Courtesy of Allthatsfab.com

By Sherri L. Smith, BlackWeb20.com

We follow our favorite celebrities’ social networking streams with greedy abandon, anxiously waiting for every new bit of info we can get to validate why they’re so great. From Grammy-winner Chrisette Michele (@epiphanygirl) taking a trip down memory lane, “Remember when u dialed 911 on ur beeper If it was an emergency. And remember swooshy pants and 54 elevens?” to Roots drummer Questlove (@questlove) adamantly disagreeing with NYMag.com’s best NY fried chicken list, “that’s a lie! that’s a cotdamn lie!!!” http://nymag.com/restaurant….,” it can be a fun diversion from the doldrums of everyday life. So what happens when the your favorite celebrities aren’t behind the keyboard furiously sharing every detail of their privileged lives?

Sohh.com dropped the bomb that 50 Cent (@50cent) isn’t actually manning the helm of his Twitter account and Kanye might peck out some half-assed apology every now and then, but he isn’t posting all the cool gadgets and images on his blog. And when I got the chance to interview singer Musiq Soulchild (@musiqsoulchild), he admitted that he wasn’t currently doing his own tweeting, but planned to start in the near future. And it looks like he’s been true to his word, tweeting a couple of days ago about taking a day off.

So does it matter if our favorite celebs aren’t the ones plying us with our daily fix of celebrity gossip? In some cases, it doesn’t, like when a celeb is using the latest tech as an obvious “buy my latest thing” marketing ploy. But when celebs are using their social networking pull to actively engage us and recruit us to their causes we need to be mindful. It’s awesome when you see a star like Chamillionaire (@chamillionaire) using his social networking swag to raise money for charity, but what about the stars that aren’t being so philanthropic like 50’s latest jab at Fat Joe or today’s sonning of Yung Berg (@TheRealYungBerg) by Fabolous (@myfabolouslife) (Fab, this is twice in one week. What’s really good with the Twitter beef?)?

It’s important to remember that celebrity social networking, like all social networking, should be taken with a grain of salt. At the end of the day, they’re out to sell you something — whether it’s through beef, wit, or good deeds. If you want my hard-earned dollar or page view, the least you can do is get on the comp and bang out 140 characters or churn out a quick blog post. But that’s just me. I thought social networking was supposed to be a little more personal than the usual contrived celebrity page.

BlackWeb20.com covers website and application launches; culturally relevant Internet industry news; and mainstream Internet industry news from an African-American perspective.  They also analyze emerging web trends and how they apply to web properties that target African-Americans or African-American culture.

TAGS: 50 Cent, Chamillionaire, Fabolous, Fat Joe, Kanye West, Musiq Soulchild, questlove, Social Networking, Twitter, Yung Berg

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