Maya Rudolph has been killing the comedy game for years.
From Saturday Night Live to Bridesmaids and beyond, she’s done a little bit of everything. But one place you won’t find her? Twitter.
The actress does have a verified Twitter account, but rarely posts and now has basically quit the social media platform entirely.
Speaking with Bustle, Rudolph explained her choice to stay away from the social media world. She said,
“It felt like a lot of pressure to be funny. I think one of the hardest things about being funny for work is that people assume that you’re on all the time… I think people think you’re sort of a 24/7 joke spinner.”
She also added,
“When Twitter came around, it seemed to be a venue for people to be smart and quippy and funny and I felt like, why would I waste that on social media when I could use that in my work? Because it seems like if you’re gonna come up with a good joke, you should probably use it yourself.”
I actually kind of love this. I definitely think that as a society, we have a hard time separating a character from an actual person. I mean this in the sense that sometimes we love our favorite actors and performers so much, that we forget that they are putting on a performance and a certain public persona, even when acting as “themselves” (i.e. on talk shows).It’s gotta be stressful to act like you’re “on” all the time. I can’t help but think of Marlin in Finding Nemo when everyone thinks a clownfish just has jokes at the ready at all times.
I love having accessibility to my favorite performers, but we also have to know when to draw the line. Plus she is totally right, why spout jokes on social media for free when you could get paid for it?
Maya isn’t the online one when it comes to funny ladies who aren’t on Twitter. Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon are not active on social media. I’d assume it’s for similar reasons. Regardless of the reasoning, I am growing to really like when celebrities stay off of social media. It makes their work and various appearances more special when they come around, plus it gives us the best material.
Ironically, the next place we’ll see (or rather, hear) Maya is in her voice work in The Emoji Movie, hitting theaters this July.
