Steve Rubel’s recent post Twitter Is Peaking; Get Ready to Follow The Geeks Onward on AdAge sparked a very interesting discussion between the great @TWalk and me.

Is the entrance of celebrities into Twitter ruining it for the “rest of us?”

In Rubel’s article, he states, “Just six months ago, the list of the top 100 users on Twitter read like a who’s who of geeks.” I agree. And to us, those in the top 100 were seen as celebrities.

Eventually, new Twitter adopters realized the possibility to exist equally among those celebrity geeks. Yes! We could become celebrities ourselves! We could be important! Known by thousands! Big shots in our little Twitter world.

So what originally determined Twitter Celebrity Status?

Twitter Age (Interesting Content x Rate of Updates)

Twitter Age is–obviously–the length of time someone has been using Twitter.

With this idea, I don’t blame those who’ve worked hard to earn “Twitter Elite Status” (potentially Rubel himself?) for getting peeved off that *REAL* celebrities are changing Twitter, or raising the bar. Where the advantage previously was “Twitter Age,” a totally new variable has entered the picture. Prior fame.

So what does this mean? Twitter Celebrities are not the celebrities of Twitter anymore. There is a whole new standard that we normal people are going to have a tough time reaching.

So what now? Should we pout? Does it really matter? Your network is still your network, regardless of a celebrity’s ability to have thousands more followers than you. Maybe this will separate us into two camps.

Or maybe we’ll just find a new castle where we can be king.