Snakes on a blog

So, Lis tells me that, on one of the blogs she reads, someone linked to an interview in which Samuel L. Jackson said that he sometimes goes around to random blogs which are talking about Snakes on a Plane and comments on them, either anonymously or pseudonymously, talking up the movie and talking about himself as an actor, without letting people know who it is.

I thought about this for a minute.

IAN: So, wait. . . Samuel L. Jackson is astroturfing¹ his movie? But. . . astroturfing is usually a really scummy thing to do. Yet, somehow, this is cool. How the hell is astroturfing cool when Samuel L. Jackson does it.

LIS: Because he's Samuel L. Freaking Jackson, that's how.

IAN: Oh, right.

¹ "Astroturfing" is the process of commenting all over the place anonymously to make it sound like there's a widespread opinion about something, when it's actually just a handful of people, or a paid publicity firm, or something. The term means "fake grassroots" -- something that LOOKS like grassroots support, but isn't.

Following up to my last post:

So, Samuel L. Jackson, apparently, has this thing where he goes, anonymously, to blogs and chatrooms and fora and so forth, and talks to people about how great Samuel L. Jackson is.

And I think that's awesome, and funny, and cute.

But if basically ANY other celebrity did this, I'd think it was scummy, and weird, and creepy, and dishonest.

So -- what is it about SLJ that makes it okay for him?

I mean, if Tom Cruise was doing it -- ick. Then again, that's not fair: if I heard a report stating that Tom Cruise breathes and eats food, I'd consider photosynthesis and gills. But still -- if Wil Wheaton was doing that -- how odd and creepy. If Nathan Fillion or Bruce Campbell did that -- okay, that might be funny, but only if they owned up to it pretty quickly.

Are there any other celebrities that could get away with it?