Is Noel Gallagher right? Have celebrities ruined Twitter?

Noel Gallagher has a new album to promote. It is called ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ and will be available on October 17. Judging by this it will be rather good too.

Noel, however, has never been one to shy away from making a controversial statement or two (especially when he has new music to promote), and this time round he has trained his guns on Twitter.

In an interview with Yahoo Gallagher argues that celebrities have wrecked Twitter by trying to sell people their “s**t” through it.

He told the website “I’m not a tweeter … Stuff like, ‘Oh I’m going for a shower,’ great. ‘I slept in again, bugger.’ Life’s too short for that kind of thing but I think those things like Facebook and Twitter and stuff were started with the best of intentions to connect ordinary people around the world, like daughters travelling in Europe can tweet their mums. But as with everything celebrities get involved and bastardise it, trying to sell you their s**t. There’s too much of that. Anything that’s of any use famous people get hold of it and take it for themselves and it gets a bad rap. I’m like sitting here and thinking I hate Twitter and I don’t know why.”

Now Gallagher is known for being something of a Luddite. His erstwhile rival Damon Albarn might have made an album already using Garageband on his iPad, but Gallagher apparently only got a PC at Christmas.

Yet does he have a point? Here’s a few of the arguments, you make your own mind up

Yes, celebrities have ruined Twitter

1 Noel is right, they have sullied the micro blogging service. It is full of rubbish from people who want you to think their lives are amazing, but are actually really rather dull.

2 Celebrities on Twitter have made it ok to overshare – They have set a bad trend here. They have inspired lots of people to use Twitter to tell you stuff that no one really needs to know.

3 They have tweaked the perception of Twitter by providing a feeding frenzy for the mainstream media. Celeb journalism, which used to be edgy and fun, is now all about broadcasting what celebs have been tweeting. Very dull.

4 Celebs on Twitter have taken the mystery out of the creative process. This was another of Noel’s points. He says ‘there’s no magic or mystery anymore. That’s why I didn’t announce I was in the studio making this album until 18 months down the line. Because it would be like, ‘Yeah man I’m in the studio and today I recorded a song in my socks! And it was great man and it might turn out to be a disco song.’ What’s the point?’ I was obsessed with the Smiths and there was none of that going on. You just waited and wondered what they were up to and then the album would come out in four weeks and it was like, ‘Wow.’

Noel should stick to writing his arms in the air ballads and leave micro blogging alone. Celebrities have been good for Twitter because…

1 For every Katie Price there’s a Stephen Fry or a Graham Linehan who are genuinely funny and insightful.

2 Some Celebs are really generous with their Twitter accounts. Arsenal and England’s Jack Wilshere has gone out of his way to use Twitter to help poorly children, while Alastair Campbell is always using his account to plug charity events.

3 Celebs made Twitter high profile and got a lot of people to sign up who otherwise wouldn’t have. A big catalyst for Twitter growth was when Ashton Kutcher tweeted that picture of Demi Moore’s bottom. Without that buttock moment Twitter might not have become so big and so much fun.

4 Twitter can act as a counter balance to made up stories in the media. You get to hear things from the horse’s mouth, rather than having to hear things filtered through publicists and journalists.