UPDATED BELOW:
I follow very few celebrity accounts on Twitter. More politics driven than pop culture.
There are a couple of professional wrestlers, Been a fan since the late 70s. Nice guys all who really stay engaged with their fan base. Sgt, Slaughter cracks me up. They have as much fun with it as we do.
Carol from the Walking Dead. I made several props for the series and her house outside the Kingdom, as well as the pilot episode. She even sent me a nice message once. That was fun. I met most of them at conventions, nice people all. Even if you have to pay $40.00 to meet them. Wait, come to think about it…….I would be nice too if someone was paying me forty smacks. That is another issue, maybe later.
There really isn’t a lot I follow. Well, there is Battlestar Galactica. And that is where this story goes.
For my fellow Science Fiction fans, the series needs no introduction, nor any explanation. For those who haven’t seen the series…..I don’t know what to say. Other than, in my opinion, the best space drama ever produced, written, directed, and acted. I speak of the remake, not the original. Although….without the first, there wouldn’t have been the epic thought provoking galaxy trotting tome. A chicken or the egg bootstrap paradox?
From start to its emotional finish a pleasure to watch. The writers filled the series with themes that touch us today as we wrestle with technology and our present/future place in the cosmos itself.
Alright, you know how much I loved the series. Disclaimers out of the way.
The acting in the series was as good as it gets. I credit that to the casting of a couple of older pros. There is no way those young kids could have been that good without some on set guidance. And indeed they stepped up.
I’m pre disposed to like them. Starbuck (Katee Sackoff) once pulled a splinter out of a finger of a friend of mine on another series set. How could I not like her?
It was several years ago that I typed “Battlestar Galactica” into the little Twitter search engine and sure enough a bunch of the cast members and writers popped up. I clicked on a couple of them and thought it would be fun to see what they were doing these days, sort of keep up and maybe even learn some tidbits of show trivia here and there. Fans love that stuff, I’m no exception.
Most of the stars of the show went on to big things and their accounts, frankly, pretty dull. They don’t manage their social media accounts. That job falls to some bored drooling half-asleep assistant in some distant windowless management office. You drop them from your follow list pretty quick.
And then there was Nicki Clyne. ( https://twitter.com/nickiclyne ) Cally from the series. Cute as a button, girl next door, fish out of the galactic war water. Little Cally with a big smile and even bigger bangs.
The show was full of some pretty hot young ladies. Lets be honest. And they all got plenty of air time. Those writers knew who their audience was.
Trisha Helfer and that red dress. How the hell did they keep that damn thing on her? Starbuck and Boomer fighting and looking cool. All of them. Well, except for poor Cally. They gave her a pair of too-big overalls and a wrench. If that wasn’t enough, they kept her waddling around pregnant for a season and then stuck her in a little room with swollen feet and a screaming half robot baby chasing a two timing hussy loving husband around the ship! The writers, still not satisfied, then threw her out of an airlock. I can still see the look on her face. The same face we had watching it. “Noooooooooooo”. Frack you writers!
Lets fast forward a bit to present day.
I would imagine I’m not all that different from other fans of the series landing on a cast member Twitter feed. What you expect isn’t always what you get. In Nicki’s case, there is all the other stuff.
Personally I knew probably less about all of it than you do. I don’t follow celebrity gossip. Im too lazy and shallow…I don’t want to know.
I heard some things about a cult, running around with branding irons and taking naughty pictures. Well, you pay good money for those kind of things in Vegas, I still wanted to see what was going on.
After all, I was thinking, who of us didn’t do some pretty dumb stuff in our early 20s? Hell, I have a tattoo I’ve never seen. I pray I get to go to my grave without all you guys finding out the stupid shit I did splashing all over the newspapers. So stone throwing, at least to me, is pretty silly.
She ain’t hiding. As much as I wish she would ignore it and just throw us BG tidbits, they are few and far between sadly.
It is a fun account to follow. If she posts a picture of say a cute puppy chasing a ball, someone will instantly attack her. If you, as a fan, like the post or say “what a cute ball” , you can get a nasty message in your private messages. It can be that bad and silly.
She is very engaged with her fans and is quite ready to say “hi”, or throw you a smiling emoji. She has a good sense of humor about most things. If you engage her with a direct question concerning all the drama, she will publicly respond. In detail. The opposite of a full of themself Hollywood celebrity. Or someone who is hiding from anything.
Where most celebrities retreat and deflect against bad publicity, she walks toward a camera. Five inch heels clicketly clacking in quick time. You don’t have to follow her for long to realize there is something wrong with the narrative. Even HBO is now jumping into the drama.
I won’t get into details here as I haven’t interviewed her to get her side of the story. My own two cents is there were quite a few rich California society women and their daughters involved in all of this and are pulling every string money and influence can buy in Hollywood and politics to keep what really went on quiet. Trouble is, she won’t be quiet about it. There are lots of knives out for this girl…..real sharp ones too. You can make up your own mind, I don’t know what happened.
What is it like to follow her and be a fan? I can only speak for myself here. As far as I know there isn’t a secret group of fans that meet anywhere and wear robes. Although, if there is any money in it there probably is somewhere. No robe? No chanting? I’m not getting involved. Pretty lousy cult. If I was her manager I would run with that and all the free publicity all the way to the bank! Sorry Nicki, If I was your manager I would have you behind a curtain roasting irons in a fire at 5K a pop With Starbuck’s song blasting through speakers. And you know there would be a line forming. Don’t anybody tell me otherwise.
My background is in politics. I have never gone wrong in “following the money”. Were I covering the Hollywood beat I would be asking who was/is making money on this drama, and more specifically who stands to make more money. It sure isn’t her.
I suspect the truth, if there is any truth that any of us would recognize left, would be somewhere in the middle. As it most always does.
Nicki’s public social media account transcends normal Hollywood fan things. It is a mix of pop-culture, politics, Hollywood, intrigue, drama, lies….truth….information….disinformation……facts and accusations. And that’s just the public stuff on the 200 character or so feed. You should check out the long form SUBSTACK !
She is a good actress, there is no denying that. Personally, I think she missed her calling and is turning into a fairly accomplished writer and passionate political commentator. As so often happens in life, something completely unexpected comes along and turns everything on its head.
She was on her head for a while, but is back on her feet.
Do I admire her? Sure, from the standpoint she stands up for herself and is nobody’s push over. Is she half crazy? Oh, probably….I don’t care. I will say this though. She is quite interesting. Highly recommend the follow.
It is an fascinating story, and something tells me we don’t know the half of it. My advise for other people following, or new followers to the drama, get lots of popcorn.
Oh she will read this, I’m aware of that. I might not get any more little smiling emojis on my Twitter feed, but that’s ok too. I’ll line up at the si-fi convention someday and plunk down the $40.00 and get a smile and a picture and she won’t say a thing. She’s a pro. Like I alluded to in the title of this piece, it isn’t easy being a Nicki Clyne fan.
So say we all.
UPDATE: Thanks Nicki for not getting mad…..we are all fans of the show. Reading some of the comments was fun. Amazing how many people didn’t have a clue she was on TV. Only goes to show how our perspectives are all so different.
Montesano Today 