Oprah Mag Promotes Casual Sex 4 Men?

Don't ask why I was flipping through the Jan 2010 edition of O magazine but I was. And in doing so I came across this little chart.

Unless I'm reading it wrong...it looks like being a polygamous male who has sex twice a week can add about 14 years to your life. Kind of makes you wonder how many years you gain (or lose) by being monogamous. But then O mag isn't exactly giving us the stats on that.
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Social Media Overload

Does your Twitter also update your Facebook status? Do you have an RSS feed of your Posterous, which updates your blog as well as your Jaiku, Identi.ca and Plurk streams? Are you a Blip.fm DJ and a YouTube Vlogger who also makes guest appearances on 12seconds.tv?

Then perhaps, like me, you’re a little social media overloaded. Keeping track of all your social media channels can be extremely confusing, not to mention overwhelming. Sure, there are helpful feed aggregators like Profilactic, FriendFeed or Correlate.us that are suppose to make our social media lives easier by, well, aggregating all our social media contacts and channels. But have you ever wondered if perhaps we’re over-extending ourselves in the social media realm? Have we started an unhealthy obsession with social media?

We amass gratuitous amounts of friends and followers for no other reason than it seems to be the thing to do. We feel compelled to post updates about real social engagements, during said social engagements. We friend brands…which is kind of like deluding ourselves into thinking, “that stripper from last night really liked me” when, in fact, all she wanted was to lighten your wallet. And I’m guilty of all of it.

Actually, I think I need a personal assistant just for my online persona. I'm overloaded with this stuff, but sadly, I’m addicted and I'm not going to stop. It’s too late for me (though maybe, one day, I’ll look into social media rehab) but it’s not too late for most people. Save yourselves!!!

A wise man once Tweeted me, “Just because you use social media, doesn’t mean you’re being social.”

Social media can be great for entertainment, networking, and just keeping your finger on the pulse, but it's not the end-all be-all of social existence and, like anything else in life, it must be consumed as part of a well-balanced diet of real human interaction and social exercise.

So before it’s too late…stand up, walk away from the computer and go do something social in the real world.

Call some friends and go out for dinner or drinks. Throw a party. Head to a bar and see how many cheesy pick-up lines you can use before you get your face slapped numb. And for the love of God, please don’t put the fun on hold to give us play-by-play updates; the rest of us are too busy blogging to care.

Open Letter to Sallie Mae

Dear Sallie,

As much as I would like this to be a John Dear letter, let's be honest: we're stuck with each other for another 5-10 years, so let's try to get a few things straight.

When I make a $500 monthly payment (which is more than my actual amount due) it's because I'm trying to pay down my loan quicker, not so you can take random amounts and post it to my other loans.

I specifically put the loan numbers on my checks, so when I make a specific payment amount I expect to see that exact amount on my statement. And speaking of statements...my bank statements show that sometimes you are making multiple electronic withdrawals that add up to the full amount of my checks. One check, one loan payment, one withdrawal, asshole! Otherwise you f*** up my personal accounting because I can't find specific payment amounts.

If you want to keep doing this creative accounting bull shit, please do it with someone else's account, I'm sick of playing these games and while I realize a relationship is a two way street, I just don't have the time to spend an hour on the phone with you twice a month to work through our problems.

I'm keeping my end of the bargain by making my payments you gold digging tramp, so please stop making my life more difficult than it already is.

Thanks,

Jason
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IMG00091-20091022-1131.jpg

Freelancing, and the schedule flexibility it provides can sometimes be a beautiful thing. Took this picture on a head-clearing, inspiration walk. Something I like to do when feeling a little stressed out, and something I could never do if I was chained to a desk.
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Social Media Experts: Real Experts or Complete Frauds?

I firmly believe that Social Media "Experts" are quite like psychics. People either believe what they do and say, or they think it's all a load of crap.

Needless to say, I'm skeptical of these self-proclaimed "experts" and here's why: (generally speaking) what have these "experts" done in the world of social media other than gather 10,376 Twitter followers and collect 23,432 friends and start 21.5 fan pages on Facebook? And with all their social media expertise and knowledge, they may have even figured out how to connect them, so when they Tweet, their Facebook status updates. Neat-O!

Maybe these "experts" stay connected to friends and contacts with their SmartPhones using Loopt or FourSquare while blogging about the rules of social media and filming YouTube videos of their child mashing chocolate birthday cake into a mushy paste which soon likens to a primitive cave drawing or facial war paint, while some sort of banal top 40's pop song plays in the background. (NOTE: This brings up the notion of what people now call 'multi-tasking', and which is something I will save for another time/post)

Perhaps they're "experts" because they've been on-board with social media since they had that Friendster profile "ages ago" or they lay claim to being the first person to send an informative and purposeful Tweet. (They're not, I did it first.)

If that's the case, if that's all it takes to be a social media expert...my 6 year-old mentally handicapped cousin and my 87 year-old luddite-turned-tech-junky grandmother have the same resume as any social media "expert" out there and everyone over the age of 8, who uses the internet and has at least two social media platform accounts, should be allowed to claim "Social Media Expert" on their resume. Hell, you may as well add a "social media expert" degree to the long list of at-home-degrees which Sally Struthers used to pimp on daytime TV.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "If this job is so easy, if so little brain activity and knowledge are involved, why aren't you doing it?" It's a valid question and I'm happy to answer it.

For my career, I aspire to something more than the corporate marketing equivalent of scratching my own ass. Personally, I don't want to spend any amount of time sitting in some office cubicle (or even at home) Tweeting about the untold virtues of Arm & Hammer's "Do-it-Yourself At Home Colonic" or Mr. Sticky's "All-Natural Peanut Butter" and uploading pictures of actual customers using these products to a Facebook Fan page.

I like to think that my knowledge of social media is only one of many skills which can be used to formulate an extensive and appropriate creative/marketing solution. And I personally believe that marketing yourself as a social media expert is about as useless as a degree in sanskrit; because as soon as this social media marketing trend blows over (and it will...something "better" will come along or people will just abandon the whole social media microcosm due to excessive sponsorship and corporate overload) you're going to be s*** out of luck and I, for one, don't really want to get laughed out of an interview because I have "Social Media Expert: 2008-2010" listed as a job on my resume.

Now with all that said, I do believe that Social Media Experts exist. They aren't these brash, self-indulgent, quick-talking sales people who convince a Board of Marketing Directors full of old white dudes that they need some hip, in-the-know, surfer, brandishing their corporate banner, to ride the social media tsunami. No, it's the inventors of social media themselves. It's people like Jonathan Abrams (creator of Friendster), Mark Zuckerburg (creator of Facebook) or the creators of FourSquare, Twitter, Amplify, YouTube or any other software platform that allows people to connect, network, stay in-touch, and communicate online and in the digital realm.

These are your social media experts! The inventors, the creators...the rest of us are just users, grateful users, but users. And while users can manipulate these social media behemoths and even use them in new and creative ways (because the true experts were gracious enough to bestow upon us gifts like open APIs), I just don't believe that makes them experts.

SM Performance Reviews: continued thoughts

I just posted some thoughts and an article about Social Media Performance Reviews over on Amplify, and in the fifteen minutes that have passed I've given this some more thought.

I think informal peer reviews through social media platforms is a good idea, but I also think this could be taken a step further when it comes to brands and advertising. There are plenty of brands out there involved in social media circles. It helps them get a pulse on what consumers are saying about their brand as well as allowing them to connect with their customers on another level. But it all happens after the fact.

How many times have you seen a commercial or campaign from a brand you like and say to yourself, "What was **** was that?" or perhaps you felt like it just doesn't speak to you. Maybe you hop online and Tweet or blog about it claiming "epic fail" by said company. If there is enough negative feedback on it, the company may take that into consideration for follow up campaigns and future advertising.

Now, what happens if our loved company had an internal review process in which you, the consumer, had more of a say? Would that be a whole lot different than a user-generated campaign?

Think about Threadless.com. People make designs, the community votes on it and the winning design gets produced. It's a pretty simple strategy that gets more people involved in the decision making process and it's a wonder to me that more ad firms aren't following a similar strategy.

If an advertising firm allowed their creatives to continue to create, but instead of an internal review by just their creative directors, the review is conducted by a brand community made up of the demographic you're trying to reach...isn't that ad firm going to be a lot closer to hitting the nail on the head when they launch a campaign?

Think of it as a focus group, but with a much broader and wider assortment of input.

In other words, getting feedback and input first would more than likely better the final product (as it relates directly to the consumer)...instead of getting feedback after the product has already hit the market.

There are a lot of loose ends in this theory of mine which I would need more time to think through, and I am quite certain will get pointed out if any commenting goes on here, but if there was a User-Generated Advertising Agency (of sorts)...talk about connecting with your customers, huh?

Common Knowledge, Not So Common in Social Media

When it comes to social media, does common knowledge just get thrown out the window? Is that why so many writers are able to publish articles about social media tips, hints, tricks and etiquette.

I feel like I see new articles on this stuff at least daily, and for the most part, they're all saying the same things: don't announce you're on vacation, remember everyone can see your Tweets, don't talk bad about colleagues, the list goes on and on, but it all seems like basic common knowledge stuff.

We all know that saying, "Common knowledge isn't so common," still, I'm surprised some of these people are probably getting paid to write some if this stuff. Comedians point out shortcomings in common knowledge, but at least they're funny.

That said, who are these people to tell me what the rules and regulations of social media should be? That my Tweets should incorporate more intellectual value than how many times a day I masticate or drink a cup of coffee. Isn't one point of social media that we, the society, get to determine what's good and bad...not some group of self-elevated, morally superior, elitists who have a bigger loudspeaker just because they're published writers, or so-called "experts" in the field.

I do agree that different platforms call for different protocol, but if you have to be told what those protocol are...perhaps you shouldn't be there in the first place. Let'em dig their own grave.

So, if you want to Tweet about a great burger you had, or update your Facebook status to, "Damn, that girl is peepin' my junk." Go ahead and do it! You're human and you've got personality...perhaps no class, but certainly personality. It might make some people judge you a little differently...but more than likely, they'll blow it off as just another stupid post.

As social media becomes more and more valid as a form of mainstream internet technology and not just "a way to stay in touch" you do lose some of the fun. It's almost like mom and dad just crashed your slumber party, so it would behoove you to remember that a lot companies and people are now using your online presence as a flagstick by which your character will be judged. But ultimately, how you conduct yourself online is your call, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

The Snuggie Chronicles

I'm not really sure what made the Snuggie such a huge hit this past Holiday season, but there has certainly been some recent activity involving this overly-advertised, abomination of couture.

First there was the WTF Blanket video that garnered national attention thanks to the media's complete lack of reporting on anything with substance. (I'm still a little pissed about all the media attention on the Phelps smoking and Oprah's weight gain...it's not news people!!!)

Now, it seems a bunch of people have devised a way to raise money for charity while wearing these fleece hospital gowns and drinking themselves into oblivion by participating in a Snuggie Pub Crawl in NYC this spring.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm down with a good ol' fashion pub crawl and if you can raise some money for charity, so much the better. What better way to show your support than by going out on the razz and getting completely faced. But what has me particularly perplexed by this event is the Snuggie requirement.

At first I wondered, "are the sellers of the Snuggie suffering from lower sales due to the downturn in the economy and thought this may be a great way to boost sales and raise their karma factor by donating pub crawl proceeds?" But, that simply can't be!

With more people jobless, sitting at home typing out resumes, jockeying the remote and unable to pay heating bills...selling an oversized, fleece Jesus robe is almost like exploiting the current economic status. It's almost too easy! This thing should be selling itself.

So, I'm left with only one other explanation to this seemingly asinine event. Someone got a Snuggie as a gift over the holidays and it's been sitting in its original packaging, taking up valuable space in some icebox of a closet; and in a valiant effort to gain some use out of this product and validate the storing of it for several months...said someone thought, "Hey, there are others like me. Other people who live with the guilt of not using a crappy Holiday gift. There has to be a way to end this grief I endure every time I open my closet door."

And thus, the Snuggie Bar Crawl was born.

If you plan on participating and making a complete ass out of yourself for a good cause...by all means, go for it...it is for charity after all and that's a good thing. I just hope you'll send me some pictures.