Why should I care about Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore? I haven’t thought Demi Moore was hot since I was in 7th grade, and Punk’d is, in my not so humble opinion, a scourge brought upon the unwitting and unwashed masses by the Saurons of the television world, sitting atop their evil towers nestled high in the Hollywood hills.

I’ll tell you why: because they’ve made it a point to show the world that they are normal people through a number of social media. This all started when Kutcher’s production company, Katalyst Media, funded the Internet’s first ever live streaming reality show, 24 Hours At Sundance. Now let’s ignore for a moment that I think this experiment was a disaster (despite the powerful pairing of Qik and HP, the all-star linup with Kevin Rose, Shira Lazar, etc., and the inevitability of celebrity sightings at Sundance). Let’s focus on one really important thing: Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are now active social media users.

Certainly the Kutchers are not the first celebrities to dabble in social media. Shaq has had an active and thoroughly entertaining Twitter account for a while. MC Hammer is trying to revitalize his career with a social media startup centered around dance. And let’s not forget the plethora of newly minted Internet celebrities. Hell, all the major entertainment agencies now have divisions specifically for new media personalities. So what makes the Kutchers so special? In short, they are keeping it real.

For starters, those of us who have been following their Twitter feeds since the beginning have witnessed the slow learning curve they’ve exhibited. Demi can’t seem to figure out @ replies, but she’s learning:

It seems she’s a little confused about the retweeting function in Tweetie (which, by the way, is subject for a whole lot of discussion). Or how about Ashton’s confusion about how to stream video on Ustream:

And finally, let’s not forget the feuding between the Kutchers and Perez Hilton, all playing out publicly:

Why does all this matter? Because it clearly demonstrates what social media is all about: allowing anyone to communicate with everyone. It’s easy to forget that celebrities are people, especially since most of them intentionally hide behind communications firewalls. But as anyone in the PR field can tell you, the world has changed, irreversibly. And here are two celebrities unafraid to come out and show the world that they are just normal everyday folks like you and I. They post fun pictures to TwitPic. They livestream everyday moments to tens of thousands of viewers (what? you mean not everybody gets stalked by paparazzi?). This is the stuff my mother asks me about every day, the hurdles that users face when first dipping their toes into the wonders of sharing their lives on the web.

P.S. I’m not a stalker, I just find this stuff fascinating.