EdCompBlog: Confession is good for the soul

Monday, September 04, 2006

Confession is good for the soul

I have a confession to make... I think I'm addicted to the X-Factor. I'm especially ashamed that I enjoy the early stages when most of the "entertainment" seems to come from watching people who have little hope of successfully putting one foot in front of the other never mind having a successful pop career.

On the show broadcast on 26th August, there was a woman called Vickee who claimed to be Louis Walsh's biggest fan and who ran his unofficial fanclub and website. Much to Simon Cowall's amusement, she claimed to have 45 members. I finally remembered to go and look for her site at the weekend and eventually unearthed Lovin' Louis - The Unofficial Louis Walsh Fansite which now has over 1200 members. That'll put Simon's gas at a peep! :-)

I was prompted to write this post because, before I found Vickee's fansite, I found her MySpace account. Listed among her friends was Sharon Osbourne. "Surely not the Sharon Osborne!", I thought to myself but a quick check seemed to confirm it was indeed Mrs. Ozzy! Sharon wasn't her only "celebrity" friend. The rest of the Osbornes were there (Ozzy, Jack, and Kelly) as well as some of last year's contestants (Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein and Chico). I don't know why I was surprised to see famous people with MySpace accounts, but I was!

Sap,
originally uploaded by Dave Gorman

Then, as synchronicity would have it, while searching for a picture of a fish, I found a Flickr account belonging to Dave Gorman. Yes, the Dave Gorman of Are You Dave Gorman? and Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure fame. He also hosted a Radio 4 series called Genius which I thoroughly enjoyed. (Through his picture of a wall, I was introduced to the concept of Moviscrolliosis - which is interesting.)

So, is anyone else surprised to find famous people using social networking tools, or is it just me? Has anyone else come across celebrity snappers on Flickr, or is it just me? And does anyone else now have a weird image in their head of Ozzy sitting at Ozzfest on Internet Chat to his MySpace mates before he goes onstage to sing War Pigs... No? Just me then. :-)