One of the common – and accurate, I think – ideas on why blogs have become such a vital part of corporate and individual agendas alike is their ability to bring a human voice to the web. No marketing spiel, no obfuscated sales pitches – it’s more a conversation in the Cluetrain sense. Etc. etc. etc.
The interesting thing from my perspective is that this is nearly universally considered to be a good thing. For the most part, I agree.
But I just got through reading a relatively well known blogger whose responses to some of the blogs commenters were, putting it mildly, a bit patronizing. More bluntly, the responses came across as arrogant, condescending, dismissive and rude. These weren’t trolls, mind you, just folks with a different opinion. And to forestall the inevitable question, I was not one of those commenters – I was strictly a reader here.
So I thought I’d ask the question: if blogs can port a genuine and open-minded person’s personality to the web, isn’t it equally likely that a jerk’s behavior will come through equally? I think so.
Nothing really to be done, of course, as your behavior as always will define you, whether it’s on the web or in real life. But just as blogs have the ability to make you new friends and contacts, they also have the ability to create virtual enemies. Something for everyone to keep in mind, I think.
Incidentally, if any of you consider yourselves my virtual enemy, drop me a line and let me know why 🙂
