Process! Chapter 1

For this assignment we were directed to review two different Twitter profiles. I chose Maxine Kwok-Adams, London Symphony Violinist and William Shatner, actor and director. The differences between the two profiles are immediately apparent. Kwok-Adams’ profile is bright and colorful. She uses a glam gel shot of her and her violin for the profile pic and the cover photo is of the violin with bedazzled designs on the back. These photos match up well with her tagline which reads, “@londonsymphony violinist who loves bling and is never knowingly underdressed.” The two photos she chose emphasize these three aspects. The appearance of the violin in both photos denotes Kwok-Adams’ profession and the main reason someone would follow her on Twitter. The glam shot for a profile pic emphasizes her interest in fashion, while the bedazzled designs on the cover photo show her “love of bling.” They also provide other topics of interest for her followers. Kwok-Adams also peppers her posts with photos of her travels as a member of the orchestra. As a result, her profile is saturated with colors and images similar to her profile and cover pictures.

By contrast, Shatner’s account is quite minimalist. His profile photo is black and white, with his shoulders and the edges of his features fading into dark shadow. His face is expressionless, possibly with a slight glare of condescension. The cover photo is of an old leather desk cover, something used to protect a desk from damage while writing with pens and pencils. However, there are no pages of writing, or pens, or pencils. Just a set of sticky notes in the top left corner showing his “To Do” list. The list itself has only three items: “Win GISHWHES,” “Torment Whats his name,” and “Stir up trouble.” These visual features work well with the persona that Shatner has created for himself: that of an eccentric professional who dabbles in any and all projects that peak his interest, ranging from his most well-known role as Captain Kirk of the Star Trek franchise, to other TV shows, comedy sketches, Priceline commercials, documentaries, Broadway shows, and even musical albums. The desk cover shows this through both visual and spatial means, providing a virtual blank slate, but using the leather texture to evoke feelings of experience and sophistication. The viewer of this twitter account gets the impression that anything could come from this person, but no matter what, it will be interesting. The stark and minimalist visual and textual references are also excellent at demonstrating Shatner’s sarcastic personality. He likes to cause trouble (sometimes for merriment, sometimes for social change), and you can see it visually in his profile picture even before reading his posts. The minimalist approach to his twitter profile continues with a predominance of textual posts. Unlike Kwok-Adams, who posts photos and video regularly, Shatner’s posts are almost entirely text-based. Out of 16.7K posts, Kwok-Adams has 3,269 videos, while out of Shatner’s larger 20.5K posts, only 720 of them contain photos or video.

These two performers both effectively use twitter to communicate with their fans. They are able to do so by being authentic to their personal styles—a fun, musician-fashionista and a multi-talented, experienced, eccentric—and using visual, spatial, and textual tools to portray that style.