Ellen Degeneres’ Tweet Heard ‘Round the World

It was a rich moment: Ellen Degeneres snapped an impromptu selfie as she hosted the Oscars, and requested that viewers retweet it with the goal of breaking the record for most retweets. The Twitterverse responded with a frenzy. I’m trying to decode the meta-meta layers: a performer, photographing herself as she performs on live TV, then asking viewers to, in a sense, rebroadcast her yet again by tweeting it furiously, after which everyone tweets about the fact that they tweeted it; a great moment in the history of the self-refrential. About the photo: I like the mix of expressions; these usually most posed of performers all appear to be at their most human and real.