A lot of you know that I use the blog as a laboratory of sorts.
I am using it as a way of seeing action-reaction responses in the blogosphere and the mainstream media. I am seeing what lures and what bait attracts what fish. Walleyes, trout, salmon, ahi, sailfish, or pacific blue marlin. I am seeing what these “buttons” do. Even though I am told not to touch the Big Red Button, I am always tempted.
I am seeing where the line where scandal, sensationalism, rhetoric, and provocativeness hurt your brand and not just make it better and better and better. I have yet to cross that line. The riskier I am, the more attention and the more coverage I receive, the more professional engagements I am offered, and the more prestige I build. I mean, it’s just nuts; actually quite creepy. I wonder where the line is? I wonder where my line is.
I actually know precisely where my line is and it is always a challenge to push the envelope without crossing my line. And it is actually quite refreshing how scandalous, sensational, rhetorical, and provocative one can be without being hurtful. How far one may go without needing to deliver even a simple TKO. How, if you are smart, you will never deliver a knockout with a single punch, that one will be able to control one’s killer instinct and never deliver a death blow.
Yes, I sound serious, but every time you step into the ring and go for the KO, you always risk death be it manslaughter or assassination.
Comments (4)
But why are you revealing your experiment and your tactics and your goals to your lab rats?
Because I am neither insidious nor duplicitous. And it continues the experiment. It is like Schrödinger’s Blog — the lab rats are both living and dead all at the same time. And, because the blogosphere is so decontextualized and because nobody cares about historical imperative, there is very little chance of there being any change in the outcome.
It is my experience that even after you reveal the secrets to all the tricks and techniques in your entire magic act, people are still astounded by sleight of hand and are willing to still believe in magic.
Well put Chris. You don’t have to be mean with it, but pushing big red buttons is a societal role that journalists havfe traditionaly played. Muckraker
Muckracker is my Inuit name.
Although I might be a sensationalist and provocative muckraker, I also have enough sensitivity and protocol not to fuck with something — a system or healthy thing — “just because I can.”
And I never attempt to either be cancerous or murderous.
Just a little tough love, in the Nietzschian fashion.