Wednesday, December 11, 2013

I'm not all that interesting. And neither are you.


I'm the Mayor of Who-Gives-A-Shitsville.

Which is my way of saying that if I didn't accept your connection to FourSquare, the social media that tracks your every location, I won't be doing so in the near future.

I'll be the first to admit that when this new FourSquare phenomena hit, I signed up for it. Not sure why I did, as my wife postulates…

"you never go anywhere interesting, why would people want to know you're at the pool or getting an overpriced fruit cup from Bristol Farms?"

However, I work in an industry where there is this ungodly fascination with trends, particularly anything remotely related to digital.

Application blah blah blah.
Mobile blah blah blah.
Hashtag blah blah blah.

So I get roped into these meaningless digital flash mobs. The fear is if I don't stay current and know what the kids are doing I'll be pegged as some kind of industry dinosaur.

From what I can see, the kids aren't doing much of anything.

They're tweeting and instagramming and snapchatting about stuff, but they're not actually doing stuff. And yes, I'm aware of the irony that I am currently blogging about what other people aren't doing.

But, and this is a big butt, I'm honing my skills, putting one word in front of another.

Colleagues, who call themselves writers, or the more diminutive copywriters, aren't even doing that. I know, I've looked. I've seen the portfolios without any print, without any radio, without any demonstrable evidence of that thing we used to call craft.

I do see a lot of page takeovers. Clients love page takeovers. I'm guessing consumers do, too. I was at a dinner party the other night -- sorry, I didn't check in on Foursquare -- and heard this guy regalling others with a tale about page takeover.

"The other day I was checking out CNN.com. Did anybody see how Capitol One took over their page? It was incredible!"

OK, nobody is talking about page takeovers. Nobody should.

When these copywriters aren't doing page takeovers, they're coming up with cool new ways to showcase their client's products and services on Jizbo, Yeeha, Purple Box, Gaglet, FuzzBucket,  or some other media platform known only to 23 people on the planet.

My credentials can be damned.
I'm no longer on Foursquare.
And from this point on, I'm downsizing my digital thumbprint.

I look forward to the day when corporations do the same.




2 comments:

george tannenbaum said...

I didn't realize how much I had missed Pebblz.

jls209 said...

Gaglet, for the win.