Dionne Warwick wishes younger artists today would be more cognizant of what they are saying and the possible ramifications.
The legendary singer told CNN she believes social media factors into some reckless commentary, one of the reasons she decided to join Twitter.
“I was with my nieces and nephews and they were just giggling and carrying on because their little thumbs were going mad, and I wanted to know what they were laughing about,” Warwick said. “My niece, Brittani, showed me what she was looking at and I was not too pleased with what she was looking at.”
Warwick said she asked her niece, “Is this always the way [Twitter] is?”
Upon learning it was, indeed, a platform for a lot of nonsense, she requested her niece to help her get started with her own account so she could share some sense.
“She showed me and I immediately went on and let these babies know that now a grown up is in your presence,” Warwick said, laughing.
That type of moxie is on display in the new CNN documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” which traces the incredible life and career of the first Black woman to win a Grammy in the pop music category.
Warwick said the project offered her a nice stroll down memory lane.
“There are a lot of things that, to be honest with you, I had forgotten about,” she said. “And to see them again was like, ‘Oh,yeah, I remember that.’”
In all fairness, Warwick has achieved so much it would be easy to overlook some accomplishments.
She said she is pleased with the completed documentary, as well as her title as the unofficial “Queen of Twitter” for her pithy commentary on the platform. Even more importantly, she said, she believes she’s made a difference in helping convince some to bring down the temperature when it comes to social media discourse.
So much so, Warwick said that the site’s former chief executive officer Jack Dorsey reached out to thank her.
“He called, he says ‘Thank you, thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘You have no idea that with what you said, all of a sudden these tweets are changing.’ I said, well, that’s the idea.”
“You know, let these kids know that there is a way to say anything they wanna say, but there’s a way to say it though,” Warwick added. “And I let them all know that a smile carries more pressure and more pleasure than a frown.”
She recently tweeted a survey asking if she should take over as head of Twitter from Elon Musk, and, unsurprisingly, the results were a resounding yes — even though the options she cheekily offered were either “yes” or “yeah.”
“Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” premiered Sunday and is exclusively on CNN.
