I like stuff.

Friday, November 07, 2008

oh, you have got to be kidding me.

I just watched a little video from a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk.



Either I'm too tired to get his point, or this guy epitomizes the same values that makes me hate spammers, product placement on television/cinema/pop music, all the shitheads on myspace/facebook/whatever that keep sending me crap about how important your brand is and how they've got a blog/meetup/pyramid scheme/conference/fleecing that I need to become a part of to understand the importance of myspace/facebook/whatever (or more often, how it'll teach me the importance of blog/meetup/pyramid scheme/conference/fleecing/whatever)

My usual stance on these things is to say that I'll give it another chance. Watch it again when I'm not so tired.

But no, just this once, I'm going to roll with it.

Fuck you, Gary.

I do not need more advertisements in my life telling me the importance of vitamin water or red bull or cracker jacks or ketchup. I do not need more spam from people that I know telling me how important their life's work keeping a livejournal is. I do not to be goaded into thinking "Oh, I could be smarter than those short-sighted executives that are working for their next bonus instead of promoting their brand."

Fuck you. Fuck the next generation of spammers you're programming.

At some point in the future, I am going to die. Chances are good that history is going to forget me. Chances are good that you'll hold on to the historic significance of Jay Van Andel or Rich DeVos. Great to the true believers, but absolute garbage to the "Shit, you're really going to try to push that Amway bullshit on me again? Why do I invite you over?" crowd.

But what's really brilliant about my plan is that my friends are my friends. They aren't customers to me. They aren't consumers of my product. They're human beings, they're people I care about, and I hope that I'm living my life in such a way that I don't have to constantly sell them the idea that I'm worth talking or listening to.

1 comment:

stiill said...

Two things.

First, this doesn't present anything new, AFAICT. Companies are already hiring people with the sole purpose of seeing what people are saying about them in the zillions of new online social tools, and often with the purpose of influencing them. Marketers don't need to be told they should learn about this new thing that's kind of like Twitter.

Second, some of the hype displays a lack of knowledge about what's come before. He talks about someone giving a talk at a conference, and then getting in the limo and riding away. Actually, at most conferences I've been to, the speakers hang around afterwards and chat with folks who have questions. The idea that we've never been able to have conversations with people until the internet saved us is a bit strange.