Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter and Posts Rap Video to Explain Why

Miley Cyrus canceled her Twitter account this week, and the entertainment world was buzzing as if someone had died. Reactions ranged from "How could she betray her fans like that?" to "Who cares?"

The 16-year-old Disney actress and pop singer decided to quit her Twitter account, evidently because her boyfriend, actor Liam Hemsworth, told her to, and by Friday, a visit to her Twitter page resulted in the message, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

Twitter, of course, is a social networking site on which users post status updates of 140 characters or less, known as tweets, to let the world know what they're doing or thinking. In one of Miley Cyrus's last tweets, she said her boyfriend wanted her to cancel her Twitter account "with good reason."

Why is this a story? For one thing, a celeb dissing a popular social networking site is highly unusual, and could lead folks to wonder whether our obsession with these sites is starting to end. But what's more interesting about Miley Cyrus quitting Twitter is that a lot of her fans are truly upset, as if she's betrayed them and broken some sort of bond with them. That speaks to the craziness of our celebrity culture, and just how connected young fans feel to their idols these days.

Miley's dad, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, inexplicably grieved the loss of Miley's Twitter account as if he'd lost his daughter forever. He posted several unintentionally hilarious tweets urging Miley to reconsider. One read, "Miley. You are a light in a world of darkness. You were born 'Destiny Hope Cyrus' for a reason. You can't leave everyone now. We r countin on u."

Billy Ray also tweeted, "Listen to the words of your songs 'Stand... for what ya believe in'...Remember?" But even dad's words couldn't change Miley's mind, and by Saturday, Billy Ray was suggesting that he might quit Twitter too, because his account had been hacked.

Because of the outcry from her young fans, Miley Cyrus felt compelled to post a rap video on YouTube to further explain her motivations for canceling her Twitter. In the cheeky video, she claimed she didn't quit Twitter because of her boyfriend, but rather because she was tired of sites like perezhilton.com obsessing over the details of all of her tweets.

Cyrus rapped: "Every thing that I type/ And everything that I do/ All those lame gossip sites/ Take it and they make it news."

It's ironic, then, that the act of Miley Cyrus canceling her Twitter account has itself made big news.

Here's my prediction: This was just one of those silly teenage decisions made without thinking. Miley Cyrus will miss the attention and will be back on Twitter by the end of the year.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=8796324

http://twitter.com/BillyRayCyrus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSOTQPUQoU