After five years of dating, funny people Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy called it quits. They announced their break-up it on Twitter.

McCarthy Twittered the following: "I'm so grateful for the years Jim and I had together. I will stay committed to Jane and will always keep Jim as a leading man in my heart."

To which Carrey responded, "Jenny and I have just ended our 5yr relationship. I'm grateful 4 the many blessings we've shared and I wish her the very best!"

Gossip sites are aghast. Fans of both are heartbroken. And literally millions of men are, at this very minute, watching a paper plate loaded with bubbling bagel pizzas slowly turn in the microwave.

But this news is significant. There are two ways to look at this story. Here is one angle: that these two public figures are using social media site Twitter as a way to side-step an increasingly invasive and hostile press with an insatiable appetite for scoops. They are using Twitter as a virtual podium at a press conference.

There are alot of people out there who care, however. Which is the brilliance of this move: Twitter is a remarkably intimate way to desseminate information. Fans consuming this information are immediately sympathetic to these two because they feel they it was personally announced to them.

I have nothing against either stars, and our culture of celebrity worship frequently degenerates into a mosh pit of savages. In a way, they deserve the ability to control their own story. But absorbing this information over Twitter dulls the impulse to ask "Why?"

One day, celebrities who are guilty of sex scandals will apologize in 140 characters far from the the glare of public scrutiny. Or, even worse, one day, some President will tell us something of national importance over Twitter, and none of us will ask "Why?"  

That's one way to look at this story. As a glimpse at a future where what's true can't be verified. A tomorrow that's nothing but voices shouting facts that are opinions, statements meant to distract, and lies repeated over and over again until they're believed.

Or there's the other way to look at this story. Extra-terrestrial eels have slithered up the noses of Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, wrapped themselves around their frontal lobes, and are using them as human Trojan Horses. The strategy is simple. Deceptively so. First, break the famous couple up. Then they hit the notoriously debauched Hollywood party scene. Next: world domination. We're suddenly Zombie Planet of the Brain Eels.  

Take your pick.