After the lecture, I’m so surprised that I’ve actually followed one on Twitter, that is Cookie Monster!
Though it may sound silly to follow a cartoon character who is not even exist in the real world, I found it funny to know what Cookie Monster is doing at the moment. In fact, Cookie Monster has already got 28K followers, well, I guess it reflects that he really has a lot of fans who love to watch his cartoon. Though we know that there is somebody pretends to be Cookie Monster and portrays the way he talks, it is excited to see Cookie Monster always update tweets. It feels like Cookie Monster really exists in the real world, and as a follower, I get more into the cartoon and this is probably the aim of creating a fakester - manifesting the commercial effect.
I believe these fakesters can actually serve as ways to express one’s interests and personality, for example, like me following Cookie Monster at twitter. I guess my friends can probably interpret that Cookie Monster is one of my favorite cartoon character, right? I’d be sad if Cookie Monster is being removed from the social network. In fact, I guess you would be as delighted as me if Cookie Monster replied your comment one day, it feels like you are really chatting or connecting with him.
I think some of you may have also follow a fakester or make friends with them, come and share your experience with me!
I think the example you've mentioned here is an example of good Fakesters. Though there isn't real Cookie Monster in the world, the character is kept 'alive' by people pretending him. It is like the staff members of theme parks dressing in costumes of famous cartoon characters but now we can see Cookie monster twit as if a real person because of the modern technology. It's a good example of Fakesters because it really keeps the character alive as collective memory and it's entertaining to read its twits.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think there may also be people making use of this social media affordance to say bad things, to spread rumors or to attack others. This would be definitely a bad fakester.
That's true, I guess what you mean is a kind of online bullying, right?
DeleteI like Cookie Monster! haha I think it's fun to see how some people to pretend to be someone else on the Internet especially when we all know they are not real. I have even seen some facebook users are actually characters from Japanese animation. haha And I also agree with Sarella that we all must be careful with fakesters who have bad intentions. God knows what they are after!
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