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Culture Club: The Ego and the IP

By Karen Aagaard (Guest Contributor)

Culture Club is Torontoist’s (brand new) Canadian pop culture column. We’ll be waxing philosophical about the trivial, the titillating, and the mundane on a bi-weekly basis.

20100325BlogStars.jpg
Sean Ward talks pants (and blogs) at Toronto Blog Stars event. Photo by Nick Kozak/Torontoist.


When Kara DioGuardi criticized one of the contestants on American Idol two nights ago (not that we were watching or anything…), she said something that struck us as abnormally astute for the televised talent show: she proclaimed that Tim Urban, fresh-faced homeboy from Duncanville, Texas, should stop acting like he’s already famous. According to the gospel of DioGuardi, a contestant should only “act” like a star once he or she has become one.


This reminded us (well, sort of) of a story that Sean Ward, local blogger and comic book creator, shared with us at an event last week. While Ward was “consulting” for a band (yeah, we don’t know what that means, either), he was able to impart some career-changing advice to the band’s lead singer. The singer, who had recently purchased a pair of flashy “rockstar” pants, had concluded that he would only wear said pants when he became famous. Ward, trouser consultant extraordinaire, said “nuh-uh, you wear those pants right now, young man.” Actually, he didn’t say that. But the sentiment was there. Anyway, the moral of Ward’s story was this: if you want to “be a superstar” you have to start behaving like one first. And wear those terrible pants.
First things first, though: we’re sure you’re wondering why we spent our precious time listening to a lecture about adults playing dress-up. The reason? The siren song of the Toronto Blog Stars. TBS promised to tell us how we could achieve “social media success,” and we thought we’d see what all the racket was about. Featuring Casie Stewart, Lauren White (AKA: Raymi the Minx), and, yes, Sean Ward, we spent nearly three hours on a Thursday evening scribbling things like “I think I am a superstar, I think I am a superstar,” in our notepad, and pretending to tweet about the event while playing Brickbreaker on our phone.
Casie Stewart, unknown to us until we signed up for the event, talked about dumping her Queen West friends (they didn’t blog, and they didn’t support her blogging), getting “free shit” by hocking it in her blog, and getting in trouble for tweeting on the job (for the record: not the job she has now). Oh, and she also landed a sweet gig at MTV Canada and is acting, now, as their digital marking coordinator. Raymi the Minx was, well, Raymi the Minx; she told us she’d always wanted to be famous, and now that she’s kinda sorta made it, she wants to make money from blogging (the woman wants cash, not swag—ya hear?), and we believed her. Sean Ward’s presentation, as we’ve already divulged, began with shiny pants, and meandered from musings about “the artistry of your personal brand” to “just who is a superstar?” Hence the Brickbreaker.
Free, simplistic BlackBerry apps aside though, we’ll admit: we get it. We get what Ward’s saying, and what Casie and Raymi demonstrate every day in their personal blogs. The fame game is no longer a meritocracy; everyone—and anyone—with a computer, an internet connection, and the ability to mash a coherent sentence together can feel what it’s like to be almost famous. And when it comes to personal blogging, fortune favours the self-obsessed: if you’re not convinced that the world really needs to know what brand of socks you’re wearing today, or what kind of cheese went into that sandwich you ate for lunch, we probably won’t care, either.
No one knows this better than Peep Diaires author and Broken Pencil Magazine publisher Hal Niedzviecki. “In my book Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity I talked about the way in which our fame obsessed society encourages us to act like rebels-without-causes: people who are ‘against’ the mainstream, people who ‘stand out,’” Niedzviecki told us in an email. He continued:

As a consequence, many, if not all of us, today, have this sense that to attain what we all want—celebrity, stardom, attention, notoriety—we have to act like we are against the system we so very much want to be a part of. This is a complicated process and, increasingly, seems to require a bevy of attitude and style consultants who help us hit just the right notes of disdain and desire.
At the same time, as I track in my recent book The Peep Diaries, the ‘new conformity’ has moved to the internet and increasingly that’s the forum where we seek fame while maintaining our veneer of rebellion. Online we can create entire personas and attitudes that reflect not who we are, but who we want to be. On the ‘net, to become somebody you just have to act like somebody—and the more willing you are to act like that person (a better more exciting you) the more attention you will get and the more you might actually become who you think you want to be.

In other words, if you want to be famous on the internet, you’d better not listen to Kara DioGuardi. The blogosphere was built on the backs of Great Pretenders; the rules that apply IRL (that’s “in real life” in Tweetspeak—we picked up that discursive gem at the Blog Stars event) don’t register online.
Shiny pants, on the other hand, will clearly serve you well in all of life’s real—and virtual—adventures.
Karen Aagaard served as a researcher/intern on Peep Me, the yet-to-be-released documentary featuring Niedzviecki and his peep theories.
Hat tip to TorontoMike for, er, “noticing” the Toronto Blog Stars event in the first place.

Comments

  • http://raymitheminx.com raymi

    oh my god these guys suck soooo bad.

  • http://undefined stet

    Yawn. The only thing more boring than an outspoken blogger is a self-important outspoken blogger.

  • http://www.weekendpictures.ca weekendpictures.ca

    Oh, Raymi…

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    I think this is an eminently interesting and readable article – thanks Karen!
    Personal branding/social media expertise makes me gag, for the most part because its predicated on this notion that marketing and saturation and content (gotta have content!) are more important than quality. The whole notion of “You’ll get blog-famous if you act blog-famous.” is depressing. In the absence of something unique or interesting or critical to say, we get fashionable people saying fashionable things (thx joel).
    On the other hand, the fact internet is such a rich and valuable resource for, well, everything, is testament to the fact that for every air-head with a twitter stream devoted to gossip or thinly veiled shilling there’s a bunch of people making something worthwhile.

  • http://undefined Sean

    The writer seemed very on the ball when we met before the show started. I was really excited to read what she had to say. I wouldn’t have taken her for someone with so little respect for her craft as to play video games through a presentation she was (presumably) being paid to write about.
    Thanks for covering it, all the same.

  • http://undefined Johnny Maudlin

    Nicely said Sean. As much as I agree with much of the writer’s perspective her critique suffers from an over-abundance of snark, ironically the same tone that can be found in blogs like Raymi the Minx. The apparent need of youngsters to feel like they are “famous” is sad, actually. But it must be a predictable outgrowth of the technology. Hey Ma, look, I just typed a sentence! Look at me! Please!!! Look at me!!!!
    In the end, like reality television, the “product” is dull and the characters created (White is a classic example) are in danger of blogging themselves into a straight jacket.

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    Is reading articles about yourself and slagging the author something that you want to do? A journalist attending your event came to some different conclusions about what you and your guests had to say, and she wrote about it. She’s calling you out for being a tedious windbag and you’re coming back with “if I couldn’t keep her attention she must be a shoddy journalist?” Maybe you’re just a tedious windbag!
    In any event, I really can’t stay – I’ve got to go transform my everyday life into compelling content.

  • http://undefined stet

    It’s pretty telling that two of the three ‘famous’ bloggers mentioned in this post actually showed up to nurse their fragile social image. Note: if you’re a truly successful brand, you shouldn’t have to babysit your portrayal in the social media.
    That’s why this kind of ‘fame’ is fleeting and elusive. It’s not predicated on successful self-branding, but rather upon infantile market saturation, and the minute people get bored of attention-whoring and a propensity for contentless content, that omnipresence just turns into white noise.

  • http://undefined Sean

    Johnny: very insightful but in Raymi’s case, she is doing her job. raymitheminx.com is a personal blog. Torontoist purports to be a credible news source.

  • http://undefined stet

    Torontoist is editorial content. It’s not a strict news source. Opinion and slant are welcome.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    “if you’re a truly successful brand, you shouldn’t have to babysit your portrayal in the social media.”
    What a load. Nurturing a brands social image is part of marketing and PR. It’s been that way since the 60′s, even earlier with companies like Coca Cola. The landscape has changed, yes even for successful brands, but the tools being used haven’t. The internet has just enabled us “regular” people (via information and technology) to utilize these same principles.
    You might have a point if your comment was posted previous to Facebook and/or Twitter (most recently Nestle, but there are countless examples). So instead, your comment just comes across as snark with no real meaning.
    I think it’s great that people climb towards fame. The word “fame” is losing it’s meaning and IMHO it’s a good thing. The gap is closing and soon (hopefully) being and doing things that were normally reserved for elite people in our society will be no longer be the same as we’ve seen with sites such as YouTube.

  • http://undefined Johnny Maudlin

    Those distinctions, Sean, have become blurred. It’s all reality television. Listen, good on all of you, really, but as I’ve followed along, particularly the Minx (because it’s habitual, like nose-picking, and compelling for similar reasons)I’ve noticed that the sometimes highly touted “writing” is rarely demonstrated. There is, instead, the drip drip dripping of a journal that is documenting a deeper plunge into alcoholism, among other disorders. Add eating to the list, as evidenced by the fucking awful celebration of unhealthy weight loss. Add the small group of cult-like commenters who regularly re-enforce the poor kid’s delusions, and well….like I said it’s wonderful stuff.
    I wrote as much on her blog and was indicted, as only Raymi can (eg barely coherently) for “harassing and abusing…” her and…sigh…her mother.

  • http://undefined stet

    Actually, social media is much different from conventional media, so comparing it to a history extending to the ’60s is pointless.
    Babysitting a brand and nurturing a brand are entirely different. A classic example of a company’s failure is the one you yourself brought up: Nestlé. They had an excellent thing going with their Facebook marketing strategy–they spoke to their consumers and the consumers spoke back. That’s nurturing a brand.
    Unfortunately, Nestlé has come under fire recently from Greenpeace for their environmental policies, and as a result their Facebook page has garnered a bit of negative attention. In response, instead of NURTURING their brand and admitting wrongdoing or pledging to change their Corporate Social Responsibility plan, they BABYSAT their brand and moderated the shit out of the comments anyone posted, going so far as to respond that it was “their” page and “they” had the final say.
    That’s what the bloggers have come out of the woodwork to do. Not to nurture their brand and strengthen their image by reinforcing what other media outlets are saying, but to babysit it, telling Torontoist writers what they SHOULD be saying. And that’s negative attention.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    “Actually, social media is much different from conventional media, so comparing it to a history extending to the ’60s is pointless.”
    If such is the case, you have no business using the word “brand” at all. Period. But such is NOT the case, the concept of branding is not exclusive to conventional or social media. In fact it’s ambiguous to the point that regular people often use it now to describe their own career paths (the self-brand).
    Nurturing, babysitting (whatever word you want to use) is not a new concept as you’re eluding to. All brands “babysit” themselves to the public, ESPECIALLY successful ones.
    All I’m saying is your post lost all credibility when you failed to recognize this.
    “Telling Torontoist writers what they SHOULD be saying. And that’s negative attention.”
    What if that IS their brand? Have you READ Lauren White’s blog? And negative attention is still attention regardless. Marketing Strategy 101.

  • http://undefined Corina

    Other than overstating the obvious a tad, this article/comment thread beautifully demonstrates the blogger ego.

  • http://undefined janekatharine

    oh, Johnny. You seem to know an awful lot about Raymi. And yah, I get that you read because it’s ‘habitual’, but I don’t think many people pay that much attention to anything while picking their noses.
    That said, Raymi’s writing is smart, funny and as you’ve just demonstrated, extremely thought-provoking. I don’t think many people could do what these bloggers do for a day, let alone years and I think we should commend them for their writing. It’s impressive. And if it wasn’t, why would so many people keep reading? Exactly.

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    Torontoist is a credible news source. When this website publishes something that claims to be news, it’s backed up by fact. However, in furtherance of Stet’s point:
    “Culture Club is Torontoist’s (brand new) Canadian pop culture column. We’ll be waxing philosophical about the trivial, the titillating, and the mundane on a bi-weekly basis.”
    Sound like the 6 O’Clock News, anyone?

  • http://undefined stet

    You’re missing the point. When I said they were different, I meant it, because they are different. Before the Internet and social media really took off, nurturing a brand was an entirely different exercise. People may not have liked your brand, but the ways in which they expressed it weren’t nearly as prolific or obvious as the ways they do it in the social media space. Saying that ‘brand’ doesn’t apply is an over-simplification of my argument and, frankly, weakens your statement overall.
    What’s more, you keep ignoring my distinction between “nurturing” and “babysitting” as irrelevant, as something that ruins all credibility (which is hyperbolic to say the least) but that’s fallacious: the reason that there needs to be a distinction between “nurturing” and “babysitting” is simply because this is the social media space! Your brand no longer belongs entirely to you. If you’re going to venture into social media, you need to understand that not only will people not like you–not only will people disagree with you–but that now they can disagree with you on your turf. Censoring or disparaging people for disagreeing with you is a shot in the foot, because these people have the ability to mould your brand.
    I’m sorry to say, your final sentence is, to use your own words, a load. “Negative publicity is still publicity” is only “Marketing 101″ because it’s a simple, introductory idea that comes with a whole lot of caveats when you dig deeper into the ideas and philosophies behind marketing. Negative publicity is not always a boon, and market over-saturation is certainly a detriment to anything in the public sphere.
    You seem pretty vitriolic about this whole thing, to be honest. I don’t really get it.

  • http://undefined Jessica

    But you’re all still reading, so clearly these egos are not without merit.
    Blog on!

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    “You seem pretty vitriolic about this whole thing, to be honest. I don’t really get it.”
    You’re reading way too much into my post. Let’s not start veering into pettiness. I apologize for doing this myself.
    “People may not have liked your brand, but the ways in which they expressed it weren’t nearly as prolific or obvious as the ways they do it in the social media space.”
    - Shell Oil
    - DeBoers Diamonds
    - The Grape Boycott
    - Nestlé Boycott (’84)
    To name a few… The medium may have changed, but the concept is still alive and well and predates the internet by decades. It just happens faster now, most of the time with less impact (hey, a million people may have joined the FB group, but that doesn’t mean a million people will stop eating Nestle products). Social media tends to be more like a passive/aggressive demonstrator.
    I’m also purposely ignoring any distinction between nurturing and babysitting as I don’t feel there is a distinction between the two.
    “Negative publicity is not always a boon, and market over-saturation is certainly a detriment to anything in the public sphere.”
    No, you’re correct it isn’t always. In the context of THIS particular article it is. In the context of these people’s “brands” it is. They aren’t trying to have a Hillary Duff style image. I’m a bit bothered by you throwing the word “over-saturation” in there, unless you have some market data to prove me wrong, I don’t think there is any “over-saturation” within the blogging “market” at all. They are all very niche, with the exception of TMZ, Lainey’s Gossip etc, who are all fighting for the same clicks. If the article was about those brands, I would agree with you, but in this particular instance, I just can’t concede that point to you.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    Toronotist has always been either/or depending on the convenience factor.

  • http://undefined Casie

    happy to have a JOB and thanks to my blog/social media for getting me there. http://casiestewart.com
    BTW thanks KAREN for asking for a free ticket and writing this cheese.

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    …aaaaand the circle is complete.

  • http://undefined Johnny Maudlin

    Jane, you ignorant slut! Kidding. Outdated SNL reference. Raymi is capable of witty insightful and thoughtful material but she spends most of her time arsing the dog and getting wasted. She is a train wreck and I follow along because I am a loser. A significant and healthy (unhealthy) portion of readers follow along because we are trained, like monkeys, to this addictive passive time. I have commended her, and then told her she is a piss tank who should clean up. She did not much like that. She felt I was “hating” on her, which is fucking lazy blog-speak for “I don’t like that thought!@”

  • http://undefined Robsonian

    ooh, the ticket was free? Jeez, you’re right, Karen should have been more supportive!
    gahh…

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto
    • I didn’t make it through the article or any comment in the thread.
    • Marketing, like politics, is at best a necessary evil, and at its worst when practiced in pursuit of fame or profit.
    • Conceiving oneself as a brand is wholly incompatible with any sort of mental equilibrium.
    • The last Culture Club was a much better read.
  • http://undefined Jason

    Sean! Casie! Raymi! Why are you in the kiddie pool?

  • http://undefined Sean

    OK, well, rock on then. LIke I said, thanks for covering it all the same.

  • http://undefined Sean

    Touche! :)

  • http://www.publicspace.ca Jonathan Goldsbie

    “…a presentation she was (presumably) being paid to write about.”
    I am skeptical as to how anyone who would say such a thing could possibly be an expert on blogging.

  • http://undefined Simone P.

    I don’t blame the writer for asking for a free ticket, by the sounds of things, it sounds like it would’ve been a complete waste of money. So you guys can get as upset as you want about what the writer of this article said, but the fact is:
    If you have to say you’re famous, you’re not really famous are you?
    Sean, Raymi and Catie, what did you expect would go on when you came out with guns blazing? That everyone would be excited to see you talk? Give me a break. Respect is for earners and you guys are the blog version of Heidi Montag’s singing career.