Jeff Pulver pointed me to an article in New York Magazine called Say Everything, which talks about the younger generation’s passion for putting their entire lives online. It’s a time where kids all presume that everyone has a stage, an audience, and a fan base.
I’m clearly not the younger generation, and yet, I consider this blog a stage. I use it to show you movies, pictures, stories from my life, and things that might be useful to YOUR life on occasion.
From time to time, I’ve mused about the “fan” thing. Who are the kinds of people who come to this site? I know most of you personally, but the funny thing is, I knew most of you first from the online world. We exchanged blog comments, or shared some other media, and then eventually, I met you somewhere. It’s funny, because Jon Swanson recently blogged about the notion of online friends versus real.
But who are your fans? Not just you the bloggers, but you in life. If you think about it, who’s going to say nice things about you? Who’s going to say, “Oh yeah, I love Dave LaMorte! He’s really brilliant! If I weren’t listening to his show, I wouldn’t have heard about … ”
And once you have an audience or a fan base, how do you treat them? I work for a guy who treats his community as one of the most important things in the world. He advocates for them, does what he can to bring them happiness, opportunity, and engagement. It’s a great way to maintain one’s overall standing in one’s own personal universe. It’s easy to find fans of my boss. (Believe me: in San Fran, it was mostly his fans that came out, not the videoblogger community).
You know what comes to mind the most when I think about MY community or the folks I hang with? It’s like we’re the Hong Kong Cavaliers! You remember the 80s movie, Buckaroo Banzai? A bunch of wacky types who have their own super powers, their own areas of expertise, but who band together to make cool things happen.
Yep. That’s who I hang with. How about you? Who are your fans?
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