Miley says goodbye

Miley Cyrus has decided that having a Twitter isn't worth it anymore and, in lieu of simply saying bye, the teenage superstar decided to instead go viral with this video:



Despite the obvious production value behind this clip, it does demonstrate something important about using the Internet: It no longer belongs to the technorati. Instead, stars are capable of turning to the Internet to further their own agenda, thereby spurning the view of the Internet as some kind of wild, wild west that belongs to the margin of society.

Someone like Cyrus can get fed up with the realities of the Internet and, instead of taking herself offline entirely, simply turn to a different element of the Web to make her point. By doing this, Cyrus is demonstrates both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Internet. She was able to delete her account entirely, simply wiping herself off of the map and effectively editing the past.

Those self-edits were, however, recorded for all posterity by the countless members of the media who were following the story. If Cyrus had been a more normal citizen, she would be able to self-edit herself even more easily than she was able to.

Cyrus, however, demonstrated the various uses of the Internet by producing an unfortunately not self-parodying rap video that comes off as more of a juvenile prank than something of actual value. The importance of it, though, resides in the idea that Cyrus was capable of deleting her Twitter and then creating an immediate, accessible response to the people who are concerned about why or who would attempt to criticize her.

Miley Cyrus is still a very small chip on the cultural mosaic, but her use of the Internet's various outlets demonstrates a valuable understanding of the modern media landscape.