Decoding the Mysteries of Timothée Chalamet’s Weird Social Media
In a few short years, Timothée Chalamet has reached the level of rarified fame where it seems, much like Angelina Jolie or Sandra Bullock, he’s above social. His face is for the silver screen, not the tiny little screens in our pocket.
Yet the fact remains that at 24 years old, Chalamet is of the generation to which social media is considered default. He’s been on it long before Luca Guadagnino even began to imagine the carnal possibilities of a peach. His Twitter account dates back to over a decade, started when he was a full-fledged teen. The oldest surviving picture on his Instagram is from 2014 (it’s of two pigeons seemingly kissing).
Yet, Chalamet is far from a social media power user. His output remains infrequent, and often cryptic. Unless he has something to promote, a few posts a month seems to suffice for Timmée. Yet, like many of us, this period of social distancing has young Chalamet posting more. Well, just a little bit. While we’ve considered many things about the Chalanomenon over the past few years, this has given us reason to really meditate on his social media presence for the first time.
Mainly: Why is it like that and what is he trying to tell us?
On Saturday, Chalamet made the rare move of tweeting twice in a single day. The posts weren’t related, but they did give us a slight hint of what the actor is up to while social distancing.
This lyric from one of Bob Dylan’s early singles “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” suggests that Chalamet is spending at least some of his time preparing for his upcoming biopic of Dylan’s early life. Of course, Chalamet may or may not have been drawn to this particular lyric because our highways, diamonds or not, are pretty empty right now.
This one came shortly afterward (at 3:45 EST), and likely suggest that Timmée was tired and about to go bed.
A few days earlier, Chalamet posted this selfie. It is unclear if it is from his photoroll archives, or if he really is spending quarantine dressed up like a period piece dandy. Either one could be true, really.
We should note, Chalamet has directly acknowledged the current global situation on Twitter both by wishing those in hotspots well and offering somewhat motivational fare like, “keep movin forward ..”
Before this all started, he was Tweeting things like this:
Over on Instagram, Chalamet has been a bit more quiet, but has given us a peek into his isolation.
Near the beginning of quarantine, he posted what seemed like an inexplicable carousel of images: a few headless fit photos, a selfie in front of a David Hockney print, a secondary character from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and a photo of a phone tuned into rising Berlin-based DJ Paramida’s Rinse FM set (it’s full of lots of instrumental disco and is actually quite good, if you’re wondering).
Though, the mix of random photos of himself and other cultural miscellany seems to be in line with the general vibe of Chalamet’s ‘gram.
It’s tempting to attempt to assemble a grand theory of Chalamet social media, but while he lets us in on tiny, cryptic pinpoint of his life (okay, he likes Berlin disco mixes, who knew?), he still remains relatively guarded of his privacy.
While celebrities of older generations have the luxury of ignoring social media altogether if they want, Chalamet has perhaps found the answer for superstars his age: posting just enough to seem not stuck up and above it, but still not in a way that actually makes it seems like he cares too much. There’s no need to chase social clout when you’re already the king of Gen Z.
Related: How Timothée Chalamet Became Hollywood’s Best Dressed Man on the Red Carpet
