My page

It’s time for another blog post for my social media class. Today’s assignment is to assess the social media presence of a company or celebrity.

            I have decided to devote my task to George Takei. George used to be on one of my favorite TV shows. Star Trek (the original series). He played a character called Mr. Sulu. He was a major character, one of the bridge crew. He was the Helmsman, responsible for driving the starship. Every week he was a big part of the plot. Then the show went away. I would see George pop up here and there, but never anything big.

            When the star trek movies came out George was right there. He was the same old Sulu.

That was before the internet.

            George Takei didn’t invent the internet, but he sure learned how to use it. Social media came along and George is on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. He is a legend in my opinion,  

one of the neatest things George does it write reviews on Amazon.com. These are great, one of my favorite is the human hamster ball:         

When Brad asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said "jet pack," just like I have for the past four years. Now, Brad thinks I'm too far into my "Golden Years" to strap on any kind of propulsion unit, so each year his gifts have been disappointing: A bow-tie. A snuggie. Gel insoles.

Imagine my delight when I came home to the ZORB HUMAN HAMSTER BALL in our back yard. "Not as good a jet pack," Brad noted, shrugging. "But safer."

Brad was a bit winded after blowing it up for six hours (I recommend an air pump), so we left it inflated. We strapped it to our car roof using the 120 left-over bungee cords from our home bungee jumping kit (I would NOT recommend this product). We then drove up to the Hollywood Hills sign for a test roll.

To my embarrassment, the first thing that happened was I got stuck halfway in, my legs wiggling on the outside. Brad enlisted some startled Korean tourists, who after a serious side deliberation and a vote, cut my pants free and squeezed me in by slathering margarine on my hips. (Brad keeps some in the car just in case.) They launched me forward with a coordinated "Hana, Dulh, SEHT!"

Perhaps I should have practiced on a flat surface. Over I went, like James in his giant peach, tumbling and bouncing through brush and bracken, my body pressed flat like lettuce in a salad spinner. Apparently, as in space, in the Human Hamster Ball no one can hear you scream.

I reached a series of McMansions, bounced high over some gated walls, then splash landed in an infinity pool, terrifying a group of overprivileged children at a birthday party. I began to run inside the ball, and sure enough, I soon became a human paddlewheel. My forward inertia pushed me over the pool's edge and into the busy street below. Brad, who had been following my progress via hang glider, waved his hands in warning, but I thought he was just saying hi, so I waved back, with a big thumbs up.

Oh myyy. Friends, you haven't experienced Newton's Third Law of Motion until your Human Hamster Ball collides with a semi heading the opposite way. I ricocheted like an eight ball and flew several hundred feet, then bounced from car to car until I finally came to rest somewhere along Rodeo Drive. My chosen mode of transport created quite the stir, especially when I again needed help being pulled back out of the ball.

Thanks again, LAFD, for understanding. I swear I'm not doing these things just to get your hunky attention”. (Amazon.com/Matrix Zorb Cold Weather Human Hamster Ball)

George has also written a couple of books. In 1994 he wrote an autobiography;

“To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu”. This was well received, but again it was before the internet and social media were a big deal, so it did not go viral or anything like that.

His latest book is called: Oh Myyy! (There Goes The Internet) (November, 2012) on the other hand, was written as an e-book, and it my understanding that it has gone viral. It was released in paperback at the same time as the E-book, and debuted at #10 on the New York Time best seller list. Her is the book description from Amazon.com:

How did a 75-year old actor from Star Trek become a social media juggernaut? Why does everything he posts spread like wildfire across the ether, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of likes and shares? And what can other sites, celebrities and companies do to attain his stratospheric engagement levels, which hover or top 100 percent while theirs languish in the single digits? 

Read about George Takei’s meteoric rise and dominance of the Internet in Oh Myyy (There Goes the Internet), published of course in electronic format. 
In this groundbreaking, hilarious and informative book, Takei recounts his experiences on platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, where fans and pundits alike have crowned him King. He muses about everything from the nature of viral sharing, to the taming of Internet trolls, to why Yoda, bacon and cats are such popular memes. Takei isn’t afraid to tell it likes he sees it, and to engage the reader just as he does his legions of fans. 

Both provokingly thoughtful and wickedly funny, Oh Myyy! captures and comments upon the quirky nature of our plugged-in culture. With Takei’s conversational yet authoritative style, peppered with some of his favorite images from the web, readers should be prepared to LOL, even as they can’t help but hear his words in their heads in that unmistakable, deep bass.

Mashable.com says that George is the #1 most influential person on Facebook, with more than 4.2 million followers. Takei also has 700,000 followers on Twitter. (Amazon.com/George Takei)

George has used his position in social media to highlight the causes he holds dear, equality. (Gay and straight), the poor treatment of Asian Americans in this country during WWII. You see George and his family were interned in the camps for Japanese Americans during that war. He currently stars in Allegiance, on Broadway. This play is about that time in our history where we thought it was ok to lock away these people because they were different, and looked like our enemy in a time of war. It is a dear subject for Mr. Takei.  He also continues to work in film and TV. Having starred with Tom Hanks in 2011, and started a TV series on Nickelodeon the same year.

My suggestions to Mr. Takei, Keep it up, you are showing the rest of us how it should be done.

Thanks for all that you do Mr. Sulu.