Mental image: a gaggle of privateers desperate for rumoured treasure, all circling the same few small, leaky boats, offering rescue to those who surrender something... their money, their identity... something of worth. No, not the leaky boat. They're not interested in you, they want what you have. I guess some people are so desperate to escape the leaky boat, bobbing wildly in the swell, they'll do what they must for rescue. They have to be surrendering, or why would the privateers keep circling? Which one will throw the first rope, and at what cost?
And who of all of them is noticing the approaching storm building on the horizon?
Ok, so now I feel like the dude in the white robe walkin' around with the "end of the world" sign.
Nah. Viral marketing has been going on for a long time, in modern terms. It was at the heart of the post war boom. Remember television? It was a newfangled invention then, and it was used to hawk everything from cigarettes and laundry soap to appliances and cars, all in the name of entertainment. It's what villified the dandelion and made suburbanites all want carpety green lawns. Keeping up with the Joneses, it was called. The media by which the viral message is sent has only become increasingly slick over time.The gathering storm? Well, see, I can't help observing that approximately 85% of the people I encounter on Twitter, for instance, are really trying to sell me something. That's not scientific... just an approximation. I mean, ya never know, maybe some of the people who now seem to be just chatting amiably will suddenly shove something at me they want me to buy. It will be something I've just go to have. It will be a secret something, a special something, an old and wise something that's been re-evaluated and packaged all anew. It will be something I can't live without... like that rescue rope. It may even be available for "free" if I just give up my account password, bank account number or access to my soul.
I just don't see how this is sustainable. I mean, are these privateers buying from each other? Or are those of us bobbing in the swell, in our leaky boats, supposed to make them all rich on the little that we have? There are more of them than us, isn't there? How does this work? *sigh* I guess I'm terribly stupid, because I don't understand how they're going to accumulate wealth when the people using the social network to actually socialize are so few, comparitively speaking. Yeah, I must be missing something essential to getting rich quick, which probably explains why I'm so poor. ;op
This morning there was a pithy message from one of the privateers. It was a quote, 'cause pithy quotes are cool and they're free, like bait on a hook. It said: "Sanity may be madness, but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." Don Quixote
Ok, a question: what if I see both? What if I see the dirty little truth, but can still see infinite possibility, both at the same time?
Even as I ponder this, the same tweep's next message: "Use the incredible 1,300% of Twitter to claim your life-changing share of 9,490,000 of CB tranactions" [sic]
Ow. Talk about a bitter, jagged little pill. Clearly I'm missing something. Apparently I, alone, have attracted mostly viral marketing types to my tweets. I am to believe that I am sadly unique. *sigh* Another tweet: "Most of us can see the writing on the wall, we just assume it's addressed to someone else." Ivern Ball
Ow again.
Heh. Ok, so no thanks. I don't need anything. My leaky little boat is probably going to sink and I might drown, but clearly I'm quite mad anyway, quite unneeded in a sea of potential social network consumers, and if that isn't the case, I don't think too many of us stand a chance in that storm that's a-comin' anyway. You go, privateers! And good luck!
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