Keira Knightley doesn’t care to Twitter, thank you very much. You won’t find her on MySpace or Facebook either. Keira not only finds social-networking sites “dehumanizing”, she hates the Internet in total. Does she know there are cute pictures of puppies and kittens on the Internet? Probably not.
Keira also says that she doesn’t want or expect special treatment because she’s a “celebrity”. In fact, she doesn’t even believe that she is a celebrity. Keira says “I don’t go home or out with my friends saying I’m a celebrity, and I don’t ask to be treated like a queen…My mum and dad would not like that.” That’s nice. The Telegraph has more:
Keira Knightley has said she hates “dehumanizing” social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star said: “I hate the Internet. I find it dehumanizing to constantly check emails or social sites which have become so fashionable.” But the 24-year-old actress admits to being “obsessed” with TV soap Emmerdale and US medical show Nip/Tuck.
In an interview to promote her film The Duchess, she also insisted: “I am not a celebrity. I don´t go home or out with my friends saying I´m a celebrity, and I don´t ask to be treated like a queen.”
“My mum and dad would not like that.”
A number of other stars have also expressed their distain for the web. Hip hop star Busta Rhymes recently claimed social networking sites are “dehumanizing people.”
Those who have tried to appear in step with online trends have often found themselves caught out. Australian actor Hugh Jackman had to apologise and admit his Twitter account was updated by a member of his staff in the US after one of his postings confused the name of the Sydney Opera House.
[From The Telegraph]
As to the idea that the social-networking sites are somehow dehumanizing, I don’t know. If Keira doesn’t want to do it, fine, but lots of people seem to enjoy it. I’m not a fan – I prefer my privacy, and I don’t care to update strangers on what I had for lunch. In my opinion, the social-networking stuff isn’t so much “dehumanizing” as epically boring. Just a lot of voyeurs and exhibitionists enjoying one another, and I’m neither.
Keira is one of those women who would seem more at home in another era. Much like Dita Von Teese, I could see Keira in a bygone era before Twitter and before the internet. Keira would be at home in the post-WWII era, I think. An early 1950s waif, an expatriate in Paris or something like that.
Here’s Keira Knightley with Sienna Miller at the British Independent Film Awards in November. Images thanks to WENN.com .
I love this girl. She is darling and seems pretty grounded for her celebrity status. I will have to agree with her one this one, facebook, twitter and the like are not for me either.
look at that bulimic jaw
form another era. does the woman not make a film where she is not in a corset?
Keira doesn’t really strike as the ‘checking her email’ type. Does she even have a computer? That does help shape your opinions. However I never got the appeal of half of these social sites – well at least not the ones with the fug layouts.
Do people really want know when you’re getting on a bus or boiling an egg. It’s a bit weird when you stop to think about it.
And to be honest, if I was in the public eye, I’d probably hate the internet too. A whole medium to avoid because people are probably slagging you off on most of the sites. Bummer.
I just reopened a facebook account under really private settings and I have very few friends on it. I don’t consider myself an exhibitionist or a voyeur, but since I don’t live near my old friends and rarely get a chance to socialize, this is a good way for me to do so. It does sometimes give me twinges of unease, but I try to maintain as much privacy as possible. I think basically it comes down to, to each his own.
bulimic jaw. lolz on that.
bulimic jaw? she looks fine.
I actually can’t stand Keira and her pout mouth.
You know what is dehumanizing? That dress.
You hate social network sites and think Twitter is stupid? Gee I think that’s the first time I’ve EVER heard that from a CB writer! You guys are so superior. I can tell by the way you stand back and acting like a snob about something other people enjoy.
There was this GREAT voting advert posted in the student center in November:
You just spent two hours stalking your ex on facebook, and you can’t take 30 seconds to vote?
Facebook is great for keeping in contact with long-distance friends…but that’s about it. And I find Twitter to be really stupid. Why do you want people to know what’s going on at every waking moment in your life? That’s like, the ultimate stalking tool *shudder*
Meh. I mean, I get where Keira and Kaiser are coming from in some ways, but it totally bugs to hear people criticizing the social networking phenomena without really getting into it and seeing the potential for all the benefits.
Admittedly, it also has the potential for going seriously wrong and bringing out the attention whore in us all, and someone like Keira whose life people are constantly prying into would dislike it, but it’s not all narcissists and voyeurs. It can be used for branding and public relations and marketing in an amazing way and as a great way of exchanging information and having conversations and can be so entertaining, as long as it’s used in moderation.
Twitter is just another part of the plan by the ‘powers that be’ to reduce communication further and further from meaningful statements that convey information and require thought and reflection to understand, into 5-second manipulative sound-bytes that sensationalize the trivial.
Facebook is great for seeing how fat your old schoolmates got – the jerks that gave you hell in high school for being into weird music and stuff.
The funny thing is, we can be in communication with total strangers (or nearly strangers) from halfway around the world…but never speak to our next door neighbours!
I have no issue with Facebook, etc. (I have never tried Twitter or MySpace or anything else, but it’s not dislike so much as disinterest). We very much live in a global villiage, and it makes sense that we want to take advantage of being able to talk to people we normally wouldn’t be able to.
I’ll tell you what is really dehumanizing–stupid cell phones/blackberries…so that even though you might be sitting right in front of someone, you can still interrupt them, ignore them, or talk/text to other people while paying scant attention to the one you are with.
That bugs me. It’s rude. And most people who use it are not so important that they need to be able to be gotten ahold of 24/7 (I give President Obama a pass here!LOL)
what an idiot
I enjoy the freedom that I have to communicate with my family on the internet. I live in another country with a 14-hour time difference from my loved ones and friends in the U.S.
The internet allows me to keep in touch and show them photographs without calling them at 2am or going for months without updates through the postal mail.
Technology can be abused. I find that a lot of people say hateful things that are totally out of character on the internet…things that they would NEVER let pass their lips in person.
It’s up to the individual to govern himself and his behavior online, as well as governing how he allows technology to affect his human relationships in the real world.
Keira is a beautiful woman with charisma and talent, that is just fading away.
It is becoming painful to watch her, because of how sickly thin she appears to be.
I wish some of her friends or family would so something.
Thanks to social sites, it alters the way people connect to each other. Now you find out that someone’s pregnant, or suddenly single through an alert on facebook? Come on.
Yup, it makes sense that Keira Knightley would enjoy a TV program about plastic surgery since she’s apparently had quite a bit on those linebacker thighs, etc.
As to her disdain of the Internet – yes, that’s about right: Reading is a prerequisite – ergo, a no-go for Keira.
Lori Price
The internet is a double edged blade, I can understand from her perspective, or why any other celebrity without a severe case of narcissism would dislike it.
However it is also by far the largest venue for free speech in the history of humankind, and because of that, it has tremendous potential and value to do good.
We must never, ever lose the internet, for all the bad and good, it’s a part of us now.
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