Unfortunately today I’m not in much of a BS mood so you are stuck with just a straight opening and title. There seems to be a serious issue today of what people think it is to “have knowledge” of a subject. While discussing what I feel is a major disconnect with the blogging and social media crowd with someone it’s just becoming more and more clear. This person feels there is value in the creation of “me too” type media where all you do is take and create your own posts based off the posts of others. Now this is fine when there is an actual conversation created from it. Recently a good example of this can be seen in a few of the “Apple vs Adobe” posts out there (sorry don’t have any links on hand but they are out there.)
For many others though, they won’t get to see any of this because there are parasites out there that will leech these stories and contort them for their own gains. This could be to act like they are an expert in the field, or this could be to just steal momentum from the story. They put no effort in understanding the truth behind whatever they are talking about, they are only looking to give the perception that they are authority. It’s to much work for them to actually become an authority on the matter, well, or they are to stupid to actually understand the source material. There is nothing noble about what they are doing because they aren’t qualified in any way to add to the discussion and their motives are personal. In the end all this does is pollute what is out there and lead others who then trust this information astray.
I wish I had a solution for this epidemic but I don’t. I can only call out so many people but the numbers are quite numerous and seem to be growing. As well when you do call out their BS you can’t be assured that all the people who have already been tainted by their foul deceitful tactics will ever see it so they can better understand why this person should not be trusted as a source of information. All I can do is ask for people to call others out when they know they are engaging in this practice. Ignoring them is not enough. This misinformation can spread to others that are clients or higher ups who will then try to force these ideas you and by then it’s to late because they have given that person way more credit then they ever deserved.
But again, their numbers are numerous and always seeming to grow. So maybe the “Social Media Expert” or whatever they want to call themselves tomorrow is the start of Idiocracy but I really hope not.
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