He started out as "the jerk." He was this "wild and crazy" goofball. It turned out, he was a creative and talented actor ("Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" and "All of Me" were early examples). He was the opposite of his image: a serious, intelligent guy. An art collector. An expert banjo player. A novelist.
I could say:
When I was a young man, Steve Martin was my favorite goofball comic. He turned out to be witty and bright as well."
Anything wrong with that?
Read on.
Too bad Steve Martin deleted the Tweet, but I think I know why.
He's a sensitive guy and he was hurt at being misunderstood.
So he withdrew the comment.
His next reaction was probably anger. WHY am I being misunderstood for a compliment??
That would be another reason to pull the Tweet, and be tempted to shut the account down entirely.
He doesn't need this shit.
Kneejerk morons who want to find fault are all too happy to rant on Twitter and criticize and bully people they don't even know.
So, a pretty woman turns out to be smart. We say the same thing about a baseball player or a boxer. Or a rock star. Or a stand-up comic who became famous for his "arrow the the head" gag, which nobody got as a parody of "lampshade on the head" life-of-the-party assholes.
Celebrities at Steve Martin's level do NOT need Twitter or Facebook. Unless you actually enjoy jousting with morons (John Cleese is one of those), you can make do with a website that explains who you are, what you did, and what you're up to.
I've only met Steve Martin once; I found him to be, yes, a quiet, well-mannered man. I've met Cleese a few times, and he's quite robust and outgoing, and it doesn't surprise me that he'd enjoy topping the bottom-dwellers. But, generally...
...the more "Followers" you have, the greater the risk. Ask John Lennon. Oh, you can't.
The Steve Martin incident is just a minor example of why it's better to take a low profile. You have to be some kind of idiot to be famous and waste your time Tweeting.
Oh. Donald Trump.
Funny, there were much worse Tweets posted after the death of Carrie Fisher. Cinnabon, anyone?
What people quickly learn about Twitter is that it's a good place to offend people and make enemies.
Spike Milligan once said, and he was so right, "When you brush up mediocrity, you brush up venom." People in Armpit, Florida, who've never met anyone more famous than their local meth dealer, can suddenly get the attention of a Steve Martin or a John Cleese, and vent their anger and stupidity at them. After all, saying "I love your work" won't stand out as much as an insult or threat.
Cleese enjoys this crap. Steve Martin obviously does not.
Mediocre people are amazed that rich, famous people actually have the time to fritter about on Twitter, and that seems to make them even more venomous and nasty.
If you don't turn a blind eye to human nature, the Internet itself makes people venomous and nasty, and there are plenty of creeps who have a great time picking on anyone with an opinion on Twitter or an account on Facebook.
From the safety of an anonymous account and a basement in Turkeyface, Florida (it's almost ALWAYS Florida), trolls make themselves feel good by making somebody else feel bad.
PS, about all this praise for Carrie Fisher being a "feminist" and a great actress because she appeared in some moronic sci-fi movies (nobody seems to mention her other acting work or her books). It would be helpful if somewhere in this "too soon" and "so sad" and "RIP" and "love always for Princess Leia" stuff, there would be a line about, "drugs can cause a weakened body and a fatal heart attack." Same thing could be said about George Michael. The lesson isn't that George Michael's forgotten 80's music "will live forever," but rather, that he died some 20 years before his time. The lesson with Carrie Fisher is that as colorful as recounting drug and sex stories are, you may stop talking about them 20 years before your time.
Steve Martin? Play your banjo, collect your art, write your books, act in films, hang out in the real world with your many friends...and don't feed the birdbrains on Twitter.
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