October 18, 2010

Attack Dogs On The Loose

As predicted here recently in Is The Pendulum Swinging?, web maniacs are going bonkers over Malcolm Gladwell's piece in The New Yorker called "Small Change."

From the Huffington Post to the most obscure dirty-basement bloggers, the digi-nutjobs are coming out in full force against Gladwell.

Gladwell dared to question the orthodoxy of web fundamentalism and is paying the price.

These people are like attack dogs. You can question the existence of God; you can question the right of free speech; you can question their mother's legitimacy; but if you dare question the primacy of the internet in all human endeavors they will jump you and maul you.

I have seen it with alarming regularity on this blog.

I can poke fun at planners and they'll take it with a laugh, I can criticize creatives and they'll have some perspective, I can joke about account people and they'll roll their eyes. But if I dare to say something unflattering or unorthodox about the web -- and in particular social media -- I am subject to torrents of abuse.

Well, it's nice that for at least a few weeks these lunatics are jumping on someone else.

Have fun, Malcolm.

Look For My Article...
"The Digital Dream World" in the online edition of Adweek tomorrow. It should get the attack dogs all nice and lathered.

And Speaking of Attack Dogs... 
If this was the old Gap logo...
and this was the new one...
...the same yapping web poodles would have been barking and foaming at the mouth.

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