Who’s Really #Winning?

By Kelly Hickman, Thursday, March 3, 2011, at 3:42 pm.

Charlie Sheen has invited us into his fantastical world of warlocks, “winning” and even the #tigerblood he claims as his own. The absurdity continues at the never-ending pace of our 24-hour news cycle, and none of us can look away. After “firing” his PR person and going on an incomprehensibly bizarre media circuit filled with irresistible one-liners that will be showing up on merchandise any day now, Sheen has taken to Twitter via @charliesheen to profess his theories on winning directly to his followers.

But who’s actually winning? His 1.14 million followers to date (the first million of which signed on in just 25 hours, breaking yet another Guinness World Record in the category in recent weeks), who are constantly entertained by his crazy antics? Perhaps DirectTV, which got a free yet priceless advertisement via TwitPic? We, the viewers who can’t get enough of the late-night spoofs? Definitely the interviewers, who get even more publicity past the actual interview (take Piers Morgan’s interview with Sheen, which prompted an in-depth look on Conan when Piers sat in his guest chair the following night—serving as a media-on-media look at the phenomenon). Even the Red Cross rode on the crazy Charlie coattails with this tweet from @RedCross: “We may not collect #tigerblood, but we know our donors & volunteers have fierce passion for doing good! #RedCrossMonth.”

This isn’t Charlie Sheen’s first wild ride to captivate Americans, but why are his current (real life, remember?) peaks and valleys inexplicably interesting? Why can’t we just look away? Is it psychological or sociological? I think both.

In Charlie’s honor, a recipe for disaster:

Tiger’s Blood cocktail
2 oz. Media cycle always craving more (and more…)
1 oz. Celebrity influence
3 oz. Buzzing blogosphere/Twittersphere
A Bit of human instinct
A Splash of morbid curiosity
A Dash of bad-boy attitude love and/or loathe
Garnish with psychological peril

Shake it all up, and drink it in—it’s not like you have a choice.

Photo credit: Angela George for Sharon Graphics © 2009

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 3:42 pm. It is filed under Features, Media, PR, Social Media and tagged with 24-hour news cycle, blogosphere, Charlie Sheen, Conan, Guinness World Record, Piers Morgan, PR, Red Cross, TwitPic, Twitter, Twittersphere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.