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edgewoodrp · 4 years

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A recap of character experiences from October 1st, 2019 through July 31st, 2020.

Enjoy!

Caterina Singh

Following the events of the Wolf Moon, Cat tried to do some investigative work interviewing people in town to get a better picture of what happened - and ran into Heather during her investigation.

Caught up with Vice Principal Holloway during the speed meet.

After being followed by someone on a walk home, some friends stepped in to assist.

She threw a birthday party for her dear friends, Madison and Valerie, which turned into drunken shenanigans, with Heather sitting on her lap at one point, and a kiss with Charlotte at another.

Interviewed some townies on what Edgewood Pride meant to them.

Saw something strange during the firework show at Riverfest which resulted in her hospitalization and now there are some pieces that she’s trying to sort out.

Charlotte Kingsley

Confided in Beatrice her idea to host a small Halloween party at the Kingsley family house. It turned into a heart-to-heart, instead.

Braved the cold to help an acquaintance arrange the festivities at the bonfire on the Bluff.

While driving home on the night of the Wolf Moon, Charlotte (and her car) were attacked by one of the monsters terrorizing the town. It was only thanks to a mysterious barrier spell that Charlotte wasn’t mauled by the monster, and only thanks to Monty that she didn’t freeze to death on the road.

Charlotte recounted what she remembered of the accident to the witches SCC Representative, Rose-Marie Arceneaux the next morning at BHM. She also discovered Logan Cree had been attacked by a creature and admitted as well. Having seen the human face of the one that attacked him, Charlotte attempted to scry for them, but was unsuccessful in locating them.

To keep her mind distracted, Charlotte started helping Karen Pierce with some projects for the PTA.

While out one night, Charlotte met Juliet in the midst of househunting. She put the woman in contact with local real estate mogul and her former neighbor, James Hawthorne, to help speed up the search.

Volunteered to sell raffle tickets at the H.A.G.S. Carnival and sold so many tickets. Many were gifted back to her, so she wrote down other attendees names on the tickets before depositing them in the buckets.

Lost track of an ancient, bespelled tome downtown and performed a ‘lost and found’ spell with the help of Spencer Hawthorne. There were some... unforeseen consequences, but eventually they set things right.

Danced, drank, and played games with all who attended Madison and Valerie’s birthday, hosted by Caterina Singh. Later, per the decree of a Jenga block, Charlotte kissed Cat.

Ran into Monty, Demitri, and Madison at Riverfest in her quest for scented candles and general excitement.

Helped avert a bar fight from breaking out during Spencer’s birthday at Two Old Cows, but may have learned something sinister about the party crasher in the process. Further research has to be done.

Dominic Kingsley

Dominic has been helping his sisters. Charlotte lost her keys, and Bridgette… well, she just wanted some cheep booze.

He has been busy serving the citizens of Edgewood at the Underworld’s bar.

He caught the magic show at Edgewood’s Independence Day Riverfest and then spent the afternoon with his partners.

At his partner Spencer’s birthday party, Dominic took care of ordering refreshments and cheered on the intense game of darts.

Heather Payne

Heather and Xavier have developed a strong friendship after meeting at the grocery store then reconnecting at a speed dating event.

She did some investigating around the hospital after the strange attacks of the wolf moon. There she ran into Caterina doing some more legitimate digging of her own.

As far as investigations go, she finally figured out that Charlotte was the third Kingsley sibling. The two get along fairly well.

The witch has been meeting up with Spencer to discuss potion making.

Heather has been actually socializing, going to two birthday parties within a few months. At Val and Maddie’s birthday party, she partook in a game of truth-or-dare jenga. At Spencer’s birthday, she let out her competitiveness in a game of darts.

She met up with Maxine at the HAGS carnival as well as the aforementioned parties. The two teamed up for a game of darts at Spencer’s party.

Demetri has been steadily climbing up Heather’s shit list, and they almost came to blows at Spencer’s party. She is growing increasingly suspicious of his motives.

Juliet Hawthorne

Has grown more comfortable being in around Edgewood and has built up the courage to speak to Preston and Spencer (separately, of course) on different occasions.

Made friends with Charlotte Kingsley after she helped Juliet house-hunt and introduced her to realtor James Hawthorne, another possible descendant.

Moved out of the motel and into a home the Hawk’s Hollow neighborhood of Old Edgewood to be closer to her family.

Maxine Beauchamp

Sought advice on costume ideas for Halloween, and didn’t get quite the advice she needed

During a town event, where she was drinking in public, she found out about Charlotte’s car accident during the wolf moon

After seeing Maggie openly carrying an axe in public, Maxine offered to aid Maggie in creating an aesthetically pleasing case for it.

Was paired up with Maggie for the speed meet, and chaos ensued.

Subsequently, Maxine is now convinced she can help give Maggie learn the art of flirting.

Devised another plan with some residents to change the endlessly repeating playlist during the H.A.G.S festival (even if it was to something totally inappropriate, it was in a language no one there understood)

Reminisced the pros and cons to bartending with Xavier.

Attended Madi & Valerie’s birthday, and gave the birthday girl a kiss on the forehead.

After some planning with Spencer, she threw a party for her partner with Nic, which nearly resulted in a bar fight thanks to an uninvited guest arrival, whom she is now suspicious is less than human, given his immunities to her charmspeak.

Monica Rodriguez

Moved to Edgewood at the end of September, moving in with her long-term best friend Monty McAllister; she quickly began to establish friendships with people in town and settle into life in Edgewood

Around the holiday season, she and Monty welcomed a golden retriever puppy they named Roscoe into their home

During the Wolf Moon, she stumbled across tracks from one of the wolves, and later went out with several other weres to investigate; they handed off their investigation to the Callaghans once it led to the Olympus development

As things following the events of the Wolf Moon began to normalize, Monica brought home a stray cat

At the Speed Meet, her dislike of Logan Cree solidified beyond first impressions, and she befriended Phoenix Castillo

The Worm Moon saw her having an uncomfortable first introduction with Heather Payne following an earthquake

In the last few months or so, she has been reigniting one of her former relationships—with Gabriel Alvarez—albeit now long-distance

Has started reaching out to and interaction with some of Monty’s childhood friends, including Maggie and Trevor, to forge friendships of her own

At the Riverfest, she shopped and chatted over one of the magic shows. She found herself in the middle of unfolding chaos when something went awry with a firework display on the northern end of the Riverwalk; she assisted in getting people to safety

Monty McAllister

Struggles with his vision dreams drove him to the library, where he ran into Maggie See and he avoided directly addressing his own reasons for being there

Right around the holiday season, Monty and Monica added a puppy to their household

Leading up to the Wolf Moon, Monty experienced some intense visions, some of which detailed the wolves and some of their attacks. Close to 1 AM of the following day, he came across Charlotte Kingsley in the wake of one of the wolf attacks, and brought her to BHM for medical treatment

As things began to normalize towards the end of January, Monica returned home from a Run with a stray cat, which she declared part of their household with only minor protesting from Monty

The Speed Meet saw him further developing budding friendships

Encouraged a long-term friend and Monica’s ex to rekindle that romance

On the night of the Worm Moon, Monty found himself at work handling panic customers of the Lake House Bar and Grill as the haze rolled in

Continuing struggles with his dreams, as well as mounting family tensions over trust fund legalities, have led to a number of sleepless nights. And some sleepless nights have led him to coffeehouse encounters with friends both old and new alike

Monty spent some of the Riverfest exploring all it had to offer. He was at the northern end of the Riverwalk when the fireworks began exploding over the park, and assisted in getting people to safety

Phoenix Castillo

Phoenix is continuing to connect with Juliet and is starting to see her as another family member.

The girl is still frightened of vampire Logan, who barely resisted her blood and then used his to heal her.

She met Maggie at the Winter Solstice bonfire and the two have become friends.

She and her tour group had a scare on the Wolf Moon as something howled outside, trying to get in.

Phoenix and Beatrice initially bonded over their love of exploring the woods and are starting to see each other a bit more in civilization.

She is creating a bit of a reputation with her powers as she encountered other psychics Monty and Xavier who were not happy to have their minds read.

A child spilled their snow cone all over her at this year’s H.A.G.S. Carnival, making a huge mess. Luckily, plenty of Edgewood’s friendly faces were willing to help.

Spencer Hawthorne

Spencer agreed to an interview with Caterina Singh for a piece on Pride in Edgewood

In desperate attempts to find an old magical tome, Spencer and Charlotte decided to cast a lost and found spell… with yet unknown side effects oooooh

He met up with Heather to talk about magic, potions and ingredients

Spencer bumped into Juliet while visiting the Hawthorne estate garden thinking she was an associate of his father (he didn’t reveal that he is James’ son tho) and offered her a tour of the garden; they talked about plants and ended up doing a bit of gardening work in the herbs section; Spencer offered her some of the german chamomile to take with her; he found out she lost her kids

He bumped into Monty at a cafe and they shared what they’ve been up to since high school

Together with his partners they gathered a few people for Spencer’s birthday at the Two Old Crows, where an uninvited Demitri antagonized them almost & ending in a bar fight, but Juliet (working that night) threw him out before anything could escalate beyond some strong words; a round of darts was played, the teams being Spencer/Charlotte and Maxine/Heather with Dominic and Valerie as cheerleaders; Spencer and Charlotte won the darts game

The trio went to the Riverfest on the first day; they reminisced about previous years and talked about proposing new ideas for the next year; the second night they stayed in and went outside to watch the fireworks, strangely only a few could be seen even though they could still hear more going off…

#edgewoodrecap #caterina singh #charlotte kingsley #dominic kingsley #heather payne #maxine beauchamp #monica rodriguez #monty mcallister #phoenix castillo #spencer hawthorne #car accident mention #juliet hawthorne

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siriuslycollins-blog · 5 years

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Parenting 101 For Rockstar Dads

CH. 3- The One Where Everything Is Not Okay Pt 1

Warnings: medical malpractice, child birth, loss of blood, and death

Nessa’s pregnancy wore on throughout the fall and into the winter and spring. Jared and Nessa were having a girl and they had settled on the name Kaela, Kaela Dominique Leto; a lot had changed from the time of the pregnancy announcement such as Jared and Nessa turning the second bedroom of their apartment they used for storage into a nursery, Jared’s older brother Shannon crashing on their couch and Nessa being officially on maternity leave from school and work. She hated it, and with Jared and Shannon at work, she was absolutely bored. With summer in full swing, it was way too hot to do anything, and Nessa had very little energy. Her days consisted (sometimes) making breakfast for herself, Jared and Shannon, watching soap operas as she painted or knitted, fetching the mail, and concluding the day with a treat from the ice cream truck.

Jackie would come by after work or practice to keep her company until the guys came home. One Monday evening, she had stopped by after dance practice while Jared and Shannon were out at the laundromat. “Oh Nessa, I swear on everything I love, I’ll beat the fuck out of Lisa Russell! She gettin’ on my last damn nerve,” Jackie vented. When Nessa announced her pregnancy to the SUSLA dance team, her backup, Lisa had taken her place. It should’ve been a surprise that Lisa had even made the team in the first place, seeing as she couldn’t dance for shit, but she had rich parents, so it wasn’t really.

“The other girls are threatening to quit the team until you come back.” Nessa listened as her best friend cursed Lisa to the high heaven, never once losing steam until Shannon walked in carrying his laundry basket. The two of them were definitely checking each other out, until Jared bumped into him. “Dude, you gotta move. These mosquitos are eating me alive.” Ever since Shannon moved in, Jackie always hung around longer than necessary, and they were getting especially close.

Nessa liked the idea of Kaela’s godmother and uncle growing closer, but Jackie has a boyfriend who is absolutely wonderful, and for that reason, she only hoped that they were only getting to know each other because of the baby. Shannon plopped down in between them and threw an arm around Jackie’s side of the couch. “That’s cool, it’s not like I’m carrying your niece or anything.” They completely ignored her as they launched into their conversation; no matter how many times Jared and Nessa tried to include themselves in the conversation, Shannon and Jackie always managed to drift back to their own world. Jackie ended up staying for dinner, and the only time she and Shannon stopped talking was when either of them took a bite of their pizza.

“So Jackie, how’s Will doin’?” Nessa asked; she briefly wondered if her friend forgot that she even had a boyfriend. “Oh! Uh... he’s okay. Just really busy with summer practices so I haven’t been seeing him much lately.” Nessa saw the disappointed look on Shannon’s face but he still asked, “who’s Will?” “Just a guy she’s been seeing for a while.” He didn’t say anything after that, and the rest of dinner was quiet and a bit awkward.

Jackie let at almost eight o’clock, saying she had to get up early, which was a lie, and even after she left Shannon was still quiet. “Shan, are you okay?” Jared asked his brother carefully. “What? Yeah, I’ll be fine, I’m just tired. I just want to go to bed. Had a long day.” Nessa and Jared went in the back to their bedroom and got ready for bed. “See Jared! I told you he has a thing for her! And she definitely likes him too!”

“Nessa baby, we’ve been through this. Shan and Jackie are going to be Kaela’s godparents. Of course they’re getting close.” Nessa only rolled her eyes as she put her hair up and put on her bonnet. “You saw how upset he was when I brought up Will.” She wasn’t even sure if Jackie even liked Will the way he liked her as she always seemed annoyed by him. “Let’s just go to sleep. You have your last doctor’s appointment before Kaela comes, first thing in the morning.”

Nessa still couldn’t believe that she was going to be a mom, that she was going to bring a child into the world with the love of her life; absolutely mind boggling. Everything was ready for her, the crib assembled and filled with stuffed animals and other things she might need, and a closet filled with pink outfits. She went into labor on July 13th, at 5:30 am which threw Jared and Shannon into a frenzy. They were both running around like chickens with their heads cut off as they made last minute plans; Shannon grabbing the hospital bag and putting in more things that might be needed and starting the car while Jared called everyone he knew. Turns out that Kaela was a very impatient baby, and by the time they made it to the hospital, Nessa was just about ready to push.

Finally, at 7:30 a.m. Kaela Dominique Leto made her grand entrance, weighing in at four pounds even. She had brown skin, a head of dark curls and the biggest brown eyes Jared had ever seen, and for the second time in his life, he fell in love. The placenta was delivered soon after, and that’s when everything went to hell. Nessa’s regular doctor was out of town due to a family emergency, so her replacement was a balding white man in fifties who brushed off Nessa’s concerns about bleeding after delivering the placenta. “Don’t worry Miss Arceneaux, the bleeding will stop soon.” The doctor had the nurses put some gauze to stop the blood flow but Nessa was losing her color and energy, fast. Jared was getting pissed; clearly there was something wrong with his girlfriend. Why wasn’t the doctor taking this seriously?

“Dr. Archibald, there is something wrong with her! Do something!” By this time Constance and Jackie had made it to the room, only to see Shannon holding Jared back as he was yelling at the doctor with Nessa running a finger over Kaela’s soft cheek; neither women had ever seen Nessa look like this. Of course it was normal to not look your best after giving birth, but it looked like someone had dimmed the lights from within. Nessa gave them a weak smile and they slowly walked over to her. Shannon had escorted Jared and Dr. Archibald into the hall, closing the door so the women wouldn’t have to hear it.

“Nessa, she’s absolutely beautiful,” Constance whispered. She couldn’t believe that she was a grandmother, but here she was, holding her new granddaughter Kaela. Surely this had to be a dream; she and Jackie took turns holding the baby, and it was a while before Shannon and Jared came back. They had plastic bags of food and they sat them down on the rolling table. “Nessa baby, you need to eat something, get your strength back up,” Jared told her.

Eating seemed to do something good for her, and her blood pressure seemed to return to normal after drinking a few ounces of orange juice. Nessa’s family came later in the day to fawn over the baby while Jared went to see about a birth certificate; when he came back, his eyes were red, he looked tired and a piece of paper in his hand. Jared looked over and saw his daughter in one of those makeshift cribs, sleeping peacefully. “Jay, why are you crying? Everything is fine. I’m okay,” Nessa assured him. He wiped the remaining tears away with the back of his hand and began kissing her face.

“I thought I almost lost you Nessa. It was horrible.” Jared was shaken to his core, and the thought of losing the love of his life scared the shit out of him; he wanted to live out the rest of his life with her. Which reminded him... he still had the ring in his pocket, a ring he’s had for months. Of course the two had never talked about marriage, Jared had been too chicken to bring it up, but now that their daughter was here, now was a perfect time. “You’re not gonna lose me Jay.”

Jared felt like crying again, but his eyes were sore and he didn’t know if he could produce more tears; he felt like he’d done enough crying to last him twenty years. “Nessa, it was bad, and that doctor, I wanted to fucking punch him.” He could feel his throat close up again, and he focused on Shannon holding Kaela, with Jackie begging for a turn again. “It’s my turn Shannon. You’ve had her for ten minutes already.” Constance, Jared and Nessa had to step in to get the two to stop bickering.

“Come on you two, knock it off! She’s only three hours old and these are not the first sounds she should be hearing!” Constance’s tone was enough to make Shannon be quiet after Jackie called him a name. “Shan, Jackie’s right, you’ve had your turn. Give the baby to her.” He settled his niece in Jackie’s arms who had the biggest smile on her face. A few hours later, everyone had to go back to work, except for Jared who had some time off, so now he and Nessa finally had time to themselves to admire their daughter alone.

The new parents couldn’t believe that their baby was real, they were actually looking at her, and yet it still felt like they could wake up at any moment. Kaela was, without a doubt the most perfect baby in the world; as Jared watched over his sleeping daughter, he felt a flash of anger. Here he is, holding this miracle he helped create, the thought of leaving her behind too painful to even fathom, and yet Tony Bryant had no problem leaving his two boys behind. He looked over at Nessa, who was staring at him holding Kaela. She looked tired, tired but happy, and Jared knew that now was the perfect time to ask her to spend the res of her life with him.

“Nessa, I love you so much, I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I won’t question it.” He sat Kaela back down in her cradle thing so he could get the ring from his pocket, and when Nessa realized what he was doing, she gasped. “Jared, are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Jared didn’t answer her, instead getting down on one knee at the side of her bed. “Vanessa Dominique Arceneaux, will you marry me?”

Nessa had a smile on her face, the kind of smile that reached the eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you! I love you so much!” Jared slipped the ring on her finger, and they kissed as Kaela made some noises in her cradle. “Yes, pretty girl, your momma and daddy are getting married,” Jared cooed at the newborn. Jared didn’t expect that their celebration would abruptly end.

Nessa died two days later in her sleep sometime in the early morning. Jared was awoken by the heart monitor flatlining, thinking it was his alarm clock back home before he remembered where he was. It was dark in the room, the curtains drawn and the only light in the room was the monitor and the little sliver of golden light under the door coming from hall. Jared leaped from the couch and into the hallway. “Nurse, nurse! I need a nurse!” The monitor had to be wrong, she was only sleeping...

Doctors and nurses began to rush into the room and Jared was quickly jostled about as they tried to get to her; it took two security guards and a male nurse to calm him down, to assure him that they were doing everything they could to revive her. He was dragged into the waiting area kicking and screaming and crying. He tried to take his mind off what was happening by pacing the floor, listening to the early morning news, but none of that was helping. It was another fifteen minutes before a nurse came into the waiting area to tell him the news, but she didn’t need to, he could see it on her face.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Leto. We tried everything we could. There was one time where we tried the paddles and it worked, but only for a second.” Jared could feel the hot tears streaming down his face and he dropped back into a chair, bending over and grabbing his head, then rocking back and forth. He knew that he should go back in and say goodbye to Nessa but he couldn’t, it would be too real, but his feet moved on their own accord. There she was, his new fiancée lying on her back, eyes closed as if she was sleeping peacefully. Jared grabbed the hand he put the ring on, squeezing it and he just cried.

taglist: @llfd1977 @blackreaders-assemble @itsmeauntie

#parenting 101 for rockstar dads #jared leto x daughter

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Robyn Dwyer & Susanne Fraser, Celebrity enactments of addiction on Twitter, 25 Convergence 1044 (2017)

Abstract

Commentators suggest the social media platform, Twitter, might afford challenges to hegemonic knowledge by providing voice to those outside traditional media and by enabling vigorous public discussion and contestation of dominant ideas and concepts. In this article, we ask whether such affordances might be reshaping the culturally charged concept of addiction and, in turn, its accompanying abject and maligned subject, the ‘addict’. To explore this question, we examine Twitter messages about addiction posted by celebrities. These people are among the most highly followed Twitter account holders, meaning their Twitter messages can reach millions of people. Our analysis examines how specific addiction problems, and their solutions, are being constituted through the tweeting practices of celebrities. We also consider the unintentional effects these messages produce. Finally, we examine the ways in which these messages are discussed and contested by the audiences of the celebrities. We find celebrity Twitter activity re-enacts familiar realities of addiction, realities that collapse drug use with harm and addiction, addiction with pathology and death. Abstinence is posed as the only effective and genuine response, and the contradictions in simultaneously individualizing action against addiction and condemning stigmatization are ignored. Despite the ‘revolutionary’ potential of Twitter posited by advocates and some scholars, when it comes to addiction, it seems, the global, uncensored, ‘free’ communication on Twitter serves largely to validate and perpetuate dominant addiction concepts and the stigma and discrimination these concepts evoke.

Introduction

What is addiction and how should it be addressed? For over a century, these questions have occupied a diverse range of actors – biomedical and social scientists, clinicians, social workers, policymakers, the media, affected individuals and the general public (Fraser et al., 2014; Granfield and Reinarman, 2015; Room et al., 2015). In contemporary accounts, biomedical and neuroscientific models and understandings dominate. Here, addiction is articulated as a ‘chronic relapsing disease’ of disordered compulsion – that is, an illness in which an individual ‘loses control’ over their substance use as a result of physiological changes due to use of alcohol or other drugs (Granfield and Reinarman, 2015). More recently, with the increasing prominence of neuroscientific methods and frameworks in addiction research,1 the disease concept of addiction has been refined specifically to a disease of the brain characterized by disrupted neurochemical transmission and lasting alterations to brain circuitry (Campbell, 2007; Elam, 2015; Fraser et al., 2014; Vrecko, 2010). By locating addiction within everyday biological processes, advocates of the neuroscientific approach contend that these models offer alternatives to earlier moralizing and stigmatizing accounts of addiction and of affected individuals (Fraser et al., 2014; Granfield and Reinarman, 2015). Fraser et al. (2014), along with other critical social science scholars, on the other hand, have argued that the ‘brain disease model’ reinstates addiction as a moral disease by delegating responsibility for its treatment and management back to affected individuals. Here, stigma and discrimination are reinscribed for those who ‘fail’, or choose not to engage with, treatment (Elam, 2015; Fraser et al., 2014). Moreover, social science scholars have raised significant questions regarding the ontological status of addiction, challenging the idea of addiction as a stable, unified, pre-existing disease entity. They highlight instead the constructedness of addiction. They point to its reliance on assumptions of ‘normal’ subjectivity (in particular ideas of rationality and self control), its contingency on social and historical forces, and therefore its multiplicity (Fraser et al., 2014; Garriott and Raikhel, 2015; Reinarman and Granfield, 2015). Through such critiques, it is clear that addiction remains a contested concept despite its positioning by dominant biomedical and neuroscientific experts as known and certain.

Biomedical and social scientific accounts of addiction are communicated via established, legitimized knowledge dissemination channels – scientific monographs, journal articles, conference presentations and the like. Traditional media – newspaper, radio and television – have also been key sites for the production and circulation of ideas of addiction and affected people (Beccaria et al., 2015; Bright et al., 2008; Winter, 2016). Recently, the social media platform, Twitter, has emerged as a major means of communicating on addiction. Hundreds of addiction-related Twitter accounts have been established and at least a few thousand addiction-related messages are posted each day (Dwyer and Fraser, 2016). These Twitter messages both reflect and participate in what we call, following Fraser et al. (2014), the ‘addicting’ of contemporary Western societies: the sense in which society is increasingly being subjected to (and by) a logic of addiction as substances, persons, brains and activities are all being brought into, or reinscribed by, notions of addiction.

Early characterizations depicted Twitter as a site of inconsequence and banality (Arceneaux and Schmitz Weiss, 2010; Rogers, 2013). In recent times, Twitter has been recast as an ‘uncensored global public forum’ (Thornton, 2013: 51) affording the ‘real-time’ circulation of news and information as well as the facilitation of public activism and protest (Bruns and Burgess, 2011; Rogers, 2013; Thornton, 2013; though cf. Bird, 2011; Dumitrica, 2016). Jenkins (2006) and Bruns (2006) propose that Twitter, like other new digital media, enables a ‘participatory culture’ where audiences become active cultural producers. Bruns (2006: 9) suggests these new patterns of participation and collaboration have the potential for profound effects on ‘civic participation and democratic engagement’. Similarly, Bird (2011: 505) observes that participatory activity is construed by many scholars as ‘evidence of a revolutionary change in our relationship with the media’, while participants in a study conducted by Dumitrica (2016: 48) among Canadian college students, ‘hailed the “revolutionary” potential of social media to alleviate social imbalances and civic apathy’. Although several scholars have raised questions regarding the realization of this potential (e.g. Bird, 2011; Dumitrica, 2016; Jenkins, 2014), this conception of Twitter is apparent in a body of literature variously exploring Twitter ‘revolutions’ (see e.g. Christensen, 2011; McKee, 2011; Mungiu-Pippidi and Munteanu, 2009; Parmalee and Bichard, 2012). These characterizations suggest Twitter might afford (Fraser, 2013; Latour, 2002) challenges to hegemonic knowledge by providing voice to those outside traditional scientific and media domains and by enabling vigorous public discussion and contestation of dominant ideas and concepts. In this article, we ask whether such affordances might be reshaping the culturally charged concept of addiction and, in turn, its accompanying abject and maligned subject, the ‘addict’. We consider this an important issue because understandings of addiction have very real and serious effects on the everyday lives of those seen as subjects of addiction – effects of criminalization, pathologization, stigmatization and discrimination (Garriott and Raikhel, 2015; Reinarman and Granfield, 2015).

To explore this question, we examine Twitter messages about addiction posted by celebrities. Here, following Driessens (2013), we take celebrity to refer to ‘well-knownness’ – either through achieved stardom (i.e. via talent and accomplishments) or attributed by the media (e.g. reality television participants or socialites such as Paris Hilton). We focus on celebrities because they have significant social, cultural and even political influence. British comedian Russell Brand, for instance, has in recent times transformed his social and cultural capital as a comic into political legitimacy as he establishes himself as a drug policy advocate and anti-austerity spokesperson (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016; Selby, 2014). Celebrities are among the most highly followed Twitter account holders, meaning their Twitter messages can reach millions of people. Our analysis examines how specific addiction problems, and their solutions, are being constituted through the tweeting practices of celebrities. We also consider the unintentional effects these messages produce. Finally, we examine the ways in which these messages are discussed and contested by the audiences of the celebrities. In concluding, we consider the implications of celebrity enactments of addiction for the ‘addicting’ of contemporary society that, we argue, is currently underway.

Background: Celebrity performance on Twitter

Twitter was launched in March 2006. In March 2016, Twitter Inc. reported 320 million people actively using the platform each month. Twitter was initially conceived as a social media platform through which friends could provide each other with brief text information on their current locations and activities. Twitter messages, referred to as ‘tweets’, are constrained to a 140 character limit. Twitter account holders can post their own tweets. They also ‘follow’ (that is, subscribe to) the accounts of other Twitter participants, and messages from these accounts appear in a reverse-order chronological stream of messages called the account holder’s Twitter ‘timeline’ Participants engage with messages in their timeline in multiple ways. They may simply read the messages or they may also ‘like’, reply to or forward (to their own followers) a tweet from someone they follow. Replies to messages are signalled by including the sender’s unique Twitter name (of the form ‘@username’) at the beginning of the tweet (boyd et al., 2010). Recently, several third-party web applications have been developed to allow the posting of longer tweets (e.g. Twitlonger, JumboTweet or Tall Tweets). These applications generally operate by converting text over the 140 character limit to a short URL that links to another webpage.

The social ties guiding the distribution of information through Twitter are the follower–followee networks. An account holder may follow any other account holder unless an account holder makes their account private (boyd et al., 2010). The networking and information dissemination structures of Twitter allow new forms of interpersonal and public expression and new forms of social relations. By eroding traditional separations between consumers and producers of public information, Twitter allows new possibilities for public discussion and debate with the potential to shift authority away from dominant established knowledge-making elites of science and traditional media (Bruns and Burgess, 2011; Thornton, 2013; Weller et al., 2014).

Celebrities were among the earliest groups to participate on Twitter and they are highly popular account holders. In March 2016, of the top 10 most followed Twitter accounts, the first 3 belong to famous singers (Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift), with the US President, Barack Obama, as the fourth most followed. The fifth most followed Twitter account is the video streaming website, YouTube. The remaining five most followed accounts belong to three more famous singers (Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake), the American television host, Ellen DeGeneres and Twitter itself (www.twittercounter.com). Celebrities generally have millions of followers but follow relatively few other account holders (Schmidt, 2014). A good illustration is the American singer, Katy Perry. While Perry has nearly 97 million followers, she herself follows only 206 other Twitter account holders (as at March 2017). For celebrities, Twitter is a valuable forum for advertising and self-promotion.

Celebrity practice and, indeed, the practice (or performance) of celebrity on Twitter has received some scholarly attention. Alice Marwick and danah boyd (2011: 139), for instance, have highlighted how famous people perform celebrity on Twitter through the appearance of ‘backstage access’. That is, celebrities present information that appears to be personal, ‘they publicly acknowledge fans’ and they engage in Twitter interactions with other celebrities that give fans the impression of uncensored ‘behind the scenes’ intimate access to the ‘real’ person. Similarly, Bethany Usher (2015: 306) explores the ways in which celebrities use Twitter to ‘manage and maintain their public persona [sic]’. In particular, Usher considers the co-construction of an ‘authentic’ celebrity persona via what she calls ‘crowd-sourced interviews’ on Twitter. Here, celebrities provide a specific time for their Twitter audiences to ask questions, often using the hashtag format ‘#ask+nameofcelebrity’ (2015: 309). Usher argues that, despite the ‘illusion of unstructured glimpses into [the] real life’ of celebrities, traditional relations of power between celebrities and fans remain in place as celebrities and their promotional teams ‘create the space and set the rules of engagement’ for the interviews, choosing when and which questions to answer (2015: 319). Sarah Thomas (2014: 243) has observed that while all celebrities use Twitter to manage their identity and images, they do so in a variety of ways. Some embrace notions of authenticity and closeness to their fans and directly interact with fans. Others maintain distance, favouring a broadcast model of tweeting and, in some cases, having their Twitter accounts maintained by staff rather than themselves. Alongside self-promotion and connecting with fans, some celebrities use Twitter to promote philanthropic or activist causes. The American singer, Lady Gaga, for instance, actively encourages her Twitter audience to donate to charitable causes or to engage in direct action on social issues (Bennett, 2014). Russell Brand’s reinvention of himself as a political activist has also been achieved via his Twitter activities, among other media performances (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016).

Celebrity encounters with addiction are a commonplace feature of traditional media and, more recently, social media (Beccaria et al., 2015; Hanukov, 2015; Tiger, 2015). Some scholars have addressed the framing of celebrity addiction in the media (Beccaria et al., 2015; Hanukov, 2015; Oksanen, 2014). Others have explored the construction of addiction itself on social media. Rebecca Tiger (2015), for instance, analysed the comments posted by visitors to blogger Perez Hilton’s website in relation to the actor Lindsay Lohan. She found that these interactive discussions constructed addiction as illness but also as moral failing. Other scholars have examined how addiction is being materialized on Twitter within messages that use addiction-related ‘hashtags’ – a convention on Twitter and other social media where the hash (#) symbol is added before a word to allow all tweets on a particular topic to be aggregated into a list that can be readily found via the Twitter search function (Dwyer and Fraser, 2016). Scholars are yet to pay attention, however, to how celebrities themselves are producing (rather than merely reflecting) addiction on social media.

Approach

This analysis is informed by the approach taken by John Law in his book, After Method (2004), along with his work with Annemarie Mol. According to Law and Mol (2002), traditional social science research tends to be based on the belief that reality is singular and stable. Traditional research methods both reflect and sustain such realist notions of the world by implying that there is a singular, stable reality that exists ‘out there’ for social scientists to objectively observe and capture through the use of appropriate methodological tools, such as the survey. The necessary implication of such approaches is that reality exists ‘anterior to…our reports of it’ (Law, 2004: 24–25). In contrast, Law and Mol (2002) argue that reality is multiple, enacted rather than revealed via material-discursive practices and therefore open to change.

In the process of creating realities, Law argues later (2011) other ‘collateral’ realities are also made. Law’s interest in collateral realities, and in the general multiplicity and mutability of reality, is expressly empirical. When he describes realities as made in practice, he assumes along with this formulation the need to investigate these practices empirically if we are to understand properly realities as they are made and as they might be made differently. Practices, he argues, are temporary assemblages of relations. When analysed, these assemblages yield knowledge about specific realities. The world is made up of such assemblages, not of stable natural objects or self-evident, foundational entities. One of these assemblages, we can infer, is addiction, constituted in part via Twitter practices. Following Law, we can consider addiction-related tweets not simply as ‘representations’ of anterior reality but as moments of ‘ontological politics’ (2011: 158). By this, he means occasions on which realities – both conventional and novel – are ‘done’, along with other realities ‘collateral to’ the one in question (2011: 161). The significance of his approach is, as he puts it:

[i]f, performatively, representations do realities in practice, then those realities might have been done differently. We find ourselves in the realm of politics.

To clarify how this approach can be used across different empirical contexts, Law suggests identifying the work being done ‘to wash away the practices [at work to constitute realities] and [that] turn representations into windows on the world’ (2011: 161). Using the example of a scientific conference PowerPoint presentation, Law shows how to identify the textual strategies active in constituting realities (here he cites ‘selecting’, ‘juxtaposing’, ‘deleting’ and ‘ranking’). To some extent, we do the same below. In looking at these strategies, and in following Law’s approach in general, we aim to foreground the importance of Twitter practice as an ontological politics of addiction. Rather than merely reflecting a pre-existing reality, that is, the tweets we examine do ontological politics. They make realities, including, or partly through, collateral realities. Understanding these processes is the starting point for creating (much needed) new realities of addiction.

Method

To compose the data set that forms the basis for such an analysis, we searched for tweets about addiction posted by influential celebrities. Influence was determined by the number of Twitter followers and identified via the ‘Twitter Counter’ of most followed registered Twitter account holders. We also searched for celebrities whose encounters with alcohol or other drugs have attracted substantial media attention. Initially, we searched for tweets including the words ‘addiction’ or ‘addicts’. Examination of the set of tweets revealed that celebrities often use the word ‘sober’ in relation to addiction and that ‘drugs’ or ‘alcohol’ were also mentioned in addiction-related tweets. The word ‘junkie’ was also used by some celebrities (for instance, the comedian Russell Brand uses the word). We expanded our search to include tweets containing any of these words.

Relatively few celebrities specifically tweet about addiction. We found 23 influential celebrities who had posted messages addressing the phenomenon. Most celebrities within this set had posted between one and seven messages. Two exceptions were the singer, Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) and Russell Brand (@rustyrockets). Our search returned 42 tweets from Brand (dating back to March 2009) and 25 tweets from Lovato (dating back to 24 July 2011). Both these celebrities publicly self-identify as ‘addicts’ (Brand, 2007; Troup Buchanan, 2015) and both have substantial numbers of followers on Twitter. In March 2016, Lovato was ranked the 20th most followed person on Twitter with 35 million followers. Russell Brand has just under12 million followers (placing him as the 126th most followed). Because of their greater engagement with addiction on Twitter, these two celebrities and the tweets they have posted are the primary focus of our analysis. For each of the Lovato and Brand addiction-related tweets returned by our search, we also collected replies to these messages that had been posted by other people on Twitter. These replies were accessed by entering the message text into the Google search engine.

All tweet data were manually copied and pasted into word processing files for management and analysis. Although Twitter messages are publicly available, we have chosen to protect the identities of private individuals by de-identifying Twitter handles other than those of celebrities. Because tweets may be retrospectively deleted and our searches are reliant on the Twitter search algorithm, we do not claim to have collected every addiction-related message posted by celebrities on Twitter. However, we consider our set of celebrity tweets sufficient to allow close reading of enactments of addiction by influential celebrities who use Twitter. We turn to this analysis now.

Analysis

John Law’s (2011) work on collateral realities provides guidance for the questions we ask of the addiction messages posted by celebrities on Twitter. We examine how relations are assembled within the tweets to enact and ‘hold together’ particular realities of addiction. We consider how these assemblages of relations become and remain stable. We attend to the gaps, silences, tensions and contradictions in the addiction realities being enacted. In doing so, we attend to the collateral realities being enacted ‘incidentally and along the way’ (Law, 2011: 156). When we examine celebrity tweets, the most striking effect is the certainty they perform. The problem of addiction is, for these celebrities at least, entirely clear. Its ontological status is both known and simple; the measures to tackle it are clear and known, as are the signs of success and failure. To make our case, we begin with addiction – the central object of the tweet messages – to show what, and how, realities of addiction are being done by celebrities on Twitter.

Enacting addiction

Perhaps most obvious in the analysis we conducted was the consistency between Lovato and Brand in the addiction object enacted through their tweets. As can be seen in the tweet messages presented in Box 1, for both these celebrities, addiction is a ‘disease’ (Lovato in the first (T1) and second (T2) tweets and Brand at T11). Notwithstanding the certainty expressed by both – addiction is unquestionably a disease for these two celebrities – their tweets do not actually tell us a great deal about the constitution of this disease. Rather, the tweets largely take addiction for granted, no better illustration being Lovato’s circular statement that ‘addiction is addiction’ (T3 and T5).

Box 1. Tweets enacting addiction.

That said, the tweets do articulate some elements of addiction – its nature, causes and effects. For Lovato and Brand, addiction is a disorder (disease) of the mind. Lovato constitutes addiction as a ‘mental illness’ (T4) and Brand as ‘inner insanity’ (T10). The tweets also identify a key symptom of the disease – compromised volition. This symptom underpins Lovato’s seeming frustration over a lack of understanding that people ‘can’t […] just stay sober’ (T6). Brand similarly declares that addiction ‘isn’t just something you can turn off’ (T9). From Lovato, we also learn a cause of the disease: addictive substances (primarily alcohol and other drugs but also sugar) and practices (injecting) (T5, T3). By contrast, as we show later, Brand does not place all blame for addiction on substances themselves. Lastly, the tweets present an important effect of addiction. It is clear from the messages that the disease ‘kills’ – evident in the tweets relating to the deaths of singer Amy Winehouse (T1), actors Philip Seymour Hoffman (T2, T7) and Cory Monteith (T9) and a personal friend of Brand (T8).

Addiction-related tweets posted by other celebrities largely enact the same addiction realities materialized in the tweets from Lovato and Brand. As the examples below illustrate, celebrities post tweets in response to deaths (Pink and Paris Hilton) or they promote addiction fund-raising or awareness-raising activities (Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus). Within these messages, addiction is enacted as a deadly disease (Paris Hilton and Kelly Osbourne) and mental disorder (Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Courtney Love) requiring treatment (Lady Gaga, Pink and Miley Cyrus).

@ladygaga 12 August 2014: Please reach out to http://bornthiswayfoundation.orgif you are struggling with depression, mental illness or addiction. You are not alone. (7402 retweets; 8921 likes)

@Pink 10 February 2016: I just lost YET another friend to addiction. If you are having trouble, please get help NOW. For your kids, your parents, your family, for me (3437 retweets; 11,231 likes)

@MileyCyrus 5 October 2011: With our help, they can win a million dollars which will go to treatment for people struggling with depression, addiction and self-injury. (2325 retweets; 308 likes)

@ParisHilton 24 July 2011: So sad to hear about Amy Winehouse. What a talent, way to young to die. Addiction is such a deadly disease. She’s now in a better place. (1481 retweets; 190 likes)

@KellyOsbourne 12 December 2013: @username addiction is a disease and nothing to make dark uneducated satire of! (5 retweets; 13 likes)

@Courtney [Love] 29 July 2013: u have to be a real low life to kick someone when they’re down. mental illness/addiction are not laughing matters! bullies are not funny!(587 retweets; 547 likes)

While these celebrities seem sympathetic towards affected individuals, there is nothing innovative in the addiction realities enacted through their tweets. In these short messages, Lovato, Brand and other celebrities reproduce the pathologized and problematized addiction object of dominant biomedical and neuroscientific accounts (Fraser et al., 2014). A tweet from the authoritative addiction science organization, the US National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), illustrates just how closely these celebrity enactments mirror those of biomedicine, in particular, neuroscience:

@NIDAnews 31 March 2016: Addiction is a Disease: http://1.usa.gov/1RHZT3x.

What work is being done in these tweets? How, precisely, are relations being assembled and arranged to produce the particular addiction objects we have identified in the tweets? Celebrities employ various textual strategies in enacting these realities of addiction – strategies of selection, exclusion and ranking. Particular elements are selected – death, sadness, loss and killing, for instance – to assemble relations that enact addiction as a deadly condition. The use of the words ‘disease’ and ‘illness’ frames addiction as a medical problem. Ranking is also apparent in that alcohol and other drugs are implicitly constituted as primary causes of addiction through the many tweets posted in response to deaths in which these substances were present in the bodies of those who died. What is being excluded? A multitude of things, of course, but in relation to the realities of addiction being made here, obvious and important exclusions include the non-fatal nature of addiction for most people who experience it, the absence of addiction among most people who consume alcohol and other drugs and the degree of controversy among experts and scholars over addiction’s current status as ‘disease’ (Fraser et al., 2014; Granfield and Reinarman, 2015).

The assembling of addiction with death is, in part, an effect of the contexts in which the messages are posted. As we noted earlier, many of the tweets were posted in response to deaths (of celebrities and others). However, this particular assemblage of addiction and death is also a conventional narrative on which the celebrities draw in order to account for, or make sense of, these sad events. In this way, their tweets simultaneously reproduce and perpetuate dominant accounts of addiction as inevitably risky and even deadly. By framing addiction in health terms and, specifically, assembling it as a medical disease, the celebrity tweets also reinforce the efforts of biomedical science to claim authority over addiction. Other voices are excluded or marginalized, and contestations over addiction – long-standing debates about its meaning, its effects, even its ontological status – are obscured. The use of these textual strategies of selection and exclusion is also amplified by the constraints of Twitter’s character limit. Only so many details and concepts can be expressed in 140 characters. Twitter itself, then, affords simplification and the reductiveness inherent in selection and exclusion.

Importantly, not all the celebrities in our set enact addiction as pathology. The following tweets enact it playfully as positive attachment to material objects and activities – clothes, social media websites and food. The singer, Rihanna, goes so far as to cast herself as an object of addiction, here assembling complex and positive (non-pathological) relations between herself, desire, legitimate (‘prescription’) medicine, medical authority and addiction. Lindsay Lohan also troubles conventional notions of addiction as pathology by claiming a ‘healthy addiction’ (distancing herself, perhaps, from past associations with ‘unhealthy’ ones).

@katyperry 25 August 2014: I must admit my outfit is a result of my love for nostalgia and my tumblr addiction #THISISHOWWEDOVMAS (6920 retweets; 12,647 likes)

@rihanna 27 February 2012: I know what you like, I am your prescription, I’m your physician, I’m your addiction! (9078 retweets; 1269 likes)

@lindsaylohan 14 July 2015: My new healthy addiction…TigerNuts by @organic_gemini! https://instagram.com/p/5HSP1spc79/ (98 retweets; 326 likes)

While addiction is framed more positively here, again there is nothing innovative in these messages. Applying a logic of addiction to everyday practices, consumption and attachments has become a commonplace of contemporary society (Dwyer and Fraser, 2016; Fraser et al., 2014).

Enacting addiction solutions

In addition to enacting the same addiction object, Lovato and Brand’s tweets also enact addiction’s cure in the same way, as abstinence. Brand observes this in his tweet on Hoffman’s death (Box 1, T7) where he expresses the ‘hope’ that everyone who needs it has ‘access to abstinence based recovery [treatment]’. Abstinence as solution is also evident in the following tweets, with Lovato interpreting this as being ‘sober’ and Brand also speaking of being ‘clean’. Both these celebrities also discuss their personal experiences of addiction in other media. The tweets we examine here are consistent with the addiction realities they enact elsewhere (such as in interviews, articles, books and, in the case of Brand, film) although in other media their enactments of addiction are often more complex and nuanced as these media allow greater capacity for explanation and elaboration (e.g. Brand, 2007, 2013, 2014; O’Brien, 2014; Troup-Buchanan, 2015; Wilson, 2012, 2014). As the following tweets show, both celebrities also use Twitter to mark their anniversaries of ceasing substance use.

@ddlovato 25 June 2014: Sometimes I look back and wish I would’ve realized I never had to drink or use to have fun…I laugh more sober than I ever did wasted. (24,172 retweets; 37,571 likes)

@ddlovato 16 March 2016: This last year I experienced so much life and too much death…But I made it through…Sober. #4Years #GodsWill (13,349 retweets; 44,121 likes)

@rustyrockets 14 December 2014: Today I am 12 years clean from drugs & alcohol. Thanks to all the junkies & drunks that helped me. If I can do it, anyone can. (4368 retweets; 15,866 likes)@rustyrockets 30 November 2013: There is a difference between ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘time passing’. I used to take drugs, now I don’t. That’s not hypocrisy, I’ve woken up. (1192 retweets; 1693 likes)

These anniversary tweets attract a significant amount of attention from their followers. Lovato’s tweet on the 16th of March 2014, for instance, was retweeted just over 34,000 times and ‘liked’ by nearly 8000 people. Brand’s tweet was retweeted approximately 4500 times and liked by nearly 16,000 people. Messages such as these draw on and reproduce the conventional conversion narrative central to the 12-step addiction model. This familiar narrative tells of a downward spiral of addiction and degradation, an epiphany as a consequence of reaching some crisis point (‘rock bottom’) and then a slow (and difficult) upward climb to enlightenment (abstinent ‘recovery’) and redemption (Keane, 2001). Elements of this narrative are apparent in Lovato’s wish that her now enlightened self could have advised her earlier misguided (addict) self and in Brand’s assertion that he has now ‘woken up’. The abjection of the addicted life is implicit in Lovato’s comment that she laughs more now she is abstinent, while the marking of their anniversaries reinforces the idea of an addict subjectivity requiring continual self-monitoring to safeguard against falling back into addiction (Elam, 2015).

Several matters are silenced in these messages, and inconsistencies and tensions are also evident. Neither celebrity acknowledges that abstinence-based treatments are no more effective than other treatment models and, indeed, that all treatment is modestly effective at best (Ritter and Lintzeris, 2004). In Brand’s case, in his autobiography, My BookyWook, first published in 2007, he identifies as a ‘sex addict’ as well as a ‘heroin addict’. While his tweets enjoin all ‘addicts’ to be abstinent as the only effective solution to addiction, he is notably silent on whether he considers the abstinence model should apply to all addiction objects (for instance, sex or food along with substances). Given his highly publicized marriage to Katy Perry in 2012, one might imagine not. This introduces the possibility of controlled consumption or engagement with objects of addiction, a possibility otherwise disallowed by Brand’s enactment of addiction as a disease of compulsivity.

Enacting collateral realities

Further examination of the celebrity addiction tweets reveals enactments of other realities in the process of constituting the reality of addiction. These are the ‘collateral’ realities described by Law (2011); those he suggests are done quietly, incidentally and often unintentionally. Alongside enactments of addiction as a deadly disease, celebrity tweets also enact drugs as deterministically dangerous and addictive. In doing so, they collapse drug consumption with addiction and simultaneously enact an addict subjectivity – a fundamentally and chronically flawed identity that pre-exists any encounters with substances (and indeed any rewarding activities) and that means any such encounters will inevitably result in addiction.

Lovato’s tweet posted in response to Hoffman’s death (Box 1, T2) is a good example. Seemingly much affected by his death, Lovato was moved to post an expanded tweet (accessed via the URL provided at the end of the tweet message). This provided a further 1000 characters beyond Twitter’s 140 character limit in which Lovato could express her thoughts on addiction. We reproduce it in full in Box 2.

Box 2. Demi Lovato expanded tweet posted on 2 February 2014, accessed from: http://tmi.me/1dAYzj.

In Lovato’s tweet, we can see the dangerousness of drugs. They are not ‘harmless recreational fun’ (although extensive research suggests otherwise for most) but the cause of deadly addiction. A pre-existing addict identity also emerges in Lovato’s message when she speaks of not being able to predict addiction. Her statements about a ‘first-time user or alcoholic’ who could end up suffering from the deadly disease also constitute an addict subjectivity. On the one hand, we have a first-time user who may end up an addict by virtue of the negative power of drugs, and on the other, we have an ‘alcoholic’ personality that appears to pre-exist any encounter with substances. Lovato’s tweet also enacts familiar addiction tropes: of the troubled and emotionally traumatized addict (‘may you rest peacefully […] now that your pain is gone’) and the isolated ‘tortured artist’ whose life ends in tragedy. The latter trope is also evident in the tweets of Brand and other celebrities – reinforced when they are prompted to speak following a celebrity death.

Brand’s tweets enact a very similar addict subjectivity. Unlike Lovato, however, he does not constitute drugs as inherently dangerous and addictive. For Brand, it is only in the encounters between drugs and chronic addicts that addiction emerges.

@rustyrockets 16 August 2012: Watch my documentary on bbc3 tonight, it explains why drug addicts shouldn’t take drugs. Non-drug addicts-GO NUTS

@rustyrockets13 June 2013: Today watch #ThisIsTheEnd with my adored brother @JonahHill. Smoke a Jeffrey [cannabis cigarette] before you go. #unlessyouareachronicdrugaddictlikeme

These constructions are important because, we would argue, the addict identity enacted in celebrity tweets remoralizes addiction by placing responsibility for its treatment and management on the affected individual. This can be seen in Brand’s tweets and in the following tweets where Lovato insists that abstinence treatment succeeds wherever the individual makes a sincere effort and is genuinely ‘willing’. Of particular concern is the tweet where Lovato washes away the crippling effects social and economic disadvantage may have on experiences of addiction. Here again, management of addiction is simply a matter of individual willpower and determination.

@ddlovato13 October 2015: I hate it when people say ‘people don’t change’. Anyone and everyone can change…It’s just about who’s willing to work for it.

@ddlovato10 April 2015: Just met a man named Sonny. 7 months sober and homeless yet he’s doing everything not to drink regardless of his living situation. It made2

Despite their declarations of the importance of individual motives and sincerity, both Lovato and Brand repeatedly call for compassion in the treatment of ‘addicts’. In her expanded tweet, Lovato asks us to ‘lose the stigma’ while Brand promotes his own charitable work as well as the work of a well-known addiction commentator who advocates for the compassionate treatment of those affected by addiction.

@rustyrockets 3 October 2013: Meet me and donate to addict charity. The opportunity to be kind to junkies up close (me) and at a distance (them) http://bit.ly/MessiahUK

@rustyrockets 10 July 2015: Excellent Tedtalk from @johannhari101 [weblink] as he continues to campaign for the compassionate treatment of addicts

Notwithstanding their express intentions, then, celebrity tweets serve to reinscribe the stigma and discrimination conventionally accompanying the notion of addiction and those said to be affected by it. Brand’s notion of the chronic addict renders affected individuals other to ‘normal’ persons. The highly stigmatizing language he insists on using repeatedly – ‘addict’ and ‘junkies’ – reduces people who engage in regular consumption of alcohol and other drugs to a pathologized identity and erases all other aspects of their everyday lives and relations.

In ‘conversation’ with Lovato and Brand

Now that we have analysed in detail the tweets circulated by these celebrity addicts, it is important to consider how Lovato and Brand’s audiences respond. Here, we explore replies to addiction-related tweets posted by Lovato and Brand. We focus our analysis on a single significant tweet from each celebrity. Significance was assessed by highest number of engagements (i.e. retweets and likes). For both celebrities, the significant tweet is the message posted in response to Hoffman’s death (Box 1, T2 and T7). We explore the audience reply tweets in terms of those that confirm and those that contest the statements made by Lovato and Brand.

Replies to Lovato’s extended addiction tweet were overwhelmingly positive. Of 197 replies, only 5 could be interpreted as non-confirmatory. As these stopped short of contesting Lovato’s statements, we have designated these as ‘querying’ tweets. Most replies were brief, comprising statements such as ‘so true’, ‘well said’, ‘I love you’ and ‘amen’ (as a consequence of Lovato’s probable younger follower base, there were also many instances of ‘omg’). Many people observed that Lovato was a ‘role model’ and praised and thanked her for expressing her opinions. Examples of confirmatory replies are presented in Box 3, along with the five querying tweets. The few querying tweets aside, replies to Lovato’s tweet are mainly in agreement with her views and legitimate and reinforce her authority to speak on addiction.

Box 3. Selected replies to Lovato tweeting on death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.*

Of 170 replies to Brand’s tweet, the majority confirmed the addiction concepts articulated in his message. Most replies were brief and tweets containing statements such as ‘well said’, ‘so true’ and ‘I agree’ were common. As the examples presented in Box 4 show, in replying to Brand most people reproduce ideas of addiction as disease arising from psychological trauma (the ‘demons’ noted in T24), constituted by suffering (T25) and inevitably fatal (T29). These replies also acknowledge and legitimate Brand’s expertise and authority to speak on addiction matters (T26, T27). One reply highlights the fear generated through Brand’s conventional assembling of addiction, dangerous drugs and death (T30).

Box 4. Selected replies to Brand tweeting on death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.*

Only nineteen replies contested Brand’s addiction certainties. Many of the challenges raised in these messages articulate matters we have discussed in previous sections. For instance, the merit of alternative forms of treatments and intervention is introduced (T31, T39), and questions about alternatives to abstinence are posed (T36). Some raise the possibility that not all people who consume substances need or desire treatment (T33, T35), with these messages simultaneously challenging the notion of drugs as deterministically addictive. One person contests Brand’s conflation of addiction and death (T38) and, indeed, rejects the reality of heroin overdose entirely. Another person challenges the effectiveness of abstinence-based treatment, pointing out that Hoffman had himself participated in this treatment modality (T40). Still others introduce contextualizing elements to trouble the simple reductive addiction object enacted by Brand – prohibition in one reply (T34), poverty in another (T37). Finally, one person deploys ad hominem logic to contest Brand’s statements, undermining Brand’s arguments through personal attack (T32).

While, overall, there is minimal contestation of Brand’s views in these replies, his enactments of addiction and ‘addicts’ do not go unchallenged on Twitter. Two notable challenges are those mounted by the UK branch of Students for Sensible Drug Policy and by INPUD (the International Network of People who Use Drugs). As the tweets below show, both these groups prepared an ‘open letter’ in which they outlined comprehensive critiques of Brand’s 2014 documentary, End the Drugs War (Wilson, 2014).

@ssdpuk (2,349 followers) 24 December 2014: We’ve written .@rustyrockets an open letter abt his views expressed in the #EndTheDrugWardoc.http://is.gd/n4i5E9 (46 retweets; 26 likes)

@INPUD(2,980 followers) 15 January 2015: @INPUD open letter @rustyrockets in response to recent #BBC documentary on #WarOnDrugs http://www.inpud.net/en/news/open-letter-russell-brand-end-war-drugs (1 retweet; 1 like)

The open letters challenged Brand’s use of stigmatizing language (‘addicts’ and ‘junkies’) and his ‘contradictory, poorly informed, myopic, moralizing, generalizing, and discriminatory arguments’(INPUD, 2015: 1). These tweets did not result in a direct Twitter discussion perhaps because, as far as we can tell, Brand did not reply or respond to the criticisms raised by the two groups (highlighting, as Usher (2015) observed, the traditional celebrity/fan hierarchies in place on Twitter as celebrities retain control over who they interact with and which comments they choose to answer). More importantly, for our purposes, what is telling about these contestations is that they attract minimal engagements (retweets or likes) and are potentially seen by only a few thousand people (those following either SSDPUK or INPUD) compared with the millions of people who see tweets from Lovato and Brand.

While Twitter describes a message and its replies as a ‘conversation’, the tweets we examine are largely one-way communications – from the sender to Lovato or Brand. The celebrities do not reply (or they do not reply publicly, at least). It cannot be known whether the celebrities even see the messages. When a tweet includes an account holder’s Twitter name (at the start for a reply or anywhere in the body of the message for a mention), the only people who see that tweet are the sender and the recipient and any other Twitter account holder who follows both the sender and the recipient. Furthermore, replies sent to an account holder do not appear in the account holder’s Twitter timeline unless they follow the sender. Instead, replies and mentions from non-followed people appear in what Twitter calls the ‘notifications tab’ – a separate page notifying an account holder of any engagements with them or their tweets (new followers, likes, replies, mentions and retweets). So even where Lovato and Brand’s statements are contested, the structure of Twitter means that any such contestations are unlikely to be seen by the millions of people who follow each celebrity. In this respect, the description of Twitter exchanges as conversation, and the idea that these conversations afford a public forum, is not very accurate.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored how addiction is being made by celebrities on Twitter, with a primary focus on addiction-related tweets posted by the celebrities, Demi Lovato and Russell Brand. As our analysis shows, the Twitter activity of these two widely followed celebrities re-enacts familiar realities of addiction, realities that collapse drug use with harm and addiction, addiction with pathology and death. Abstinence is posed as the only effective and genuine response, and the contradictions in simultaneously individualizing action against addiction and condemning stigmatization are ignored. In the process, key matters that interfere with the simplistic ideas of addiction afforded on Twitter are erased: the pleasures of drug use, the relative rarity of addiction and the potential to live a meaningful life in the context of regular drug use (see Pienaar et al., 2016, for a recent analysis of such assumptions and alternatives). Alongside these conventional enactments of addiction and its solution, other realities are also being made – a pre-existing fundamentally and chronically flawed addict subjectivity, a homogenous category of substances (drugs, alcohol) that are deterministically addictive and dangerous and the self-evidence of addiction itself (‘addiction is addiction’). Together, these collateral realities support and help hold together (stabilize) the enactments of addiction as a disease of disordered compulsion.

It is perhaps unsurprising that addiction is enacted these ways in the tweeting activities of Lovato and Brand. Both celebrities are well-known for their strong endorsement of 12-step addiction models and corresponding abstinence-based addiction solutions (Brand, 2013; Troup-Buchanan, 2015). What is troubling, however, is the simplistic nature of these enactments and just how much contestation and complexity is obscured in them. Brand’s tweets, in particular, are notable in this regard. Brand has achieved celebrity status in no small part due to his skills as a wordsmith yet his addiction tweets lack nuance, relying instead on banalities and clichés – ‘addiction is a disease’ and ‘addiction kills’. While the addiction object they reproduce – the dominant pathologized addiction object of biomedical accounts – is itself simplistic and reductive (Fraser et al., 2014), we would argue that the oversimplification enacted in celebrity tweets is directly afforded by Twitter, namely by its constrained character limits and its limits on conversation. Within 140 characters, there is little room for elaboration or explanation. Instead, as we and other scholars have observed, Twitter is highly intertextual, its character limit necessitating reliance on cultural tropes, buzzwords and other shorthand to establish meaning (Dwyer and Fraser, 2016; Zappavigna, 2011).

Our analysis also troubles notions that Twitter messages constitute a conversation and that Twitter helps flatten power. The view that Twitter is a public forum in which ideas can be debated democratically and alternative views aired widely is a shallow one. Twitter influence is at least partly an effect of recognizability and prior authority (such as celebrity). These attributes are themselves the effect of politics. This means that politics always already inform visibility and circulation in any medium. While Twitter has the capacity to allow circulation of novel concepts, this does not mean those seeking to do so begin on an equal footing with those circulating familiar, already palatable, concepts (Bird, 2011; Marwick and boyd, 2011). The most insidious aspect of Twitter might be the fantasy that it affords the kind of discourse it probably does not.

What this means for addiction, at least, is that despite the ‘revolutionary’ potential of Twitter posited by advocates and some scholars, the global, uncensored, ‘free’ communication on Twitter serves largely to validate and perpetuate dominant addiction concepts and the stigma and discrimination these concepts evoke. The ontological politics of addiction on Twitter – the multiple moments when addiction is being done within celebrity tweeting practices – are such that the addicting of contemporary society continues in conventional terms. Through the tweeting practices of influential celebrities, at least, the possibilities that addiction might be done differently are yet to be realized.

Notes

Campbell (2007) and Vrecko (2010) provide historical accounts of the emergence and rising prominence of neuroscientific accounts of addiction as a ‘chronic relapsing brain disease’ (often described as the ‘brain disease model of addiction’), led by the influential American National Institute of Drug Abuse which funds 85% of the world’s research on addiction.

Lovato continued this message across four additional tweets that she posted consecutively. These enjoined people not to judge others, ‘especially homeless people’.

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