Hey, Ashton.
I wasn’t going to follow you. It just seemed so mainstream to do – and that is something I always felt I was not – mainstream, I mean! I am a birdwatcher and a conservationist. Sure I have seen some of your movies, but I am not one of your fans. But today, I decided to follow you on Twitter anyway. My follow is of no importance, since you already beat CNN to the first million followers. But, I’ll through in my 10 bucks to the anti-malaria fund, because it is a decent thing you are doing.
As I was looking at your stream and seeing that you actually interact with your followers on Twitter, I realized that: “Man, this guy really has the power to promote any good cause that can convince him to retweet that cause”. For instance, I know a small NGO Rain Forest Partnership that wants to help protecting forests in Peru (where I live) and help the local communities to find sustainable ways of living – through ecotourism and low impact ecological agriculture. Would that not be cool to have you, Ashton support such a cause and retweet it to your million plus followers?
I realize, just as I am suggesting you to do this – yes this a lobby intent for a good cause – I imagine that maybe one of every 10 or 20 of your followers is lobbying you for a retweet of a cause. You would have between 100.000 and 50.000 causes to choose from. Which to choose? You have to choose wisely!
There are evil voices stating that all this buzz with you and CNN is just a media stunt. Well, sure isn’t everything in show-biz? The point is that you are now in position to do good things. And you are doing it with the Malarianomore.org plead. You’ve got the power to do a lot of good, if you want. It is your choice! Use or miss-use! Either take this and do something serious good – or be shallow. There is much on stake for your credibility. So far so good and that is why I am following you on Twitter.
No-one can accuse Larry King of being shallow. In the below interview he says he never liked the tech for personal use, never uses text messages on the phone and not even computers. But now you got him twittering under @kingsthings. Well, done!
Larry King confesses he misses in depth journalism in today’s shallow and fast news stream. Now Larry is position to retweet any indepth journalism articles he finds on the net. Let’s hope Larry King also gets a million followers!
Finally, in spite of all those that critisize and heckle you for the shallowness of having a million followers on twitter, you have my respect. Now, go and do some good. Support conservation and sustainable development for local communities. Don’t sell out! You have a great responsibilty to your followers.
