17 comments

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  mattcraven

  1 year ago

  Well said Mathew... and thanks for the link
  
  ~Matt
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  Palluxo

  1 year ago

  These things (and fights) are happening all the time @ YouTube.
  Thanks for pointing this out. I'll certainly going to take a look into this. It seems interesting.
  
  Daniel
  http://www.palluxo.com
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  Jon Husband

  1 year ago

  Yes, quite interesting dynamic, that.
  
  Actually, I find a fair few of the "names" in social media don't necessarily "act" as they "preach", and I think that's pretty much par for the course when it comes to human, social affairs.
  
  Shel, though, would be notable in that area, in my opinion. From what i have seen there's still a nifty little clique to which Shel belongs / is part of .. and I am not sure at all that they are doing "social media" any favours when it comes to developing deeply the potentials that I think lay therein. The video interviews by and large aren't great, they tend to be tech-heavy, and the analyses (or in effect just remarks) on emerging and evolving sociology and business issues in / for an interconnected environment are pretty banal, by and large.
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  Joseph Thornley

  1 year ago

  "Loren is just having fun with Shel"
  Mathew, I hope that you never have the experience of someone "having fun" at your expense in this way. Yes, we should all have a sense of humour. But there's a difference between clever and just plain mean.
  
  I think the silence about Loren's tactics is driven by people's desire to stay out of his crosshairs. And to me that's the real indication that he has gone way beyond a healthy sense of humour. If you make fun of someone and they aren't returning the "humour" in the same way, a decent person would back off, not up the volume.
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  San Diago

  1 year ago

  I second that, Joseph. I've seen this crap since the very first post and I think that Loren is acting like a chiwawa nipping at heels and defaming his target to get attention. Shel is doing the right thing by staying quiet and not biting back. He's proving to be the real man.
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  I disagree, San Diago. In fact, that's part of the point. Shel has
  been fighting back on Twitter and so on, but (until the blog post)
  only to a small group of friends. That's hardly a naked conversation.
  And do chihuahua's defame their targets to get attention? I thought
  they just yapped incessantly about nothing.
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• 

  mathewi

  1 year ago

  Joe, believe me -- I have suffered through more than my share of
  sustained criticism in the past (although, to be fair, none of mine
  involved puppets) and most of it was a lot more unfriendly than I
  think Loren's is. I don't think he is being mean at all, actually. I
  think it's more like what court jesters used to do -- puncturing
  inflated egos, etc..
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  Joseph Thornley

  1 year ago

  Mathew, I couldn't disagree more with you. It is mean to subject someone to ridicule. No one deserves that.
  
  The longevity of court jesters was directly tied to make their point without causing personal offence, by doing it indirectly and with wit. What's going on here is heavy handed and without finesse.
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  It may be mean, Joe, but it's also funny. And I actually don't think
  it's really all that mean -- the puppets lighten things up quite a
  bit. As for the court jester thing, I will agree with you that they
  were perhaps wittier (or at least so Shakespeare and others would have
  us believe) but there was a lot of bawdy comedy and so forth involved
  as well. Whether Shel deserves it or not isn't for me to say.
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• 

  ryancoleman

  1 year ago

  Joe: I get the "crosshairs" notion... there's been a few times I've had the back of the mind thought "I'm so glad I don't even appear on Loren's radar" as I've watched some of this stuff unfold.
  
  That said, I largely agree with Matt's sentiment - while it comes across as "mean" Loren tends to keep it at a place where he's only calling people on the points where they're being unauthentic (unauthentic?) to what they preach ... but at the same time he delivers it in his usual style of keeping one last toe on the line so he can claim he hasn't stepped over it (the child hood equivalent of "I'm not touching you!!!).
  
  Sure Loren puts it over the edge from time to time, but that's Loren. Personally I think he's a good barometer to have around the 'sphere to keep egos in check in a edgy & funny way.
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  ryancoleman

  1 year ago

  oh, and as for the domain... I can't imagine how Shel never registered his name.com ... complaining now about someone else grabbing it is just strange.... I'd kill to get myname.com. (had to settle for .ca)
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  ken

  1 year ago

  fastcompany.tv is on a death march. reading this post was more energy than they deserved.
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  McLarty

  1 year ago

  You can count me as one of those people with a life, I had never heard of this before today, and maybe this is part of the obvious joke, but JUST incase it's not, I'm going to say it outloud - You know what's funny...there's a puppet claiming to be Shel, a puppet with the last name "IS - REAL" WHAT A PUN... Shel Is Real ...BAhhahahahahah
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  Sean Percival

  1 year ago

  shel in second life coming soon :)
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  Leigh

  1 year ago

  I think Shel's just lucky that he's not famous enough to get on late night TV. I can just see a skit on the Daily Show with one of the reporters going and doing an interview with Shel, puppet in hand. Ah, see what happens when you hit the big times? :)
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  Tish Grier

  1 year ago

  I found out about this one yesterday--perhaps a lot of people don't want to get involved in this particular slugfest because, either way you land, the fall-out won't be pretty.
  
  I've met Feldman. He got pissy with me, I walked away, he apologized (he probably doesn't remember--I'm small potatoes and not some hot chick that would be all that memorable.) I was surprised and said "that's ok."
  
  I've met Shel too--several times. He's been cordial in that older-generation p.r. guy kinda way.
  
  O.K. folks to know, but, well....they are who they are...sorry to see things blow up this way. Whenever something escalates like this, no one looks good.
  
  The only thing we should be taking away from this is to make sure you've picked up all the domains that could be a variant of your name. Esp. if you're kinda up there and could get parodied.
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  Jim Kukral TheBizWebCoach

  1 year ago

  It's easy to say it wouldn't bother since Loren isn't doing it to me. All I know is I think that I'd have to laugh at it and be flattered if it did happen to me. Now, the second I started to lose some business over it, I'd lose that sense of humor.
  
  So, who knows Mathew. All I know is it's funny. Not in a mean way. I don't know Shel, and have never met Loren, but the stuff is making me laugh, which is what a comedian/entertainer (Loren) is supposed to do.
  
  By the way, is parody something you can be sued over? I'm no lawyer.
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