The Cluetrain Nightmare

“(They) hate our freedom. You know what? I hate our freedom. I hate it! That’s all we’ve done with it? We’re f*cking a**holes, man. We…are…awful.”

The above quote was from the great comedian David Cross, contrasting the rhetoric of the war on terror with the banality of an ad for electric scissors aired during The Simple Life. But this could easily have been me talking about bloggers, Twitter twits and other social media types who went after pizza chain Dominos over a terrible YouTube video posted by two (now former and reportedly wanted-by-the-law) employees.

If you haven’t heard the story, I will recap it as briefly as I can: these two Dominos guys, presumably for a lark, video taped themselves doing very unsanitary things to a pizza and then ostensibly serving it to a customer. They then posted this video on YouTube. Soon links to the video and comments were being shared throughout social media channels. The nature of the comments then turned from “wow, that’s gross” to “why hasn’t Dominos responded?” The lack of response soon became the real focus of the story, at least on the channels that I follow including the (otherwise) terrific podcasts For Immediate Release and Media Bullseye Radio. Dominos was given innumerable tongue lashings for “not paying attention” and “not getting it.” Dominos eventually made a public response. The Web 2.0 elite wallowed in their potency.

Let me be clear. Do I think this was a stupid thing for these employees to do? Absolutely. Do I think there should have been a quick and strong response from Dominos? Again, absolutely. Here’s my issue: I fear that many of the people who, like me, live and breathe social media are becoming incredibly judgmental, smug and self-congratulatory when it comes to these kinds of issues. It feels like we are just spoiling for the next fight, the next opportunity to punch some unsuspecting company in the stomach and scream “aren’t you listening? I told you, you should be LISTENING!”

Ever since the Motrin Mom’s commotion of late last year, I’ve been starting to feel that some of us who spend our time online were becoming a little too drunk on our own power. Yes folks, it’s great that we can use social media to help inform companies that their employees may be acting badly or that there may be problems with their products. And yes, these companies need to respond and need take this stuff seriously. But do we REALLY need to use these same great channels as blunt instruments to beat companies into submission? Isn’t this supposed to be about CONVERSATION?

The tenth anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto is coming up at the end of this month, and I’m very happy to be joining a great list of bloggers who will be reflecting on the new age of consumer power that this seminal text heralded that we are now clearly living. But, as Peter Parker’s uncle once said “with great power comes great responsibility.” What do we REALLY want to do with our power?

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