During my coffee break this morning, I found out the status of Shaquille O'Neal's thumb surgery, learned Jim Carrey's thoughts about killer whales and caught up with the hectic clubbing schedule of Snooki from Jersey Shore. Sure, I've never met these people in person, but I know all about their lives from Twitter.
Celebrities use Twitter for a variety of reasons. Some promote their projects, some communicate with fans, and some dispel rumors in 140-character press releases. Others just come off as ... lonely. But by broadcasting their thoughts online, stars are brought back down to earth — fast. Twitter allows us to pierce the veil of fame and proves what Us Weekly has been telling us for years. Stars: they're just like us — they go grocery shopping, walk their dogs and often can't spell to save their lives. And sometimes they go a little off the rails. (Courtney Love's ramblings about a fashion designer, illustrated above, even led to a lawsuit.)
Attempting to spice up these celebrity lives, illustrator Odessa Begay has created the Museum of Modern Tweets, posting illustrated interpretations of stars' Twitter posts each week. Her works play off poor grammar and lack of context for maximum comedic effect, turning everyday updates into surreal, vibrant scenes. The results include Lance Armstrong sitting on a couch with mythical creatures, Kirstie Alley in a bear suit and Shaq hunting down miniature versions of LeBron James with a butterfly net.
Begay, a New York City–based freelance photo editor, starts by scouring Twitter and reader recommendations with her boyfriend. She then sits down with Adobe Illustrator and takes anywhere from four hours to a week and a half on each creation. There's no blog-to-book deal in progress just yet, but Begay is selling prints of her works and plans to move to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an illustrator.
Stars are frequent targets for Begay, 25, who has also illustrated several of Tiger Woods' leaked text messages to his mistresses. "Celebrities are people that the general population strives to be," she says. "They're supposed to live these fantasy lives and be doing all the stuff we wish we could be doing." So when Nick Jonas tweets that he had an "exciting day," it must be exciting enough to involve a jet pack, a pony and a bucket of money, right?