British comic Gervais raps Twitter as 'undignified'

(AFP PHOTO/ROBYN BECK)

British comedian Ricky Gervais has blasted Twitter as fun for teenagers but "undignified" for grown-ups -- and questioned the motives of celebrities who use the micro-blogging platform.

British comedian Ricky Gervais has blasted Twitter as fun for teenagers but "undignified" for grown-ups - and questioned the motives of celebrities who use the micro-blogging platform.

Gervais, due to host the Golden Globes on Sunday, also raised doubts about the value of tweeting from the 67th edition of the pre-Oscars film awards in Beverley Hills.

"As you may know I've stopped with Twitter. I just don't get it I'm afraid. I'm sure it's fun as a networking device for teenagers but there's something a bit undignified about adults using it," he wrote on his blog.

"Particularly celebrities who seem to be showing off by talking to each other in public. If I want to tell a friend, famous or otherwise what I had to eat this morning, I'll text them," he added.

Referring to this weekend's US awards ceremony, he said he assumed Twitter was "a bit of a marketing tool for The Globes. But they are watched by 25 million people in America alone and maybe 300 million people world wide.

"Tweeting about it would be a drop in the ocean. Also I've got (his own) website and I don't have to restrict things to 140 characters," he added, announcing that he was giving up using Twitter himself.

"My tweeting was becoming like a tabloid version of this blog, and I couldn't even put important stuff like this up," he said.

Gervais shot to fame as co-author of the ground-breaking British TV sitcom "The Office," which won him a Golden Globe in 2004, and has just released his first feature film as director, "The Invention of Lying."