Kelly Oxford has become the latest Twitter star to land a TV deal.
The blogger and mother of three from Calgary has landed a deal for a new comedy on NBC a year after she had a show in development with Jessica Alba at CBS. Always unfiltered, her Twitter page has garnered over 266,000 followers, including a dedicated audience of comedy fans and writers.
With an upcoming book of comedy essays on the way as well, Oxford's star is taking off after 14 years as a blogger. She's been profiled on both talk shows and in magazines, and is friends with plenty of established comedy stars.
"I think I made a decision early on that I'm just going to be totally honest, and if that means some people are turned off, then I guess they're turned off," she told Paste Magazine earlier this year. "People are so busy putting on a good face for everyone, it feels good to just accept that some of my thoughts aren't palatable. I wrote with a pseudonym for so long, this feels so much better."
Following her announcement on Twitter, "Community" show runner Dan Harmon tweeted her, writing, "OH MY GOD some great holiday news. Congratulations!!! A thousand exclamation points."
Her show deal represents a growing trend on television. Last year, CBS ran one season of a William Shatner-starring sitcom based on the Twitter feed "Shit My Dad Says," while another Twitter favorite, standup comic Rob Delaney, recently earned a show deal with Comedy Central. Even established shows are making use of the service to improve their offerings. A recent NY Times story describes how producers of "The X-Factor" use social media feedback to tweak their show on a weekly basis.
Here is a sampling of some of her recent tweets: