Comedians say it all the time: audiences love being abused. Call ‘em stupid, and they’ll beg for more. Maybe that’s the logic that drives nearly 1.8 million people to follow Larry King on Twitter, even though he says he doesn’t really care for social networks.

The LA Times Blog spoke with King about his hugely popular Twitter account, and got a surprising response:

“My producers do it. My wife is a Twitter freak. She’s sick. But I understand it. I think the movie [“The Social Network”] about Facebook was great.”

He prefers the texture and feel of newspapers rather than digital texts.

King has over 1.7 million fans who love to see his text on his @kingsthings. He’s not sure Twitter’s actually beneficial to journalism (“…it forges more rumors, more heresy, and everybody’s a blogger.”), and he very honestly admits that he doesn’t manage his own Twitter account. But 1.7 million people love reading Tweets about King’s interviews with celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers.

Does it matter that King doesn’t manage his own Twitter? Neither does Barack Obama, and we can bet there’s many more busy people who have PR folks maintain their Twitter for them – and that doesn’t necessarily mean people don’t follow their Tweets. Maybe with enough celebrity cache, you don’t have to manage your own Twitter account. But for the rest of us, it’s best to forge an honest representation by managing our own social media.