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American actor George Takei at the Star Trek Convention UFP Con One in Hamm, Germany, 1996. Deutsch: Der US-amerikanische Schauspieler George Takei auf der Star Trek-Convention UFP Con One in Hamm, Deutschland, 1996. Français : L'acteur américain George Takei à la convention de Star Trek UFP Con One à Hamm, Allemagne, 1996. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you spend any time on Facebook, you or one of your friends have probably “shared” a posting from George Takei, aka Mr. Sulu from the sixties series, Star Trek. George’s catch phrase is “Oh my!”

If you follow him on Twitter, he will send you a thank you direct message with those very words in it…well, his computer will, I should say, since I suspect it’s an auto-generated follow and message. George has about 350,000 followers on Twitter…so far.

He’s become almost iconic on Facebook, posting captioned pictures and cartoons daily that he receives from fans. His choices are usually hilarious. Last I read, he had over 1.4 million Facebook fans!

I’m always amazed at those radio, television and motion picture stars who have the ability to transcend time, finding new ways to invent themselves. Who knew Mr. Sulu had such a fun and whimsical sense of humor? I for one am delighted.

This is what I call the William Shatner syndrome. Imagine how easy it might have been for William Shatner to have become forever linked with Star Trek. He didn’t. He starred in TJ Hooker and then became the Priceline dot com spokesperson, has appeared in countless spoofs of himself. I think his last role was playing the pop culture phenom father introduced by another Twitter icon–Justin Halpern whose “Shit My Dad Says” Twitter handle earned him millions of followers, a bestselling book and a television show. William Shatner has never taken himself too seriously and that makes him a win in my book. George Takei is doing the same only within cyber-media-land.

How did this happen?

Certainly their own marketing acumen has allowed these stars to resurrect themselves. Look at Betty White! Wow, she was on two popular television shows and might have quietly retired but did she? Hell no! She went on Saturday Night Live and scandalized us with her innocent Mae West persona with shades of Sue Ann Niven from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and her darling references to “the” Twitter. The woman is in her nineties but you’d never know it. I saw her live when I went to a Tonight Show taping. What a cool lady!

Shows like Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars have allowed yesterday’s stars to cash in on the reality television show craze previously reserved for the non-famous. Does this mean the man on the street is back to being the man on the street? I think it may, because even the so-called average Joe’s are either actors or actor wannabes who are gambling that they can parlay their fifteen minutes of fame into celebrity-hood.

As long as I’m entertained, I really don’t care. Oh my!

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Now, be sure to visit more A to Z Blog Challenge participants today! Here’s where you can find their names and link to their blogs. The topics are endless.

George Takei’s Facebook Masterclass (businessweek.com)
How George Takei Conquored Facebook (Forbes.com)

It’s Christmas in some parts of the world, Christmas Eve in my neck of the woods. I hope everyone has a joyful holiday season.

Me, I still need to do a little work-work (gotta check those bank accounts for fraud–ugh), wrap presents, bake (oh darn, I hate that…not) and clean up. Then there’s my workout to do, my CreateSpace book to work on, my new Facebook to futz around with, tons of goofing off on Absolute Write and a novella to beta read.

About baking
Yesterday I made a “fresh orange” cake from the massive quantities of oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, and pomelos (and a few other mystery fruits) that my husband’s aunt in CA sent from their farm (thank-you Mary Lou!!). I’d have posted a picture except hubby took 2/3 of it to work today and the last bits on the serving plate looked quite broken down and battle-weary. He also took all the peanut butter Hershey’s kiss cookies I made too. Just as well. I don’t need all those sweets around and I need an excuse to make new stuff. My spritz gun butter cookies are long gone; my kids devoured those within 24 hours. But we can’t send Santa away without a treat from the Gillian household now, can we?

NaNoWriMo novel update
I spent a little time over at the NaNo site yesterday looking at pictures of the CreateSpace proofs people have already ordered and received back. Ruh-roh, Shaggy. I just realized that I have a lot more work to do. Dummy me didn’t realize that I needed to provide the copyright page, the “about the author” page, the pretty chapter headings and all the other “stuff” in a book that you usually ignore. This is in addition to setting the font and line spacing, page numbering, etc. how I wish the finished product to appear. The manuscript has been in courier 12 font, double-spaced since the beginning but that’s NOT how I’d want it to appear in an actual book. Oy! I guess I thought a brownie would take care of all this somewhere along the line never realizing that the brownie would be me or nobody. Continue reading →