SMEGnation

SMEG

1. Social Media Expert Guru

2. Social media professional or advocate, particularly one that tweets, blogs or attends social media related events

3. All purpose swear word from Red Dwarf

Since the backlash to the @Crust_Pizza tweet and the backlash to the backlash, you can almost hear the collective eye-rolling of the anti-SMEG league . The hashtag #SMEG has been a playground for maven hunters, eager to poke fun at those riding their high horse through the echo chamber of hypocrisy. Or something like that.

Now I’m very aware of how annoying it is when someone tries to cross sides and point the finger at their own kind and that’s not what I’m attempting to do here. I am entitled to an opinion though and here it is.

So you think you’re a SMEG

There’s a good chance you actually are a SMEG, whether you like it or not. People you like may taunt you with the label. I say, own it! A little self awareness never hurt anyone, in fact it might give you a reality check on how to avoid the depths of true SMEG behaviour. If the anti-SMEG league are still following you then it’s probably for one of three reasons:

1. You’re so SMEG that they’re only following you for S&G in the first place

2. They know you personally and they’re too nice to unfollow you

3. While they might poke fun at you occasionally, they realise they are following someone who works in the industry and tolerate it because most of the time you’re pretty cool

Get over it sometimes

To quote McG “echoey chamber is echoey”. We’re a pretty niche industry and sometimes you’ll get over it. Don’t worry, it only makes  you a part time hypocrite and frankly, we could all do with a little hypocrisy in our lives. So when I’m on the bandwagon, you might just find yourself too tired/frustrated/SMEGged out to keep up with the hype. You might question me, you might even question yourself.

This is good!

Don’t be so absolute

Says the girl writing a strongly worded blog post. Social media is supposed to be this fluid, adaptable thing yet we seem pretty keen on tying it up with absolute rules and our opinions on it seem even more rigid. Recently I blogged:

We are bordering on confusing an opinion delivered with conviction with self righteous tirades and I’m not entirely sure why. Sometimes I think we just feel the need to sound confident when blogging on a topical point, or stimulating conversation through stirring the pot and this is easier to do with criticism.

I find it hard to believe that we’re boycotting brands over a marketing disagreement when tech companies have workers committing suicide. It is not my opinion or suggestion that these companies should be boycotted or are responsible, my point is that when you take a step back, we really seem to be getting hung up on the most trivial things.

/rant

Photo credit: Canam

~ by mandi bateson on July 15, 2010.