Twitter Makes Connections Feel Real
In the United States, the world of theater is one that is very isolated. Many people enjoy going to plays and musicals, however, the Broadway stars and genius creators are usually only famous within their community. I am not saying that no one knows great playwrights such as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, but a lot of very talented people are not known to the common public.
With that being said, a specific individual has turned that around with a big help from social media. Creator and Star of Broadway’s hit musical, Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda has become a huge celebrity and household name. Miranda’s primary form of communication is Twitter and you can find him with the handle @Lin_Manuel. In effort for Lin to stay connected to his fans, he Tweets upwards of 10 to 20 times a day. Most of the content is ordinary daily activities that he is doing. With that, he also supports his Hamilton actors by reposting their tweets and responds to lucky fans with answers to their continuous questions.
What Lin is doing is genius. Starting with him posting an annoying amount of times a day about what he is doing, he is bringing his fans closer in and making them feel apart of his life. Most celebrities, in effort to maintain their privacy, won’t post minor things such as the book they are reading or three second video of their toddler trying to play the piano. It is working out for Lin because he has made himself feel approachable while being idolized, which in turn makes fans idolize him even more.
Miranda also makes his fans and followers feel like a family because of his constant reposting of his cast mates and predecessor’s tweets. Lin has been out of the cast of Hamilton for about seven months now, similarly to most of the original cast, and he continues to support them and communicate with them publicly. As a fan, it shows us that Lin truly cares about the people he works with and again, it makes us want to be even more involved in his life and apart of everything.
Although not the only point of his Twitter use, social media is very much used to build brands. Essentially, Lin is using Twitter to build up his brand, which happens to be himself. If we were still in a time without social media such as Twitter, Lin would still have fans because he is very talented, however, it would have been more unlikely for him to break out of just the theater world and into the general public. Twitter has acted as a space to bring people together and in Lin’s case, it has brought him a whole army of fans. For a lot of people, feeling like you know the person whom you look up to and idolize is very important in continuing your admiration for them.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is using Twitter to make the world fall in love with him. And it’s working.
