Hugh Hefner is old. I don’t know how old exactly, but I do know that he fell asleep at his last birthday party. And I hate to generalize, but old people aren’t really the Twitter demographic. And yet, the Hef has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. So is the guy actually taking time away from all his fornicating to send tweets? Apparently not. One of his three new girlfriends, Crystal Harris, does the actual posts. Though she insists that they do come from the mind of Hef.

At the other end of the spectrum is Lindsay Lohan. It’s abundantly clear from her frenzied and melodramatic musings about life and Ronson-romance in the fast lane, that her tweets could come from nobody else. If she does have someone ghost writing for her on Twitter, that person should probably check into rehab.

Professional athletes seem to, for the most part, actually write their own tweets. After all, the NFL and NBA both banned the use of Twitter by the players during games. And Shaquille O’Neal is an avid user of the social networking site. In fact, a nosey blogger (not me!) actually tracked Shaw down at cafe for the express purpose of seeing if he was really sending all those tweets. And yep, it was him.

All evidence indicates that yes, some celebrities are really themselves on Twitter, while others hire a person or two to manage their “brand” in the online world. And for those who really do tweet themselves, the question should be asked, is that really such a good idea? I’m looking at you, Courtney Love.

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1. Twitter: actually useful!
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3. Need a reason to join Twitter?