My Pledge to You

Language and psychology are funny that way. So much is conveyed with body language and facial expressions, that humor and sarcasm are difficult to pull off successfully in writing. Which is why those who did it particularly well are so well recognized, like Jonathan Swift's modest proposal.

You've got me thinking a lot about blogging and how audience expectations and familiarity work together to shape the reader's response. Readers who have been around a while immediately got the humor and (mostly) liked it; new readers (who were understandably drawn in by great titles) had to figure out your tone, and apparently some of them weren't successful. That's part of the challenge of a blog: readers can enter at any point, and they may or may not take the time to become familiar with the blogger and so have appropriate expectations.

I appreciate and respect your desire to adapt to your community, though I would hate to see you lose the snarky edge that is sometimes appropriate and enjoyable. I also appreciate that here and in your email newsletter, you are very transparent; you change something and you say, “this is what I have in mind.” Then you come back and say, “Now I'm trying this–let me know what you think.” You've got a lot of expertise to share, but I'm also learning a lot from seeing you think and work through issues like sarcasm as a teaching tool. Thanks for putting it all out there for our benefit.

Be your brand Chris. You will lose more people, than you will save if you try and write something you are not. “Those with ears will hear” and those who won't can always find copy more to their liking. You have a big juicy brain, not writing the way it wants to spill out on the keyboard is like hooking a plow to a race horse. Let her run man!

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous.

Listen, whomever's new to this dance, Chris Brogan is easily in the Top 5 of the most positive people with whom I've crossed paths ever. And he has done this staying above a teeming morass of haters, trolls, guru wannabes fueled by cynicism and plain ol' people who don't get it who follow the guru wannabes like lemmings.

One freaking time (okay, two in a row), he strikes back at those last two groups by bringing all his cleverness to bear in making fun of them AND showing their messages for the crap they are in a hilarious way, and HE's the one who's negative?

You've got to be kidding.

And if you *are* kidding…is that allowed?

Seems you're getting shit no matter what, Chris – do whatever's going to cause the least suffering in the end for you. Keep it up (in all ways) the best you can.

Ditto.

Sarcasm means intelligence.

Being repulsed by sarcasm means no creativity.

Hello!

Whoa, I just read all these comments – so far – and I'm duly impressed by your strategy. You most certainly have picked up a few more followers with this line of posts – once again, showing us how it is done; leading us by your example. :-)

Dude, I live for the satire. A spoonful of sarcasm makes the medicine go down, so to speak. I do it everyday on my blog, thingsiwanttopunchintheface.blogspot.com, and while there are pod people who don't get my humor, they aren't my audience. Be yourself, in whatever mood that may be that day.

Chris – just be yourself – if anyone complains about sarcasm tell them to get a life. About 10 years ago I had 7,200 people on an egroup that I facilitated and was the main poster to – some of them seemed to think that I should conform to their opinions or way of saying things and constantly complained about my opinions.

I solved the problem by hanging a sign on the wall that just said let Gordon be Gordon.

So in short let Chris be Chris and if people don't get it let them not get it elsewhere.

As for your post on being a social networking expert – if there were Oscars for blogs that would be nominated. I wrote an ebook on social networking and online discussion in 2001 (in a museum now) but recently got invited to attend a session with a social networking expert and learn all about linked in – I looked him up and he had 18 connections and no recommendations (no face book or bebo etc either). So when I read your post I laughed my ….. off.

Gordon
Intelligise – Be Brilliant

Changing the way you have written in the satirical or sarcastic posts would make you a little dull. I read your blog because you are you. Sometimes I learn something or at least feel like I agree with an issue you wrote about. Other times I laugh, get motivated or inspired. Losing some of that passion that may come across as a little negative to some would be a case of “you're doing it all wrong” when you seem to be doing it pretty right as I see it. If you wrote satire all the time it would get old too, but just as it's a good idea to use video sometimes, or write about something that's not necessarily in the realm of social media once in awhile, I think it's also good to change your tone or voice unless you want to become a robot on auto-post mode which would not be very Trust-Agent like in my opinion.

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