Media Bastard

In case you’re wondering, I won’t be changing my Facebook picture to that of a celebrity as part of the viral craze sweeping the social networking site, as reported in this Media Guardian article. There are a number of reasons for this, chief among them the fact that I don’t look like any celebrities.

The more perspicacious among you will have spotted that most other people don’t either. Yes, I’m sure you have a mate who, after you’ve had 16 pints of snakebite and been bottled in both eyes, looks a bit like somebody famous. You tell them practically daily because you’re pathetically desperate to sleep with them. They don’t count.

So why is it that legions of people are now signing up to change their pictures to the airbrushed press-shots of their idols? Gary from Romford, whose real-life face more closely resembles a fresh placenta, suddenly becomes Zac Efron. Gary’s justification for this isn’t known. Perhaps his Second Life persona bears a passing resemblance to the High School Musical starlet.

If people start changing their facebook profile pictures then what next? Will we all start wearing Brangelina masks on a Friday night in a vain attempt to appear more attractive? Perhaps we’ll simply start retweeting celebrities on Twitter instead of saying anything meaningful. There could be thousands of little Paris Hilton doppelgangers, screeching and whooping at each other all day, every day.

Frankly, I find the whole thing mildly disconcerting. I’m not mates with Tom Cruise, and there is a very good reason for that. Iit’s because he’s scientology-toting lunatic with all the social appeal of a vasectomy. So please, don’t play celebrity doppelgangers on Facebook, I’ve got a better game. Let’s all change our pictures to those of known sex offenders and see how long it takes Facebook to get shut down by the FBI.