14 DAY TRIAL // When actor Vin Diesel, star of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, joined Facebook in 2009, he was a pioneer among celebrities. He used social media to become one of the hottest stars online and, as he sees it, to also bring this particular social network millions of dollars.
The least they could do is share some of that money, Vin jokes.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly about the latest installment in the aforementioned film franchise and his celebrity status thanks to social media, Vin explains that he only got on Facebook because he wanted a real connection to his fans.
“What Facebook didn’t realize is something very big was about to happen, and that was — for the first time in history, and it’s kind of a fluke they didn’t see this coming — when I jumped on that page in April 2009, I started talking to people. In the realest ways,” he says.
He now has over 41 million likes so, whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it well.
“So, when I had started my page, the only person that had a million fans was Barack Obama. Because it was first-quarter 2009, and he’d just got elected as President, because of social media,” the actor continues.
“So, when I started talking to the fans, I became the No. 1 page in the world. Over Coca-Cola, over huge companies. And it was only because I said: ‘Hi, guys, I love you’,” he adds.
It’s important for fans to know that there’s a real person at the other end of the line and that the messages aren’t coming from an entire PR team, so this explains why millions flocked to Vin’s page.
In the same interview, he indulges in a fantasy in which fans would have had the same kind of access to and relationship with icons like Elvis, Marlon Brando, or Clark Gable.
Vin Diesel is convinced that getting to know these three “without the Hollywood” would have probably made a world of a difference.
Back to the topic of his own Facebook popularity, he says even Facebook couldn’t understand it at first.
“[They asked me] to come up to their office to explain what the [expletive] I was doing, and why I had so many fans. Facebook really owes me billions of dollars. But whatever,” Vin says with a smile.