I have been known to enjoy, and employ, a musical reference, on the odd occasion, and since I’m listening to Say Hi at the moment, I thought I’d go with it, yet again.
We talk about so much utter crap in this industry, and I’ve recently stated that I hate adding to the noise when I have nothing relevant to say. Don’t get your hopes up and think that I have anything relevant to say just because I’m writing now, of course, but I do think it’s quite interesting how we’re saying so much about NOTHING, but we’re not saying anything about what those of us with a bit of sense can do to stop all the massive levels of antagonism that are directed at almost anyone, with any opinion, in this field. Now I will be the first to admit that I do quite love a bit of controversy, especially when black hat SEO is involved, and I respect passion, no matter where it’s directed, but why is it that we feel the need to label another human being according to how he or she runs a business aspect of his or her life? That’s asinine.
“I’ve never before seen so much outward nastiness and I went to a private girls’ school until I was 13.” Jane “Kinky Pants” Copland
These camps that people have established themselves as members of are seriously freaking me out. What happened to being objective, being able to look at a situation and potentially judge it for the actions undertaken without calling the person performing those actions horrible names or likening them to Nazis or KKK members? Why must we judge people by how they do their jobs?
I’m a vegetarian, so go ahead and roll your eyes and gag thinking of tofu, lovely tofu, nom nom nom (Ms. Copland, I’m thinking of you.) When you’re done, think about this: a hunter who kills a deer and feeds his family with it is doing something that I don’t do. He’s killing an animal, and he’s eating it, and that goes against how I live and how I eat. However, I don’t HATE this person. I don’t even think he’s wrong, or bad, or anything like that…I just think he’s made a choice, or been forced into a choice, that I would not make given my current leanings and situation. However, if I were starving and had to kill a deer to eat it and survive, I’d do it wouldn’t I? After all those viewings of Bambi Meets Godzilla, you’re damned right I would.
What if I simply decided to start eating meat again? Would that make me a bad person? Let’s go back to the lovely Jane Copland, an avid meat-eater who enjoys telling me about her carnivorous activities. She and I have different eating habits…you have to eat to survive, of course, just like most people have to work to survive. We have vastly different viewpoints about what we should eat but you don’t see the two of us attacking each other online over it. Yet. That’s obviously a piece of steak cleverly disguised as a kiwi…in case you’re fooled by her innocent look.
And god forbid we get into religion (HA) or politics here, but do you actually dislike someone who has different beliefs than you do? Since I only enjoy outing people like Jane, I won’t out anyone for being a Republican but I will tell you, with complete honesty, that even though I am a rabidly liberal person who wouldn’t have voted for Joe Strummer on the Republican ticket, I don’t hate anyone who is planning to vote for someone other than Obama. That’s because I happen to be a somewhat well-adjusted individual who simply doesn’t care when other people have a differing viewpoint. I think it’s quite lovely that not everyone I know agrees with me on everything. Otherwise, who would I make fun of?
“I didn’t understand it before, but now I do: Twitter is partially to blame. It’s the high school hallway to Sphinn’s cafeteria.” Jane “Prom Queen” Copland
Is it something like a Michael Moore syndrome that’s making some of you get online, write all kinds of nasty nonsense, and get someone else’s attention for your vitriol instead of your abilities? If you’re a chemist reading this, I apologize, as I am not trying to make fun of your copper sulfate. Being extreme is fine, and it’s necessary in cases like drawing the world’s attention to genocide, for example, but SEO? As long as I have been doing SEO, the angriest I’ve ever been was when my minimum cost per click went from $0.15 to $0.17, and let me assure you that it didn’t make me get on Sphinn and start referring to people as the spawn of Satan.
“When someone mentions ethics and seo in a sentence, I am reminded of a passage in Catch 22, where you can only eat after you salute the flag. Why is that?” Lyndon “Geared Up” Antcliff, quoted from Lisa Barone’s ethics piece
As I’ve said, passion IS needed, all over, but it needs to be tempered a bit. Someone doing a bit of link bait that you think misled someone…god help you if that’s your biggest problem. I WISH I had the luxury of getting upset by things like that. Meanwhile, I can’t always get a cranberry orange scone at Starbucks. Sometimes I have to get a freaking muffin. I’ll save my hateful thoughts for those days.
