A while ago, I was reading slowly over reddit, when I saw somewhat moaning about a thread on a subreddit called /r/BritishProblems where someone had posted someone had posted something complaining about TV presenter Jonathan Ross, and Jonathan Ross had, himself, using his handle “wossy”, turned up to debunk it.
After verifying that, it was, in fact, him, and seeing how the mood changed once he posted, I let rip a rather inane post on twitter, which to my surprise, led to the following exchange:
It was only after he responded to me, that I went back and noticed the calls on Reddit for him to do an AMA – a reddit-style Q&A/”interview”/”Ask Me Anything” session. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I asked, and that was the response. He even went back on reddit to tell people he was going to do an AMA in a few weeks time.
In many ways, this is a model example of what I was saying in a previous blog post about how to talk to celebrities or tech heros – by being genuinely friendly, and suggesting something that’s genuinely interesting, you can step above crowds of people simply interested in having a speechless momentary photo taken with someone, where they realise they didn’t have anything they wanted to say anyway.
I’m looking forward to Jonathan’s AMA – I think he’s doing Social Media “Right”[tm] – perhaps I can get him to answer some questions about what’s in it for him, if I ask nicely. 🙂
