Are you black with white stripes? Or white with black stripes?
Are you a foodie with bike geek days? Are you a PHP coder with IT infrastructure days? Are you a douchebag with coolguy days? The answer is yes, you are. Don’t pretend that you’re not.
photo by Talkingplant
So David says to use the Thumper rule. If you can’t say some thing nice, don’t say something at all. And the other day Steve posted this to Facebook: “Karma Tip of the Day: Un-Learn fear, guilt, anger, jealousy, insecurity and negativity.” I agree 100% with what they’re saying and know all too well that being funny and quick witted and being an ass hat is a fine line, but we in the field of social media expertification constantly and repeatedly espouse the notion that to succeed and be recognized you must be real, authentic and open about who you are and what you do. As such, does it make sense to play Pollyanna and pretend that nobody poops?
I say no. We’re creatures of emotion having real emotional, conversations reacting to things that we feel are important. Weather you drop effbombs, or keep it PG is irrelevant, everyone poops, and everyone needs to call someone a douche now and then. It isn’t the end of the world. And I argue that if we want to keep social media something that we all want to keep participating in we need to re-frigging-lax and not be afraid to whine a little.
Negativity
No one likes someone who’s a total downer who blasts everything and sees the dark cloud in every silver lining, but no one will believe you if you tell them you’ve “un-learned” jealousy, insecurity and negativity. Remember that most of the people who follow you have no idea who you really are and probably don’t care, they just want you to click on their links so they can get a woody looking at the tr.im stats. The rest of us do know you and do care about you and are following you because we feel we can learn something from you or benefit from your personality. If you have a bad day, need to vent, or need a burrito to feel better, we’re here for you. We won’t judge you (we may pwn you a little).
Dissing the competition
Yeah, you shouldn’t do it. Glass houses and all that crap, but sometimes you can’t resist and you call someone out and you start a fight. Understand that we’re all shooting from the hip and that a tweet or facebook comment isn’t a masters thesis. If you fuck up, apologize, and if someone fucks up, un-bunch it according to the Adkins un-bunching method and accept the apology, especially if it comes with a beer. Yeah, sometimes social media can SCTUALLY be social. Like in person and all!
Wining about Windows/the government/Microsoft/Outlook/Chris Brogan/Windows
These people and things are out there to be complained about. That’s what they’re for. So complain about them. At the same time if you whine too much, you’ll bring us all down. So try not to whine too much, and if you do, we’ll throw out a snide remark about your whining and perhaps call you a whambulance to take you to the vagina de-sanding ward.
black and white
So don’t worry about whether your black or white stripes are showing, just be content to know that if we squint while looking at you, you’re as gray as the rest of us.
-M
This post is tagged gray
I AM INDISPOSED The Social Media Zebra Question:
Are you black with white stripes? Or white.. http://tr.im/nuSZ
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Excellently put.
“they just want you to click on their links so they can get a woody looking @ the tr.im stats” http://tr.im/nxVN
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everyone needs to call someone a douche now and then. http://tr.im/nzWI
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It’s funny. Most of the “lessons” I give about succeeding with social media, are really just lessons on being a person. Kinda makes my job easy though.
BTW – You’re a douche.
Very cool blog post. I like un-learn fear, anger, guilt, etc. Be yourself. Be part of your community. Cool.
Thanks Casey!
Mike, I agree. I’m still confounded that it needs to be said.
Also, I should have linked to Eds Post here.
-M
You, sir, are 100 percent correct in this post. I would add that preached caution in only saying something nice is overblown especially within the context of online communities playing out and/or influencing real life communities in the form of helping to shape norms. Both types of communities can have nice interplays which can ultimately create dynamic impacts on the real life part of it, unless you are so self absorbed as to take things incredibly personally, of course.
Not to monkeywrench or anything, but there’s some research that shows that people who have depressive outlooks on life tend to have a more realistic worldview as opposed to those who are nearly always positive.
For me, there’s a wonderful dichotomy in being critical — and yes, even insulting at times — and doing so with the utmost respect and love. Peace is frequently borne from harsh conflict, which is why only generals should be peacemakers.
-Bob
PS Fuck off.
PPS What’s a “vagina de-sanding ward” and where does of your knowledge of these places arise from? Just curious.
So I guess the real lesson here is to not fear being a douche or an ass hat, but try not to be a douche with ass hat days.
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@beccawik according to resident expert @mehwolfy, everyone needs to call someone a douche, preferably publicly http://tr.im/nzWI
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still tortured re: how to deal w/ the ’social’ in SM? read this: The Social Media Zebra Question http://tr.im/pMoy (reco by @bobconrad)
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[...] was inspired by @mehwolfy and his post “The Social Media Zebra Question“. A highly recommended read. A week-long break from the usual rut of predictable work weeks [...]