There’s change in the air for “social media,” and even Chris Brogan — whose visibility on this “movement” is perhaps greater than any other’s — has recognized it. Why? Because I think too many businesses and revenue or profit-oriented business people just got fed up.
Here’s a recent interview I conducted with one particularly fed up, overhyped, victim of the Snake Oil salesmen, whom I’ll call FU.
TD: You’ve been getting worked up about the social media hype out there… why?
FU: I am getting sick and tired of the entire blogosphere. It makes me want to stop blogging.
TD: Why’s that?
FU: Because the blogosphere is full of the most painfully self-centered a-holes on earth. OK, it is not replete with them. It is, IMHO, engorged with them, which, the more I think about it, is apropos. But if you use the web’s metrics of the moment, there are hundreds of oft-read bloggers whose subject matter is so blatantly their eponymous greatness that I just find myself wanting to puke.
TD: Steady on, mate! Why are you so angry about all of this?
FU: Think about these d-bags: thought of themselves as intellectuals back in college. A liberal arts major, likely. Had a decent career applying those skills to a field that, well, s*&t, wasn’t all that high minded — like, say, technology marketing. Before long they refer to themselves as “serial entrepreneurs” and boast assignments as “executive in residence” with a VC firm in Waltham as though it were a f*&^ing Fulbright scholarship.
TD: Hold your horses, there Fred. I was a liberal arts major — I’ve been in technology marketing for 20 years — I’ve done OK by this industry and while I admire my friends who followed their dreams… (FU interrupts)
FU: Along comes the web, and blogs. No barrier to entry, and exploding adoption. Unlike their high school classmates who sacrificed to be real writers and earn their living as authentic journalists, suddenly they, and the wisdom achieved persuading “senior business executives to optimize their business performance by accelerating innovation,” or some other bucketful of meaningless tripe, feel entitled to share the insight thus gained with the rest of the world. So these people start sharing with the world their most mundane work habits and productivity secrets. “What comes up on my iMac when I lift the lid at Oh-Dark-Thirty.” Ten Twitter Tips, Thirteen Must-Have Plug-ins, Nine Ways You Too Can Become a Self-Involved Twit. Soon we’ll start reading these f#$#ing genius’ predictions about the f^%$ing future.
TD: Actually, I see that those have started already — including Chris Brogan’s prediction of the consolidation / rationalization of this whole social media space.
FU: They share all of this with their precious communities, their friends, their followers — for free — because they know that NOW it’s all about giving and if you give enough you’ll get back ten times over. They use the no cost, no barrier-to-entry platform like a step class at the Boston Sports Club. They step up to tell the world what a moron an executive at one of the worlds largest manufacturing companies is because he doesn’t watch YouTube videos between calls with his steel and rubber suppliers. Then they step down, back into their pathetic near-anonymity, and see if the stupid s@#t goes viral.
TD: But it has to be said that sometimes those things do go viral. And I think it’s a bit unfair to call these people nearly anonymous — big blog sites like ProBlogger get 10s of thousands of visitors per day, my man.
FU: Come on — you know one of these bloggers, don’t you? Don’t you just hate them?
TD: I envy them, at least at the moment — they’re riding a fairly exciting wave, no?
FU: Well any way, that’s why I think you should quit reading blogs, including this one.
[TD - post interview: or, share your thoughts about this post below!]
