I’ve tried to explain this in my series about Fame, Popularity & Star Power. I’ve been popular since my first recorded memories and will continue to be until I either lose my mind or croak. Internet Microfame is a game that I play but it doesn’t mean anything to me. If my 2,000 Facebook Friends disappeared, I’d have another thousand by the end of 2010. \o/

The people that are new to this are just now starting to enjoy the perks of people knowing their names or wanting to take pictures with them or buy them drinks or hang out with them. As they’re rising (and I wasn’t @ SXSW either, so I don’t know what the incidents were), people that remind them of the bad-old-days when they “weren’t anybody” are going to receive the evil eye and/or a tongue-lashing, because they REEEEEEEALLY don’t want to go back to being “just someone in the crowd”.

Once you get used to fame or notoriety, it’s no big deal. The party’s where YOU are, anyway. I had a situation where I found out about a party here in NYC on the day OF the party and the tickets were already sold out. I responded to the thread that I would meet up with my friends after the party and one of the hosts DMed me and not only comped me but hooked up a +1 for me to bring along someone I was planning to hang out with that evening. That’s not a credit to *ME*.. That’s a credit to THE HOST. I thanked him, showed up AND pubbed their party via SM.

Yelling about not being able to get into a party that I didn’t pay for AND that was already sold out, a) wouldn’t have done me any good, b) would have made me look like a jerk and c) would have been disrespectful to my friends who were throwing the party. Losses all around.

It’s a system. It’s like you said. It’s all about respect. You offer it to people, people offer it to you. Some people don’t want to be involved, and that’s cool. More power to them. It’s also cool for the microfamous to feel happy that people recognize their names now and give them preferential treatment, however, letting it go to your head and akkin’ a FOOL just lets people know that you’re new money, not old money when it comes to the fame game.

My name would imply I am a pretty big deal :) but I am really not haha. In any event, I am a little more novice then most in the social media space, and what i find so interesting, is I myself had an “experience” with a top social media blogger who was beyond rude to me because I didnt “discuss” pricing in a manner he was used to, which I apologized for and took his advice to heart. I thought, here I am trying to learn more and educate my customers, and here you are making me afraid to approach anyone like you moving forward (granted I probably made mistakes).

Makes me kinda sad actually. Thanks for allowing us to rant!

One thing we have to recognize about Social Media in general and Twitter in particular is that there are lots of people experiencing what they perceive to be popularity, which is actually fame, which is actually fishbowl microfame for the very first time in their lives. Actually, it’s more important for the now microfamous to recognize it because it can easily go to your head and you start drinking your own kool-aid and believing your own hype.

I’ve tried to explain this in my series about Fame, Popularity & Star Power. I’ve been popular since my first recorded memories and will continue to be until I either lose my mind or croak. Internet Microfame is a game that I play but it doesn’t mean anything to me. If my 2,000 Facebook Friends disappeared, I’d have another thousand by the end of 2010. \o/

The people that are new to this are just now starting to enjoy the perks of people knowing their names or wanting to take pictures with them or buy them drinks or hang out with them. As they’re rising (and I wasn’t @ SXSW either, so I don’t know what the incidents were), people that remind them of the bad-old-days when they “weren’t anybody” are going to receive the evil eye and/or a tongue-lashing, because they REEEEEEEALLY don’t want to go back to being “just someone in the crowd”.

Once you get used to fame or notoriety, it’s no big deal. The party’s where YOU are, anyway. I had a situation where I found out about a party here in NYC on the day OF the party and the tickets were already sold out. I responded to the thread that I would meet up with my friends after the party and one of the hosts DMed me and not only comped me but hooked up a +1 for me to bring along someone I was planning to hang out with that evening. That’s not a credit to *ME*.. That’s a credit to THE HOST. I thanked him, showed up AND pubbed their party via SM.

Yelling about not being able to get into a party that I didn’t pay for AND that was already sold out, a) wouldn’t have done me any good, b) would have made me look like a jerk and c) would have been disrespectful to my friends who were throwing the party. Losses all around.

It’s a system. It’s like you said. It’s all about respect. You offer it to people, people offer it to you. Some people don’t want to be involved, and that’s cool. More power to them. It’s also cool for the microfamous to feel happy that people recognize their names now and give them preferential treatment, however, letting it go to your head and akkin’ a FOOL just lets people know that you’re new money, not old money when it comes to the fame game.

If social media has taught us anything, I hope that it has taught us that we are all on a level playing field. Grow up people, playing big shot doesn’t work anymore. Playing nice guy does.

I loved SXSW and also had twinges of disappointment. Then I remembered folks are human and most need networking skills.

Funny how the most successful usually are gracious and extend themselves while a few stand around waiting for people to flock to them like rock stars.

I always make a point of extending myself and introducing myself and asking about them and listening FIRST.

Once in a while I will purposely wait to see if someone will extend themselves and I do wonder why many maintain that circle around them offline that they have online. I thought the point was to meet new people and connect-like we tell our clients to do ;)

BTW you were nice when we were introduced and there were so many people there who can blame us if we forget a face or two.