to fascinating links to topics that interest him — and a lot of things interest him.
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Update •This will be the last Culture Vulture column in The Salt Lake Tribune, ending a run that started in 1997 under Brandon Griggs and continued with Dan Nailen and Griggs again before I took it over in June 2008.
No, nobody's been fired. (Why? What have you heard?) As part of the Tribune's upcoming changes to our features sections, the Vulture column is moving to Friday's The Mix section starting next week, with a new name: The Cricket.
I'm also consolidating my two daily blogs, Culture Vulture and The Movie Cricket, into a single blog — also called The Cricket. This change is more about when I write than what I write, as I will remain the same opinionated so-and-so I have always been.
Sean P. Meansis on Twitter, at @themoviecricket.