OMG, why is #DionneWarwick trending on twitter?

April 6, 2021 6:36 PM

Dionne Warwick asked twitter earlier today, "Do you have an unusual pet? Send me a picture with my hash tag #dionnewarwick. I want to see how strange this can get." Twitter responded, which is why she's trending. The replies are full of ALL kinds of pets!
posted by hippybear (10 comments total)

Thanks, Dionne!
posted by Going To Maine at 7:31 PM on April 6, 2021

Dionne Warwick emerging as the most wholesome person on Twitter is one of the handful of good developments to come out of the 2020-2021 trash fire.
posted by ActionPopulated at 7:35 PM on April 6, 2021 [25 favorites]

Needs more snakes!
posted by Sublimity at 7:45 PM on April 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am not super proficient in twitter, but after scrolling through a bit I wonder if/when Dionne replies "people, cats and dogs are NOT unusual pets!".
posted by Meatbomb at 9:56 PM on April 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

This comes close but does not top the time she told people to stop putting her songs in indecently named Spotify playlists.
posted by PenDevil at 12:54 AM on April 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

Dionne Warwick's Twitter is so good that even people who don't do social media read it.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 4:15 AM on April 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

My hand hurts from scrolling. 13/10.
posted by tommasz at 5:59 AM on April 7, 2021

OMG! The axolotl named Lancelotl!
posted by aubilenon at 8:09 AM on April 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

The unusual pets are great but I'm equally delighted by her polite and devastating interaction with some Rick & Morty fans.
posted by ZaphodB at 3:44 PM on April 7, 2021

Dionne Warwick's Twitter is so good that even people who don't do social media read it.

Dionne Warwick's Twitter is ... something of a managed construct.

This thread from Myles McNutt is interesting; he's been skeptical throughout:

Regardless of my objections to how the account is being run, no one—myself included—can ignore that the hustle is working.

But I do indeed have an objection to a celebrity social media account that makes no effort to distinguish between posts being made by the individual themselves or by social media managers, especially when that manager is the one who initiated the star's arrival on social media.

Based on the interviews she's been doing, I have no doubt that Dionne Warwick is enjoying her time on social media! But the choice to make her Twitter voice hyper-aware of cultural trends, social media norms, and engagement strategies is...a choice.

At a time when we should be acknowledging the labor of social media management, here's a prominent case of actively erasing one's own labor in an effort to maximize engagement because we as a society have bought into the false intimacy of celebrity social media accounts.

So instead of a niece working to help her aunt navigate social media—which would be a fun account, frankly—we get an account where it's never clear who's speaking, a choice that inevitably raises questions about the authenticity of any and all content from that page.

(Although I do agree with Warrick + Warwick calling him out on his recurring use of "the niece" as a term of diminishment; that's also a choice on his part and not a good one.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:34 PM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]