Scottee’s a bit of a legend in British performance art and cabaret circles, even though he’d hate to admit it himself. The 26-year-old writer/performer/director has already worked with some of the biggest names in this field and won a host of prestigious awards, not to mention a bunch of notoriety and some serious critical acclaim. 

While there’s more than a hint of Leigh Bowery to Scottee’s persona, he denies seeing himself as a “drag queen,” even if that’s how the staff at Marks & Spencer refer to him. What Scottee Scottee is, beyond the messed-up make up and torn stockings, is a performer, as his involvement with London’s Duckie collective, and his own Eat Your Heart Out troupe, proves. From his own website:

He has broken limbs, been questioned by Police and lost 100’s of pairs of high heels in his determination to please and challenge his audiences. Scottee has been critically compared to variety and music hall greats with his unique practice of light entertainment. 

…

His brash, clumsy and obnoxious approach to performance has left audiences confused, annoyed & covered in glitter. Whatever you think of Scottee - he probably won’t care.

But still, all this is not enough. Scottee wants more.

His latest project is called Follow and traces his efforts to attract more followers to his Twitter account. The end goal is for Scottee to have more followers on that social network than the British TV psychic Russell Grant, tho whom Scottee bares a passing resemblance, and often gets compared (it’s those sweaters, dear).

So far, so self-indulgent, I can hear you thinking. Well, yeah. All performance art is self-indulgent. What’s more important is what the viewer takes from the experience, and what light the artist can shed on cultural, and political, phenomena. And surprisingly, a project about attracting more Twitter followers is actually pretty good in that respect.

Who is real? What is real? Why should that really matter? Are online relationships as valid as real-world contact? Even if it’s with a robot? If they’re not as valid, then why not?

Scottee is open in proclaiming that social networking is the best invention in the history of humankind, and he makes for a compelling voice on our journey through Twitter’s seamy underbelly. Here is part two of the ongoing Follow video series, but if you’d rather watch Follow chronologically, part one is here:
 

 
Follow is running in conjunction with the Abandon Normal Devices festival, and you can follow Scottee Scottee on Twitter here.

 
Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair’s spin doctor, who allegedly “sexed up” that dossier on WMD) had a pop on twitter at writer (Veep, The Thick of It) and broadcaster, Armando Iannucci, over his acceptance of an O.B.E. in the Queen’s Honor’s List.

As to be expected, Campbell came out a very poor second.

Follow Armando on twitter
 .
With thanks to John Hassay
 

 
Community’s Donald Glover’s thoughts on “racist rapists.” I suppose that’s one way you could look at it…

Follow @DonaldGlover on Twitter.

Via reddit

 
I guess a lot of today’s Twittering youngins’ had no idea who this old Paul McCartney guy was performing at the 2012 Grammys last night.

I wonder if any of these people would recognize Don Henley? Robert Plant? Peter Gabriel? Roger Waters? Probably not, I mean, not knowing who Paul McCartney is, is truly shameful (no matter what you think of his music after, say 1976). Would these folks know Elton John if he was standing in front of them? Mick Jagger if he head-butted them?

Where is the line drawn with someone who can’t identify one of the Beatles???

They would be able to ID Gene Simmons, though. That’s fucked up!

See more of the “Oh gawd do I feel old/Christ they’re bloody ignorant” tweets at BuzzFeed.

 
You can read Rupert’s pro-SOPA tweets on his Twitter feed.
 
(via reddit)

 
Supervelma’s hand-stitched Kanye West tweets on Etsy are hilarious! Sadly, it appears Supervelma’s shop is sold out of Kanye tweets, but you can message her about special orders here.
 

 

 
(via Boing Boing)

 
If there had always been an Internet. See more here.

TheLizardKing Jim Morrison
Mother, I want to….

Thanks to How To Be A Retronaut

 
@BorowitzReport

(via TDW)

 
(via GraphJam)

 
“We expect to be back in about 1 million years. Thanks for your patience.”
 
(via Super Punch)

 
@SomeGreyBloke has figured it out!

Via Fishbowl LA/TIna Dupuy

In a development which will likely strike fear into the hearts of all Dangerous Minds readers, new software has been developed which can recognize sarcastic tweets. Presumably this is 90% of the content on Twitter. Via Slashdot:

“Even humans sometimes fail to recognize sarcasm and irony; can machines do better? An algorithm that identifies sarcastic tweets (PDF) on Twitter and sarcastic sentences in product reviews on Amazon will be presented next week in the International Conference for Weblogs and Social Media in Washington, DC, and in the Computational Natural Language Learning in Sweden in July. A team from the Hebrew University, Israel, has developed an algorithm that identifies sarcastic sentences by using a machine learning technique in which a small number of sarcastic sentences act as seeds for the software to learn and generalize upon. The algorithm can then identify sarcastic sentences that are nothing like the examples. The variety of recognized sarcastic sentences is impressive, though the results are not perfect. But again, we don’t do it so well ourselves, do we?”

(Slashdot: New software recognizes sarcastic tweets)

 
It seems that someone’s had a lil’ change of heart where it comes to social media. Known for his radio and television speeches which can go on and on and on and on, Venezuelan el Presidente Hugo Chavez will be forced to learn a little brevity when he starts Twittering. Can Twitter’s 140 character limit accommodate the loquacious leader?

From the Telegraph:

In January Mr Chavez said that using Twitter, the internet and text messaging to criticism his regime was “terrorism.”

He has now decided to use the social networking tool for his own purposes.

“Comandante Chavez is going to open his Twitter account soon to wage the battle online,” Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela’s state-run telecommunications agency, said on Venezuelan television, according to Bloomberg News.

“I’m sure he’ll break records for numbers of followers.”

And he’ll probably prove to be much more interesting than Ashton Kutcher or John Mayer!

This had me spitting coffee. It’s Guruji—the Real Social Media guru, who has come from India to Los Angeles, the real birthplace of spirituality and yoga, to enlighten the Tweeters.

(Ashram of Tweets)

(@guruji)

(Thanks, @leashless!)

 
Poor Britney Spears just can’t catch a break! Earlier this week, the beleaguered pop strumpet, still smarting from the walkouts and poor reviews she encountered during her recent Australian shows, had her Twitter account hacked and defaced with an “Illuminati” wallpaper background. In addition, the hackers also made two tweets, one reading ?