This is a great insight by Mike Aruaz from his piece Spectrum of Online Friendship.  I’d like to get more specific and swap “digital technology” for “Twitter and the rise of the 24 hour news cycle”. Due to their asynchronous and “always on” status, these two tech developments allow anyone to tune in at anytime to catch up with the buzz of celebrity happenings—without actually having to be there.

Twitter even takes it a step further in that it actually puts you a click away from your favorite celebrities.  The feeling of proximity is quite powerful.  There is something else—the fact that Twitter is often about communication during “in-between” moments gives fans who are followers even more of sense of being there, as the informality of the in-between moments of life that are often more memorable than the so-called big events. Tweets are dashed off on mobile phones and Blackberries in the back of taxis and in film set trailers—places where reality TV cameras occasionally venture but never playback without heavy editing. Twitter is untethered from the weight of big screens—it can exist in back pockets and handbags—it goes with celebrites to the store—it rides with them to the airport—it Twitpics the long line in front of the premiere, it’s there for them when they’re running late for the party.

Even if they never reply to you directly, Twitter brings you in closer to where a person’s life (famous or not) really happens—the in between moments or “little times”, as Andy Warhol put so perfectly.