But thanks to the wonders of social media, we’re closer to the stars we love and hate than ever before. Now a new company wants to revolutionize the celebrity PR game via social media–and it’s making publicists and agents all over Hollywood very nervous.

What is TheAudience? It’s an alternately “stealthy” and “mysterious” startup backed and promoted by two of the biggest names in the West Coast media world: Napster/Facebook co-founder Sean Parker (who you may know as Justin Timberlake) and Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel (who you may know as Jeremy Piven).

But its driving force is Oliver Luckett, a former programmer, Disney PR man and full-color personality whose hobbies, according to The New York Times, include driving around LA in an Aston Martin and traveling to Iceland (our new favorite country) “to to compete against Bjork in a gingerbread house-building contest”. We like the guy already! His key selling point? He’s figured out a way around the traditional Hollywood PR system.

What does TheAudience do, exactly? The company effectively manages the social media presence of celebrities who don’t have the time (or interest) to do it themselves. But this is no automated status update machine: Team members feed fans a steady stream of content via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus, keeping them occupied with exclusive comments, pictures and videos.

The key difference between old-school PR services and this newfangled arrangement is that the content truly does come from the celebrities themselves:

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This year, the Oscars was all about reaching the young people, with lots of social media stuff surrounding the broadcast and two young hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, who were specially selected to get the youth vote. That was a bust.

The L.A. Times suspects that the Oscars has now done away with its youthful aspiratiosn in favor of the tried-and-true. The last time Crystal hosted, in 1998, it was the highest rated broadcast of the awards ceremony ever.

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Photo: Andrew H. Walker, Getty Images

The announcement that Eddie Murphy will be hosting the 84th Academy Awards doesn’t resolve any questions about what the broadcast will be like.

EW.com wonders whether it’s the wild or tame Murphy that will show up on Oscar night. In part, that has to do with what the Oscars has planned. Last year, the Oscars targeted the younger folks with hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco, which seemed interesting. But most people thought the show was boring and the hosts were terrible (Hathaway too enthusiastic and Franco not nearly enthusiastic enough). In part, they succumbed to the cheesy material they were given.

As anyone who has planned an event with an emcee knows, it’s hard to tell what exactly will happen onstage until the night of when it’s too late to do much about any host mishaps.

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