I confess: I have better taste than you

No, not YOU! You have great taste! You're reading my blog! Don't be silly.

I'm speaking to those other people, the ones who smell like Old Spice. The ones who can't discriminate between a great story and its shallow, more expensive sequel. Yeah you guys. (No, not YOU dear blog reader. You know who I mean by now, right?).

Yes, I have better taste than you. I like independent, cerebrally thrilling and ironically funny movies. The movies you like will never become cult classics and you don't even know why that sucks. I like design where form follows function and melts your soul with beauty. You think the name of your company is a headline and and that nothing stands out if it's not bolded, in quotes or in a starburst. You don't even know that quotation marks aren't "attention-getters."

It's not just me that has better taste than you, the reader of this blog has better taste than you, too. Lots of people do! Alas, there are more of you than us, which is why mainstream stuff, by definition, isn't very deep. It has to please the masses and go with the flow. For the most part. Thank God, once in a while someone breaks out of that mainstream mold.

For example and more evidence of my fabulous taste, I love the Old Spice campaign starring Isaiah Mustafa. He is stunning to behold and plays the role perfectly. Hilarious concept, great filming, groundbreakingly communicative and social, that campaign actually got me to almost buy some Old Spice for my son. Almost. Until I smelled it. Oh well. Still, I'm a huge fan of the ads now and their sales have gone way up because of people like you, which is cool for them. 

Maybe it had run its course already. Maybe Weiden + Kennedy hadn't thought past the year's brilliant campaign. Maybe people like you were disappointed that they didn't get chicks any easier while wearing Old Spice. 

I don't know the reasoning, but Fabio happened.

I finally clicked the "New Old Spice Guy Fabio" ad tonight because it's stalking me. They've spared no expense with the Facebook ads, apparently. I was hesitant because I'm neutral at best in my opinion of Fabio. He doesn't do it for me but I thought maybe they could really dig into the cheese factor. So I watched some of the commercials. They're like a bad mix of Sprockets and Hans and Fronz skits on Saturday Night Live. Are you kidding me? *Sigh. They sort of, brought the concept of Isaiah's ads along but Fabio can't carry it. He's dropping it left and right. Choppy. Confusing. Cheap. What is happening in this one??:

I wish everyone out there had great taste like me and you (yes, YOU this time!!) – then we wouldn't have to waste our time on sub-par stuff unless being sub-par made it cool.

I confess: If I see one more social media expert advice headline I'm going to ...

A. Unsubscribe from whomever sent it to me.

B. Throw up a little bit in my mouth.

C. Re-tweet it because it seems like good information even though I only skimmed it.

D. Click the link only to realize that I've been "Rick Rolled."

E. Read it despite myself and get distracted from what I was doing, get most of the way through it and feel empty inside because it wasn't worth my time.

F.  Read it and actually learn something, click a link about the writer, like their Facebook page, and never notice their posts in my over-crowded stream ever again.

G. Click the link and WISH I'd been "Rick Rolled" once I see the boring page, get distracted by thinking about how "Rick Rolling" is actually one of the more brilliant viral-marketing-social-media-campaigns out there because it isn't marketing at all.

It's annoying to see so many experts dishing out fast-food advice as if you can follow a formula and *poof* your business will explode like a viral disease with no vaccine. The truth about it all is much more simple than all of the mountains of advice out there make it seem. 

Social media isn't really new. Yes, there's new equipment, new delivery methods, new technology and yes, it offers the potential of getting up close and personal with a few billion people. But the concept is as old as we are. Humans have been practicing social media since before the written word. We've always had a voice (just maybe not as strong as Rick Astley's).

Whether or not your message goes "viral" hinges on good old fashioned principals like communication skills, creativity and hard work. I would go into more details on that, but then this would be a social media advice blog post and I really don't want to read or write another one of those for at least a day or two. 

What's Your Super Power?

You already have it.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, it's in you. Let's say you get hit with a super-mega-gama-ray of randomly scientifically amplificating uber-you-ness that turns you into Super ______(insert descriptive name here).

What's your super power?

(Click here and then leave a comment with your answer!)