While drifting through my Friendfeed account I discovered a funny little thing that made me realize something big is happening.

I present to you Conan’s sword and by Crom, it’s an impressive one. This sword is the original used in the movie and this picture was shot in the Californian Governor’s office.

So, what’s so unusual about this?

As you all know (or don’t) Governor Schwarzenegger is very active online. The socially savvy Governor has about 1 million followers on Twitter and has just started a new Twitter account called MyIdea4CA.

But what interests us here is where this picture was taken from, namely Twitpic and how people reacted to it.

Here are a few comments you can find on that page:

• Thats so cool Arnold!!
• Make the Conan King movie, show us the last fight of this sword. CROM!!!
• holy shit arnie thats badass!

Have you noticed how “personal” these comments are? Do not forget that they are addressed to a celebrity and one of the most influential political figures in the USA. Even if “Arnie” doesn’t read all these pieces of text, it doesn’t matter. This example shows that social media is starting to have a strange influence on our behavior and the way we perceive proximity.

Normally, when we meet a celebrity in the street we shyly go ask for an autograph, conscious of the fact we may be disturbing this person. But online, all these inhibitions disappear, leaving space for “friendly” relationships.

While just a few years ago people used to hide behind a nickname and a fake picture, today we all become pals whether we’re a student, a CEO, a celebrity or the President of a country. And even if we’re still using a nickname and an avatar, with all the social networks around and the ‘About’ pages on blogs, it’s getting easier to know our interlocutor.

Now the big question: if one feels pride when directly dealing with his favorite celebrity or politician, how does the alter-ego feel? It is nice to see we are connected with people, but do we feel any real connection?

One can have a populist view on the matter saying that quantity is what matters but, as we’ve recently noticed, many social media experts have started cleaning out their “entourage”.

While in the past we used to be amazed when facing his Highness the King, nowadays we call him by a somewhat irreverent diminutive version of his first name. Does this mean that by creating a pretence of proximity, easy and frequent exposure to the Internet actually encourages us to adopt a blasé attitude?

What do you think? Are we losing touch with reality? Or are we changing society by breaking social strata that have no sense anymore?