Jerk = FAIL!
April 27th, 2008 |
I was thinking recently about some of the “A-list bloggers” (a term I detest, yet it is widely used), and how some of their juvenile and even aggressive, anti-social behavior presents a “good news-bad news” scenario. (For some reason we always say “good news, bad news” even when expressing the bad news first.)
It’s bad news, because certain people believe themselves to be “better,” more important, and even more relevant than others, and I suppose we live in a meritocracy, but there are some notable personalities who have really gained their fame through a first-mover advantage and are ultimately, well, jerks who use bullying and other questionable tactics to generate traffic.
The good news is, or at least I hope so, that the very nature of social media/networks exposes these people as the jerks they are. With almost universal access (among people who care to have access) to blogs, Twitter, digg, etc., we all have frequent opportunity to openly express our opinions and reactions to these people. Hopefully, public opinion will eventually reward people who provide intelligent analysis, well thought out reasoning and critical thinking, and not those who drive traffic with a baseless cult of personality, by engaging in manufactured online feuds, or by labeling perfectly decent people as “lame” or “losers.”
I have deliberately not mentioned any of the people I am criticizing. I’m trying to express my opinion on this without helping these people increase their influence. You can probably guess at a few of them and I don’t care to link to them.
Let’s hope that as the sport of social media matures, the bullies and opportunists are replaced by people of substance and character.
Jerk = FAIL!
Tags: Jerk=FAIL!
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A couple definitely come to mind, no name mentioning necessary. Juvenile is a great description of these guys. Unfortunately, they have a cult-like following who only use half of their brains.
I disagree that we live in a meritocracy, if we did, these jerks wouldn’t get the publicity that they do. Status nowadays is heavily based on who you know and who knows you, not necessarily what you know and who you are.
Comment by Shey — April 27, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
Jerks in the old days was the really loud guy playing golf one hole before you. You could hear everything, all about his new boat, his great job, and so on. Now it’s the same guy only he/she has the whole world at their doorstep/keyboard. Most only infect a few, but the ones that get really big have one thing in common they didn’t say it “first”. Because that loud golfer is also a good listener. In between beers and hot dogs, he’s watching your every move. And taking note. He then takes that and spins it to his own use. So the trick is to be the guy who makes them let down their guard, and all you have to do is listen.
Comment by ophelia c — April 27, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
As a relative newcomer, it would help to know a source that would identify some of these jerks so more of us could monitor, then shed some light on their behavior and tactics.
Comment by Jeff Davis — April 27, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
I’m not sure how to answer that, Jeff, as I think everyone differs on who they are, and I didn’t set out to attack any individual, only the practice of building a following through negative and anti-social behavior.
Comment by joel — April 27, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
Oh, I can think of one in particular that started down the right road for the right reasons, then let it all go to his head.
Thanks, Joel. (no, it’s not Joel.)
Comment by Ike — April 28, 2008 @ 12:15 am
[...] colleagues. Joel told me he’d been thinking about writing a post about this very issue, and I just read it here. I think there is so much truth to this and I’m glad he had the gumption to write it out. He [...]
Pingback by Jerk Bloggers and CeWEBrities « Amybeth Hale - Research Goddess — April 28, 2008 @ 12:34 am
The hard thing about any “list” is that its existence determines some kind of decision about how it was formed.
For myself, I didn’t really know much about A-Listers… frankly because I knew I wasn’t one, and was never invited to any parties.
In the end, I have “my own A-List” and that is a group of people that I am interested in listening to… and who respect my comments when I make them.
One funny thing about popularity is that, all you have to do is attune yourself to something on the “fringe” and suddenly the popular stuff is so far to your right or left you can’t even SEE it anymore.
@ophelia_c Wow, that was very insightful and true: “So the trick is to be the guy who makes them let down their guard, and all you have to do is listen.”
Comment by Robert Merrill — April 28, 2008 @ 5:02 pm