Jennifer Aniston is not ready to face her haters on the Internet. She says she’s not that computer literate and unlike her new boyfriend she doesn’t have a vanity Google alert set up to page her every time she gets a smidgen of coverage. If people send her clips from YouTube or FunnyorDie she’ll check them out, but she’s scared to go surfing around and hasn’t considered using Facebook or MySpace to communicate with her fans. In fact she likens social networking sites to “dancing with the devil.”
“My favorite move is when people pretend that they’re on the phone,” Aniston, 39, says in next Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine, “and they kind of dial and take the picture at the same time. You hope they’re doing it for themselves – that they’re not thinking, ‘I’m going to dine out on you.’ ”
Yet the actress also admits to being in awe of the tech-savvy. “I’m really computer illiterate,” she says. “When I see people on their BlackBerrys, working them like some girls work a hairdryer, I’m just stunned. People have sent me clips from FunnyOrDie.com or YouTube, but I never seek it out.”
So don’t expect the Friends star to be friend-ing you on Facebook anytime soon. Asked if she uses the online social network, Aniston replies, “It’s not for me. I’d be opening myself up too much. I don’t want to sound like a complete innocent – I’ve looked at things, of course. But it’s such spewing. If I look at it, I’ll be affected. It’s like dancing with the devil.”
What does the star like about the Digital Age: computer Scrabble and Wii.
[From People]
I really like how she compares using a blackberry to a hairdryer because you can tell her frame of reference for technology is based on high end personal care. The woman probably has the best skincare and haircare money can but hasn’t really ventured out to embrace gadgets. She’s been seen out with a cellphone with a headset but she likely doesn’t text much and isn’t spending hours online every night. Instead she’s watching Friends reruns and laughing to herself. It’s still 1997 in Aniston’s world. It was a lot simpler then.
Aniston out on 9/18/08 on her cell phone. Credit: Fame
Whatevs, she’s still converted me into a fan. I used to really dislike her (not suprisingly, in the Jen and Brad days. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like whoever Brad’s with?) 😉
Her frame of reference for everything is based on high-end personal care. The woman’s a shallow nitwit.
Cna you imagine if she actually opened up a facebook page that was hers? Oh my that would be crazy – the number of people wanting to be friends would just be out of this world. And then the Brad/Angie fans would start posting hate on her wall. She should do it just for the fun of it.
Personally I don’t hate Jennifer for herself, just for her rabid, hate-spewing fans.
It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to have a FaceBook page.
She probably watches Friends because she hasn’t done anything good since then.
I can just see her at home watching the Thanksgiving episoide with Brad in it and wondering WHY DIDN’T I GIVE HIM BABIES?
Sorry honey – Angelina took care of that. Now they have the big happy family and you have…..
JOHN MAYER! ha
Agree Syko. I’m primarily JA fan-phobic too. Odd how many celebs seem to be such techno-phobes. If I were a celeb, I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself from looking. 😯
@ Syko: It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to have a Facebook page.
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Now, now. Be charitable. Angelina has a great deal of smarts and she’s completely computerphobic.
I don’t do the Facebook crap either. Never tried computer Scrabble… is it fun? Is there computer Trivial Pursuit? That’s my game.
Unfortunately I do both Facebook and MySpace, although not much with the latter lately because I’m playing Warlords on Facebook and it takes so much of my time…
Yes, there is computer Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit – Pogo.com has dozens and dozens of games and both of those are included. They also recently added Yahtzee. All well done and fun to play.
I have no life.
Sounds like she has a life, and doesn’t really have time for adding more junk to it, unlike me, who is all over the internet wasting time, and letting the clutter in my house bury me. LOL
I’m pretty indifferent towards Aniston, but I can really relate to her being leery of MySpace and Facebook.
I’ve never been able to summon the courage to release the Floodgates of Hell, even though I’m constantly berated by my friends. Call me a scaredy-cat, but I’ve got a sense of propriety – and a wild past I don’t feel like dredging up on the world wide web.
Lands’sakes Granny, these newfangled whatsits won’t bite…
@Syko – Thanks for the info! I’m so wary of getting too involved with computer games – I had a very serious Tetris addiction years ago. Do you play this game “Warlords” in your sleep? 😆
CB, I beg you, please stop using the JA photo with her wearing the Cubs hat. 😡
I think I’d throw out my computer if I were a celeb. Not worth it.
She’s got the right idea.
GMAFB, Aniston! This woman is SUCH a lying beech! She had a damned MySpace page when she was married to Brad Pitt! She even used the page to report that the split was amicable and told her fans to not to judge anyone and wish them both well…or some claptrap like that. 🙄 She took the MySpace page down a few weeks later because she was getting a bunch of hate mail. Now she claims to not use MySpace? She can’t even tell the truth about something as innocuous as MySpace? Why can’t this lame woman just go the hell away? 😯
Frankly, I’m surprised by the hairdryer comment… I’m sure she wouldn’t know one end of a fancy hairdryer from the other.. Isn’t that what she has Chris MacMillan for?
I like JA but this Facebook soundbite just seems relatively pointless and imo, makes her sound a little clueless. What is it with stars and politicians who brag about being computer illiterate. I kind of feel that in this day and age, it’s not really something to be proud of. It’s the 21st century – we have robots that vacuum the floor for us but you are scared by the internet? (scratching head)….. I get that they are busy people who don’t have time to sit at a computer 24/7 but really? Not even a little bit? Then again, I suppose when you have people to pay your bills and basically attend to the minutiae of everyday life, then you can simply ignore Quicken or Turbo tax or whatever and get on with having your photos taken buying a coffee..
Plus, can someone please explain to me the opening paragraph in the JA quotes:
“My favorite move is when people pretend that they’re on the phone,” Aniston, 39, says in next Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine, “and they kind of dial and take the picture at the same time. You hope they’re doing it for themselves – that they’re not thinking, ‘I’m going to dine out on you.’
Que ❓
Why is this her favorite movie?
EDIT: Oh, I get it now. I read it as favorite movIe and I was thinking ‘what the eff’?
She said she was not on facebook, didn’t hear her say anything on myspace.
I quite like her too. She has me rooting for her. Mainly because she has never gone out of her way to hurt anyone. In that picture, I would kill to have her body. I am glad she is saying more these days. It takes away the image of a woman unlcuky in love who sleeps for tow hours, wakes up and cries for two then sleeps again. LOL.
Facebook used to actually have credentials as a great professional networking channel for college students and alumni, but they let themselves get sucked down by the myspace savages by opening the floodgates to that of the mainstream ass-hat public, and now they are synonymous.
I’m with Jaundice, no need to rehash with those from my past- there’s a reason I “lost touch” with those people.
at times i consider facebook evil. especially when i see people rack up the number of friends. i’m like how the frick do you know 300 people???
Did salt n’ pepa sing free your mind? Jen Aniston needs to free her mind. She is existentially locked in the ‘yougogirl’ ’90’s and needs to relax in the new millennium. She also needs to find a real man. She picked another guy who wont be true. There ARE true men, Jen.
in every respect this is a woman who lives in the past. so sad. and lonely.
Why don’t these celebs get the hell out of L.A.? They, whine, complain, moan about the paparazzi, and other crap. Just live someplace quietly. Don’t do Oprah,or cheesy ads, date noncelebs and people will forget, I mean leave you alone. They’re addicted to it – and complaining about it generates more attention, etc. etc.
@ DLR: It’s all about using Facebook, not letting Facebook use you. I get invitations all the time to be friends with total unknowns who just happen to have some tangential connection to somebody I know, and I turn them all down. I have about 25 Facebook friends I feel connected to, and that is quite enough.
Were I a celebrity…I wouldn’t want a facebook page, either.
Why invite the hate she would have to endure on such a site?
It just wouldn’t be healthy. I don’t think this makes her shallow or anything else. I think it shows good sense and a healthy dose of self-preservation.
I mean, c’mon. They put up with a lot of crap being famous…why invite more?
While I get the not wanting the hassle of monitoring a fan page on Facebook or Myspace, it’s the whole ‘computer illiteracy’ comment I find weird. The tone of this article (and her quotes) make it sound like Jen has a fear that her computer or blackberry might maul her like a rabid mountain lion should she utilize them beyond basic useage.. I mean, she’s on a freakin’ blackberry in the header photo – although in saying that, she appears to be talking into her hand instead of the microphone, so maybe she is a bigger twonk than I gave her credit for.
Facebook IS evil. You dig up (and get found) by people you are NEVER supposed to run into again, people that the universe totally sent out of your life and you just keep dragging them back in and ugh, it’s so dramatic and terrible.
Plus, who needs to be that connected with all those status updates and twitters? I really don’t. Maybe I’m just a horrible person. 🙂
@doodahs – yeah, what’s that about, the computer illiteracy? So many celebs seem to wear this as a badge of honour. Since a 3yr old can handle computer games etc, it just makes me think they can’t be too bright…
@geronimo: I hear ya. That’s the part that I’m scratching my head over – the badge of honour mentality… Oh and I like to see the Brit spelling of honoUr.. I’ve had to convert my spelling now I’m in the States… Color, Honor, .. no more U’s for me.. and don’t get me started on theatEr… apparently in some Stateside thespian circles, the Brit spelling is used by some to denote the serious nature of their theatrE and the calibEr (or calibrE) of it’s actors. 😆
LOL! Too funny, the theater/caliber spelling thing! Sophisticated!
Re the luddite celebs, some of them are so self-absorbed, they probably don’t have much interest in things outside of themselves. Or they just feel it’s all beneath them. Either way, it’s not something to boast about as technology has never been so user-friendly. My gran starting using a computer in her 70s and she now happily emails, buys online, contributes to newsletters etc (and even finds time to stalk Donald Sutherland!)
Okay… you had me at “and even finds time to stalk Donald Sutherland” 😆
That’s an awesome visual!
I just saw Donald Sutherland’s name mentioned on the recent posts and got nosy…
Well done Granny Geronimo!
Tell me, she wasn’t a member of that old comedy trio, The Nualas was she? they had a song all about stalking him too 😯
I’m just amazed anyone cares about Aniston’s computer habits. I’m also amazed that she thinks anyone cares about it.
Doodahs & Mairead – Granny Geronimo is a life-long Donald Sutherland fan (The Railway Station Man remains her top all time film.) Donald is King, he’s now just one click of a mouse away and she’s making up for lost time! And I loved the Nualas!
I’m just tired of Jennifer Aniston…and all her silly comments. Sadly, it’s the kind of news that people seem to feed upon.
Leave Jennifer alone! All of you Jenn haters can go right to where you came from-hell. If you have NOTHING better to do than hate on celebrities all day, apparently you DON’T have a life. She MIGHT have had a myspace; someone could have also been pretending to be her! So what if she doesn’t go on facebook or myspace. It’s her choice, and if you can’t respect that she has the brains to say no, that is YOUR problem for being such a hater, not hers for not wanting to deal with haters like all of you! Get a life and leave her alone!