Armchair Sociology
What the Existence of Don Draper and Katy Perry Really Says About You
Why we need to stop living vicariously through our pop culture heroes and start living our own lives like we mean it.
Why we need to stop living vicariously through our pop culture heroes and start living our own lives like we mean it.
A few months ago, I decided to try an experiment with this blog. From May through July, instead of posting daily, I would only post once per week. That way, rather than scrambling to say something relevant 5 times a week, I could invest my time in one good, solid Read more…
Last week, Ian M. Rountree and I started Read It All Week, a challenge to read everything we were subscribed to — especially all the blogs we so easily subscribe to, but never actually absorb. We did this for two reasons: To reconsider why we subscribe to certain kinds of Read more…
On Sunday nights, Mack Collier runs a Twitter-based group chat called #blogchat, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about blogging while hobnobbing with their peers. But, based on the defensive reaction to some of my comments from several of the #blogchat participants, I’ve realized that Read more…
I don’t know anybody who loves pop radio. I know people who listen to it ironically, as though they’re not comfortable admitting they don’t entirely hate Lady Gaga. And I know people who admit to liking just Lady Gaga, or just Usher, but still insist they “hate the radio.” But Read more…
If you write, speak or perform for a living, you need an audience. Without one, you don’t get paid. (Hell, online, you still don’t get paid even with one. But I digress…) Your audience is one way to validate your success as a communicator. But your audience is also a Read more…
What if our newspapers were filled with articles on how to write for newspapers? What if the only books we printed were books about how to sell books? What if TV shows consisted solely of monologues about TV? I doubt we’d have much use for them at all. So why Read more…
One of the web’s primary flaws is that it’s actually too easy to use. And as content becomes ever easier to create, finding quality content becomes even more difficult. That’s the general premise of Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen, which lobbies for the return of cultural gatekeepers. It’s Read more…
There’s a gentleman’s agreement in social media that needs to be debunked. We’re always supposed to judge ourselves by the quality of the conversations we have, rather than the sheer volume of our reach. Even Gary Vaynerchuck, who has more Twitter followers than anyone else who’s not “mainstream famous,” preached Read more…
This past week, I attended #140conf in New York City, where some of the biggest names with the widest reach on Twitter came together to discuss the platform’s future. Instead of recapping the event with a play-by-play, I’d rather share one key observation I made during the event that, I Read more…