In an era where the size of one’s celebrity is often judged by their social media following, and it's been said movie stars no longer exist, George Clooney is a movie star. However, he's one who, unlike Tom Cruise, doesn’t spend time on social media. Not only does he not mess with social media, but he actually recommends that aspiring actors not mess with it either, and he’s honestly got a compelling argument.
George Clooney is back in the awards conversation this year, thanks to his new movie, Jay Kelly, alongside Adam Sandler. As such, he recently appeared on THR's Awards Chatter podcast, where he revealed that he tells actors looking for advice to get off of social media, because being part of it opens the door to losing out on roles if their following isn’t big enough. Clooney said:
I talk to kids all the time. I talk to kids at SAG and things, and they’re all on Instagram and everything. And when I was directing and I was casting, and it was between two actors, the casting director and the studio would come to me and go, ‘Well, she’s got 175,000 followers on Instagram, and the other girl’s got 30,000.’ Those were literally the discussions we had. And I said to all these actors, ‘Get the fuck off of it. Get off of all of it. Because if you’re not on it, you have nothing to be compared to.’
It’s an interesting argument, but one that actually makes some sense. To the degree that anybody still goes to the movies based on a desire to see a particular actor, the social media following of that actor is a numerical gauge of just how popular an actor is. An actor who has more followers than another is de facto more popular. We know studios are going to take any advantage they can to try and make any given movie a success, so if it means casting a role based on popularity, so be it.
So while a social media following has the potential to help an actor break out, those numbers can also be a hindrance if they don’t compare favorably to others. As such, not being on social media can actually help, as it becomes impossible for one’s relative popularity to be accurately judged.
Of course, George Clooney knows he’s something of an old man yelling at clouds in this case. Social media can be a major source of income for celebrities, which is going to make actors not using it a pretty big ask. Fans also like social media because it makes movie stars more accessible than ever before, but that’s exactly why Clooney thinks not having it can be a benefit. He continued:
And that access, I get it — you can monetize it, you can drink a certain kind of water and they’ll pay you 10 grand, and fair enough, I get it, I understand it. But trying to maintain a career and answer all of the questions that every individual has for you, it’s diminishing your ability to be bigger than life. It’s inevitable, and I’m sort of swimming upstream, and I don’t think that there’s much you can do about it, but I do think it’s better to not be as available.
To be fair, George Clooney still has that classic movie star appeal that a lot of actors don’t have anymore. Perhaps that’s all because we don’t see him posting selfies on Instagram every day. Maybe we could all learn something from him.
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