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However, I think people have to take some ownership when they choose to have larger than life personas (and use those personas to become famous).
I watched those videos of Jakob and his girlfriend from way back. If he were my kid, i might choose to talk to him about actions/consequences and reactions in life (and guess what, life, it pretty much isn't fair most of the time) vs. giving him a shoulder to whine on.
Marketer: Look! This is amazing! Fantastic! Revolutionary! World-changing! Never been anything like it before!
Chump: I tried it. It didn't work. It's nasty and damaging.
Marketer: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT YOU WHINER?!?
tired mold. No one marketed social media to Jakob Lodwick -- if
anything, he's the one who has been marketing it to others, and
displaying its alleged benefits in the form of continuous updates
about his every mood, though or personal predilection. As I said in
my comment to Joe, for him to suddenly complain that some of the
attention he's been getting is negative is either the height of
hypocrisy or the height of naievete. One is stupid and the other is
ridiculous.
That is, he took the Kool-Aid, the evangelists were happy to "use" him while he said it tasted good, and when he got sugar-shock, then it was: SHUT UP, FOOL! Nobody FORCED you to drink that Kool-Aid. IT'S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT!!!
The underlying problem is that the blog-world is extremely exploitative and personally destructive, and marketers need to construct excuses that it's a particular person's failing whenever this is demonstrated.
-- if anything, Jakob was the poster boy for Tumblr-blogging, and was
more than happy to confess his innermost thoughts and feelings to the
world. And when the attention was positive, he was happy to soak it
up. You need to do a bit more research before making pronouncements.
Sure, people can shrug off bizarre and threatening comments and I think we'd also agree there is not much indication that online written abuse has led to much violence, but where do you draw the lines? You seem to be suggesting .... no lines should be drawn?
Kathy Sierra's wit is gone, Jakob was a smart and interesting voice now silenced.
At what point do you think we should throw the support to the good guys?
at all. Jakob wasn't just minding his own business, writing about his
various creative ideas or projects; he displayed virtually everything
publicly -- every thought, every whim, every petty annoyance or
irritation, his entire personal life. No one forced him to do that,
and in fact lots of people advised him against it. For someone who
does that to complain about the attention he receives -- negative or
otherwise -- is the height of hypocrisy.
No matter how public Jakob lives, Jakob doesn't deserve the types of attacks he's been getting. I don't see how living in public and getting viciously attacked should be linked or justified?
It's one thing to disagree with someone. And it's fine to even yell & shout if you passionately disagree. but the nature of his attackers were over the top in my view.
For example, I disagree with your post but I'm hopefully respectfully disagreeing with you, right :)
full disclosure: I like Jakob so I'm biased. I wouldn't call him a friend per se but we've met a number of times and he's a fellow investor in tumblr.
deserved the attacks he got -- simply that they weren't surprising,
and arguably (at least in my opinion) don't seem serious enough to
justify his extreme reaction. I'm sure he's a great guy, and I think
he has done some interesting things. And just for the record, I don't
support ad hominem attacks on anyone, regardless of their position or
their personal idiosyncracies. I just thought his whole response was
childish, that's all.
Accusations of sex and violence were bound to grab the headlines
"old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill"
However:
The way he chose to deal with it strikes me as completely irresponsible, and downright un-entrepreneurial. It's a big "fuck-you" to the company he invested in, the ideology that made him a millionaire, and the thousands of people who have been politely following him on Tumblr/elsewhere for years.
Even worse, he offers no solution to the problem - practically inviting others to quit Tumbling before they become too famous.
I'm particularly upset because Jakob is one of the most visible standout entrepreneurs from my/our generation. It makes us all look like the spoiled, self-obsessed, epicurean assholes that the media/gen-Xers/anyone born before 1982 make us out to be.
Jakob could have just cut back on the personal posts, shifted to reblogging others material, and quietly disappeared from the Tumblr scene as the community grew. Instead, he created a predictable wave of bad publicity about his company and himself. This was totally unnecessary.
How about adding a reputation system to Tumblr, or a Reject This Reblog button to make abusive speach a punishable offense? Protecting your investment, respecting your partners, and fixing big problems is what 'entrepreneurs' are supposed to do.
Say what you want about the guy, he knows how to stir up people's emotions and create a controversy. This is my third post on the subject, each time I was mad for different reasons. I hope this is, as I've mentioned on my tumblog, a ploy to get people to pay attention to the problem of quality-of-discourse on the web, right before Jakob tries to fix it. That, I could at least understand.
I've wasted enough time on this already - time to get back to work...
It makes us all look like the spoiled, self-obsessed, epicurean assholes that the media/gen-Xers/anyone born before 1982 make us out to be.
Oh c'mon now, I would never mistake any young online whippernsapper as an ...... epicurean.
service, frequently being on the Radar front page, and was likely one of the
most followed members of the site. His lack of presence will be noticed, and
it is a loss to the Tumblr community - although I am sure the void will be
filled. I don't want to shut anyone up, or to add to the abuse, I just think
it was an unprofessional way to handle the situation.
If epicurean is not the correct word, than perhaps sybaritic, but the point
is that he played into a negative stereotype of the hipster/entrepreneur
(hipsterpreneur?).
Also - I know *you* were not shutting anybody up - on the contrary you want him to keep posting. I was (unsuccessfully) trying to be snide and funny about your use of epicurean meaning that I think the other terms you used are, in fact, a pretty accurate description of some successful ..... hipsterpreneurs! Good term there dude.
until they shut up is a bad mark upon both sides of the interaction. It
shouldn't happen, and we, as consumers and producers of social media, should
not let it happen. If the Internet always must reduce itself to the lowest
common denominator, we are all fucked.
This is neither new data nor is Lodwick a neophyte. He's like the fly that flitters around willfully and excitedly in the light until the moment when his wings get burned. Then, it's the light's fault.
Logic suggests that after 12 minutes of no attention, he'll flitter back to the light. ;-)
Cheers.
of thing -- I just think Jakob is being a bit precious about the whole
thing.
How is this different?
i still immensely indebted for his creation of the amazing vimeo.com
I'm glad that Jakob is "off the net for now. Why let other people profit off of him??
Jakob is prolly blogging anonymously. I am 90% sure of that.
I don't know much about this Jakob guy but my guess is that might be why I'm grasping to understand why you use the term "childish" and "grow up". Perhaps if you had developed that a bit more I'd get it -- but I don't.
By contrast, I've been reading your posts for a while and I also have to agree with some of the comments here. Relegating this farewell to a "childish" maneuver is very pot kettle plonk of you. Please don't stop writing though ;-)
There are lots of ways to explain going underground via sudden departure vs. giving into a lack of updates (Carl Icahn blog frequency). So, his farewell isn't a terribly uncommon thing in any of a variety of mediums. Given what I've been able to gleen in sparse reading about his accomplishments, this is actually a very adult way to do it.
Disclosure: I'm 36, not a millionaire, and I've taken my own blog offline... not that it is Gawker worthy. But, please don't call me a child. I just don't know if I can take it.