Is Charlie Sheen winning Social Media or is he a Risk?
Posted by Darren Enta on Tue, Mar 22, 2011
In case you’ve been behind a media blackout for the last month or so and haven’t heard the news, Charlie Sheen has taken over the collective minds of all media coverage, you’ve officially been 
notified. Mr. Sheen was reported to have had a disagreement with his now ex-wife (the disagreement was allegedly due to Brooke Mueller requesting a divorce) which resulted in allegations of death threats and knife wielding. This incident happened in December of 2009 according to the “Charlie Sheen’s Timeline of Trouble” which appeared on Splash News Online. Mr. Sheen settled that bit of controversy in the summer of 2010. Sheen’s antics continued up until January 2011, resulting in his eventual termination from his role on Two and a Half Men.
Shortly after his termination in January something happened that NO ONE could have predicted. With the increasing exposure of celebrity bloggers like Perez Hilton and a 24 hour celebrity gossip news cycle which thirsts for these types of controversies like Mel Gibson on St. Patrick’s Day. A demand for Sheenisms became
apparent and gossip columnists sat back and made sure that their typing fingers were limber. What was a TV star with “#tiger blood” and “#Adonis DNA” to do? Well Mr. Sheen opted to call into Dan Patrick’s radio show. Charlie walked an anti-Semitic tightrope while referring to Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre and began what could become the largest library of hash-tagged catch phrases ever attributed to one person; I believe it could be his second Guinness World record in as many months. It could be his second due to already officially having his name added to the famous publication for signing up a Twitter account and obtaining a million followers in the least amount of recorded time.
Sheen adopted an interesting approach to his labor negotiations. After being terminated by CBS/Warner Bros, Sheen was now demanding a pay increase to $3 million an episode? Meanwhile why Sheen was appearing in web videos on Funny or Die? This video appeared to be making fun of his now infamous catch phrases “#winning” “#trolls” “warlocks” and other soon to be hashtagged classics. For a person without a product Sheen was doing a LOT of promotion. That’s when it became clear that Sheen seems to have unlocked a very interesting tidbit about the current landscape of Social Media and celebrities, infamy pays.
A recent article about Twitter’s valuation was written in the New York Times, where it was also noted that Sheen was now reportedly making $50,000 per sponsored Tweet. Sheen and his team of advisors had figured out that even without a show on television there was a way to capitalize on all of the coverage. All Sheen needed was the power of New Media and the ability to provide new and more controversial material broadcast without restrictions. As opposed to controlling the spin of the story Sheen seems to be riding the spin all the way to the bank. While he may not be “winning” the war on a physical or mental health front he is defiantly “winning” the smaller battles right now and those wins are affording him his lifestyle at Sober Valley Ranch with his tiger blood, Adonis DNA and of course his goddesses intact. The question remains if you were in charge of marketing for CBS or Warner Brothers wouldn’t you want to know what Charlie was going to say next. That’s where timely and accurately reviewed content could be provided by a company providing Social Media Monitoring.