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Posted on 02.14.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:15 pm
If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ve likely seen a flurry of photo essays that contrast the perceptions people have of various jobs, political beliefs and aspects of culture with the realities of those topics. It’s the latest Internet meme — “What people think I do vs. what I really do.” These images have made me chuckle because they are relevant to my career or life: 
If you hate this meme, or all Internet memes, you’ll appreciate these ironic contributions that bash the meme while also fueling it:  
And if you love it all and want more visit my board on Pinterest. Filed under: Business and Culture and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 5:51 pm
This snapshot, posted to Instagram by Douglas W. Ray of the digital marketing firm Three Ships Media, has been plastered all over my Facebook news feed for the past two days. I got a kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it here:
Social media isn’t really all about donuts (or other foods) and the people who eat them. But like everyone else, I’ve posted my share of updates, tweets and photos about my dining experiences. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at? Wray’s list of “Social Media Explained” has inspired others to expand it. UPDATE: Three Ships Media told the story behind how its inside joke about social media and donuts went viral. Apparently Punxsutawney Phil deserves the credit:
Filed under: Culture and Just For Laughs and Photography and Social Media and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.19.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:20 pm
A Cleveland television station has taken the concept of a “kangaroo court” onto the airwaves and online in a satirical publicity stunt that re-enacts the proceedings of a corruption trial using puppets. The CBS affiliate WOIO started the series last week, airing the lighthearted clips at the end of its newscast, and this morning posted the fifth video report from “The Puppet’s Court.” The enlightened redneck and social media strategist within me love the station’s creative way of adding entertainment and humor to an important story. But the news curmudgeon within me is saying what one of the station’s anchors did amid her laughter at the report: “I’m horrified.” Watch the other puppet reports on the station’s YouTube channel. Hopefully this lampooning of the legal system will help convince courts to let cameras in trials so TV stations don’t have to create video coverage. Filed under: Government and Just For Laughs and Media and Social Media and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.04.12 by Danny Glover @ 5:35 pm
When I decided to become a journalist, I imagined I’d be working in an atmosphere much closer to this one than the one I’ve known for the past 20 years: The tools for producing and distributing journalism in the information age are much better than those of yesteryear, but I do long for the days of the “rewrite man” and copy editors. They were the protectors of the art of great writing — a mostly lost art in today’s era of blogs, tweets and text messages, where too many journalists think good grammar and consistent style are antiquated. Filed under: Grammar and History and Media and Social Media and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 12.23.11 by Danny Glover @ 3:14 pm
But first a bit about Pinterest: As the name implies, the site is a place where you “pin” pictures of the people, places and things that “interest” you. But this virtual pinboard also has a social aspect to it. After you pin photos to your topical boards, other people can “like” them, “repin” them to their own Pinterest boards or comment on the photos. The network is especially popular with women, who use it to create collections of recipes, clothes and other items. But as I poked around the site today, I realized that it’s a great forum for creating photo essays and themed albums on topics that interest me, too — sports, politics, West Virginia and, of course, rednecks. I decided to make my trial run on Pinterest a fun one by pinning photos from past “Redneck Humor” entries on this blog. (One potential benefit is new readers.) I also scoured the Internet for other photographic displays of redneck humor and pinned several of them to my board. This photo album is a win-win for both you and for me. It makes it easier for rednecks who love to laugh at and with their kinfolk (in spirit, if not reality) to find “snapshots of happily uncultured American life” in one place. And It’s much easier and quicker for me to pin multiple photos to Pinterest than to blog about each photo individually. When it comes to redneck humor, pictures tell the story far better than my words anyway. So if you have not done so yet, click on over to my new Pinterest board and get your fill of redneck laughs. And if you’re so inclined, request your own invite to Pinterest and repin or like the photos that make you laugh the most. Filed under: Blogging and Human Interest and Just For Laughs and Photography and Redneck Humor and Social Media Comments: None |
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Posted on 12.21.11 by Danny Glover @ 8:01 am
A few weeks ago at my company’s blog, I sang the praises of social media as the best communications tool for getting satisfaction after bad consumer experiences. Lodging complaints via Facebook and Twitter is far more effective than using the telephone, I said. “Why endure that grief, which often yields no satisfaction, when I can spur a major corporation into action by tweeting 140 characters or by posting an embarrassing photo to Facebook?” Days later, I unintentionally proved my own point during an infuriating phone encounter with Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning. Both my wife and I had to endure an obnoxious lecture from an employee more determined to “educate” us about the realities of gutter cleaning than to abide by the guarantee that our gutters actually were clean. We’ve been customers of Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning for several years, ever since we moved into a three-story home whose gutters are beyond my limited ladder reach. We’ve been pleased with the company’s service most of the time, but we have had occasional problems, including our neighbor once witnessing Ned Stevens Gutter employees failing to clean all of the gutters on our house. When we reported that incident, the company sent a crew back to the house to finish the job. Ned Stevens Gutter often sends workers to our home when we are not here to witness the cleaning, so it takes a certain measure of trust to believe its teams do the work effectively. We hadn’t had any major problems except for the one episode, though, so Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning had earned our trust. The company lost that trust in a big way two weeks ago. Filed under: Advertising and Business and Family and Social Media Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 12.05.11 by Danny Glover @ 7:42 am
Twitter has released its picks for the top 10 tweets of 2011. Some of them will make it into my new Tumblr-blog-in-progress, the Twitter Hall of Fame. I’m covering the flip side of Twitter on a second Tumblr, the Twitter Hall of Shame. The “fame” blog recognizes previously unknown people who found their proverbial 15 minutes of fame through Twitter, and the “shame” blog is a memorial to famous folks — celebrities, politicians, athletes and more — who tweet before they think. Feel free to recommend stories past, present and future for both blogs. Email your nominations to danny@enlightenedredneck.com. Filed under: Blogging and Business and Social Media and Video Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.29.11 by Danny Glover @ 10:15 pm
Back in the late 1990s, I briefly joined the National Conference of Editorial Writers while I was working at an e-zine called IntellectualCapital.com, which we liked to think of as the op-ed page on the Web. At the time, many NCEW members held the freewheeling Internet masses in contempt. I was among the few who didn’t and had some rather pointed debates over the issue with my skeptical colleagues. I had forgotten that I wrote an article about the issue for the NCEW magazine, The Masthead, back in 1999. I just rediscovered that article online. It’s as relevant in today’s era of blogging and social media, where the power of editorial gatekeepers is greatly diminished, as it was more than a decade ago, so I’m going to reprint the article. Here it is:
Filed under: Blogging and Media and Social Media and Technology Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.18.11 by Danny Glover @ 8:45 pm
This pitch for Facebook “likes” by the American Family Association is the worst social media appeal I have seen in a long time:
Begging for fans as a way to avoid investing financially in a community is an uninspiring call to action, and I said as much on AFA’s Facebook page earlier this evening. I have been a fan of the organization for years, and I found today’s appeal off-putting. “You can do better,” I admonished. Alas, AFA’s Facebook monitor did not take the critique to heart. Instead, he/she deleted the comment, removed my “like” of the AFA page (ironic considering the appeal for “likes”) and blocked me from further liking or commenting on wall posts once I liked the page again. Well, I took that message to heart. Although I still embrace AFA’s family-friendly mission, I’m no longer a fan of the group — on Facebook or in spirit. Filed under: Family and Social Media and Technology Comments: None |
