Tom Hanks Twitter: 2 Reasons He Stopped Tweeting in 2020
Tom Hanks joined Twitter in 2009. His last tweet was May 22, 2020. All of Hanks’ tweets are still there, but he’s stopped tweeting new ones. In a recent interview, the Oscar-winner explained why he doesn’t want to tweet anymore.
Hanks spoke with the New York Times in an interview published June 15. After discussing his role of Col. Tom Parker in Elvis, Hanks reflected on his career. When the subject of his Twitter presence came up, he explained two reasons he no longer tweets.
Tom Hanks doesn’t need Twitter for publicity
One of the main purposes of a social media platform like Twitter is publicity. Well, Hanks is one of the biggest movie stars in the world. When he has a movie out, the studios take care of informing the public. Even between movies, everyone seems to follow Hanks so he doesn’t need the publicity.
“I stopped posting because, number one, I thought it was an empty exercise,” Hanks told the New York Times. “I have enough attention on me.”
The political reason Tom Hanks stopped tweeting
Unfortunately, there’s another, less magnanimous reason Hanks had to stop using Twitter. Because Hanks is so famous, and has 16.2 million followers, any replies to him get amplified. Most of the replies are from genuine fans of his movies, but it only takes a few to spoil the whole experience. So he saw the danger in allowing himself to be a forum for hateful rhetoric.
“But also I’d post something goofy like, ‘Here’s a pair of shoes I saw in the middle of the street,’ and the third comment would be, ‘[Expletive] you, Hanks,’” Hanks said. “I don’t know if I want to give that guy the forum. If the third comment is ‘[Expletive] you, you Obama-loving communist,’ it’s like, I don’t need to do that.”
Smaller tweeters can follow his example too
Hanks is a macro case of social media. However, Hanks isn’t exactly discouraging others from abandoning social media.
Look, there’s plenty of reason to be demoralized. Goodness is not a constant, and the good fight is not always fought, but there is a strength and a resiliency and an eventuality to vox populi. There are events that shake up those Americans who still believe there is a right way to do things. It’s the Peter Finch moment: I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. Now, a certain administration came down the pike, and the people who were screaming seemed to rule the day. Why? Because the people who cared about what’s right didn’t show up. Well, something egregious enough comes along, and guess what? People will show up. But their cages have to be rattled. We might be experiencing that right now. The problem, of course, is that technology has shifted so that truth has no currency. That is only going to be altered when enough people say, “[Expletive] that, I’m not going to pay any attention to social media ever again.
Tom Hanks, The New York Times, 6/15/22
