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Archive | December, 2011

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Pinterest

Pinterest - The Anti-Social MediaMy friends have been dogging me to join Pinterest. Apparently, a social network isn’t legit until I come and crush its dreams.

Ugh. Fine.

Let’s ruin another hotshot, flash-in-the-pan social network.

So, what the hell is Pinterest?

This is how the geniuses over at Pinterest describe themselves:

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

In plain English: Pinterest is yet another website where people can share images with their friends.

How novel!

You find things you like (or hate in my case), and then “pin” them to board. Then your friends see them and they “repin” them to their boards.

Don’t we have this idea already? Isn’t it called Facebook? Or is it Tumblr? Or Reddit? Or Twitter? Or Google+? Maybe the creators of Pinterest forgot they had those sites and that’s why they made their own.

So it’s generic. Fine.

Here’s what I hate most about Pinterest.

Pinterest is all about things. Things to buy. Things to make. Things to use. It’s the epitome of consumer culture. Pinterest asks its users to equate themselves with materials. Is this what we want from a social network? A way to describe ourselves as a sum of discount crap that was made in sweat shop?

Every day, we push more meaningless crap onto the web. We’ve devalued our relationships into meaningless numbers of friends and followers. We’ve stopped being people, and started being personal brands. Are we finally ready to reduce our identity into a collection of photoshopped images of crap we can’t afford?

Pin that to your “Products I love” board.

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The Worst Blogger Pitch Ever

Name Drop - The Anti-Social MediaYesterday, I got a pitch telling me to congratulate to someone I don’t know because some publication I don’t care about named him as a top social media influencer along with a bunch of other name drops.

Ugh.

I can’t even begin to fathom who thought this was a good idea. Because I’m a nice person though, I won’t name names. BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Instead, please enjoy my humorous recreation of this abomination:

Happy Holidays Jay!

Even though I have no clue who you are, I wanted to send you some irrelevant news. We are super excited to say our Corporate Tool was named by a publication you don’t care about as leading social media influencer. He was awarded along with a bunch of other people, including Name Drop #1, Name Drop #2, and Name Drop #3. We’re so proud of him!

Even though you don’t know him, tell him congratulations. A half-hearted tweet would be so thoughtful!

We’ll use the rest of the email to tell you additional meaningless, self-serving news you don’t care about. We want you to use the social capital you’ve carefully built up to serve our purposes with no compensation for you.

Best,

 Your Favorite Clueless Agency

I don’t know you. I don’t know your “influence.” And I certainly don’t give shit about your meaningless award.

Congratulations on continuing to give smart, thoughtful, and hard working social media and public relations professionals a bad name with your half-assed, name-dropping and self-serving pitch.

Happy Holidays indeed, chumps.

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New New Twitter

 

New new Twitter - The Anti-Social Media

Could Twitter have done a worse job of corrupting the fundamentals of their service in the name of selling more crappy 140 character ads?

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2011 Social Media Gift Guide

2011 Social Media Gift Guide - The Anti-Social Media