By now you all know I am very opinionated and I love to share…loudly. And often. However, just as most of you have been taught, there are times when sharing is encouraged and there are times when saying nothing is the better plan.
We live in an exciting time of social media. It’s very easy to share our thoughts with the entire world in two seconds with the click of one tiny “send” button. While you’re standing in line at Starbucks, it’s very easy and very tempting to fire off a tweet or a Facebook post about how you hated last night’s episode of ______ or what a disappointment ______ was. The question is, “Should you?”
Or what about, “I took ______’s scene study class last night and it was terrible.” Or, “I just got new headshots taken by ______ and they didn’t get one good shot!”
Wait! Stop! Hold the phone! Before you publish your thought for everybody to see, ask yourself, “Should you?”
It’s very important for our community to have each other’s backs. Sharing information, sharing experiences and providing feedback is a great way to help others. You may shed some light on a particular company or person that provides a service that may help another actor decide to engage their services or not. This is an important part of business: word of mouth. It’s what Yelp and Travelocity are all about. It’s what drives customer reviews on Amazon. However it’s not restricted to the corporate world. The entertainment industry is a business! As actors, you are business men and women selling your brand every single moment of every day. How you portray yourself will directly affect your business. It will affect how much of yourself you are able to sell. If you doubt that, just give Miss Lohan or Miss Bynes a call. For all of us, at the end of the day, all we really have is our reputation.
We are all accountable for our actions and our words. As a casting director who teaches workshops, I am responsible for the information I share with actors and I take that very seriously. Thankfully, I get to use my master’s degree in education and experience as a casting director to give a fully educational workshop. I never want any actor whipping out their phone and tweeting that they didn’t enjoy my workshop or learn anything! However, they most certainly could. There are even sites such as The Workshop Guru run by the fabulous Ajarae Coleman where actors can rate CDs and leave feedback for other actors.
OK, so why am I preaching about all of this? Obviously I am a huge supporter of the First Amendment. I had a sign hanging in my seventh grade classroom for my students that stated, “Question authority…respectfully.” I see a lot of actors on social media bashing other industry people and referring to them by name. Yikes! Be careful! Anything you do or say on social media is there forever, no matter how quickly you delete it. Your comments can be shared, retweeted, or even screen captured by anybody who might want to blackmail you in a few years! Word gets around. You have every right to hate a certain TV show or think that a certain director is garbage. Trust me…I have these thoughts myself. Yet, there are some things you just should keep to yourself or at the very least, be somewhat vague.
Don’t leave a trail of negative breadcrumbs that will come back to bite you in the butt! You may think it innocent enough that tweeting how bad last night’s episode of _____ is, but think how quickly that director or writer or actor or producer or casting director might see that tweet. Then think about how difficult it is to get auditions. Then think about how quickly that tweet might go sour. I see actors complain about how few auditions their agent is getting them or how their agent doesn’t email them back quickly enough. Don’t you think your agent is also on Facebook? Don’t you think you have 45 mutual friends? I know it’s tempting to kill time by sharing your every thought. Trust me, I know. Be strong. Be smart. Think about the possible outcomes. If you still want to share that thought, just be willing to accept the consequences.
Said with love! xoxo
Like this advice? Check out more from our Backstage Experts!
