Everyone wants there stuff to go viral. Virality is the new thing. Well, I'd expand my goals a little if I were you, because if all you want is vitality, screw up. We've seen it from this KitchenAid oopsie, where an employee responded to Obama's debate comment about his dear departed grandmother from what he thought was his personal account...
...and was quickly fired. But this baby went viral. I don't think that was KitchenAid's plan A.
Mistakes, accusations, and public fights. Negativity is viral. Negativity. Is. Viral.
And it's not just for businesses. Thanks to the interweb, individuals have crafted brands (and generated income) for themselves with great content and influence.
Enter @prodigalsam. For a couple years now, Sammy Rhodes been one of the "it" accounts for Twitter, getting love from Huffington Post , Paste, and basically any site that catalogues "best of" Tweets.
I love @prodigalsam for his irreverent, vulnerable, self-deprecating humor. And it's clean, so I'm not worried about NSFW stuff lighting up my phone at work. Seriously, almost every single tweet was hilarious.
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"Haters gonna hate." - Abraham Lincoln
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The recent drama surrounding @prodigalsam is that he's been accused of "stealing" tweets. That is, that he didn't come up with his own material.
Apparently, Brian Gaar is a comedian, and created a Tumblr account to expose Rhodes:
In the comedy Twitter world, this has gone crazy. People have jumped off the @prodigalsam wagon very quickly, while others have defended it harder than the race of man at Helm's Deep. In true @prodigalsam fashion, he tried to laugh it off a bit, with limited success:
The latest revelation in this post is this morning, as Rainn Wilson, or "Dwight" from The Office (and an excellent Twitter account as well, @rainnwilson) has come to Rhodes' defense with a couple of scathing tweets for the opposition (read from bottom to top.)
Needless to say, DRAMA (please read in middle school sarcastic girl voice)
Check out Sammy's Tumblr post where he addresses the issue and decide for yourself. In his posts right now, he's clearly trying to balance fighting this and doing his normal posts. Why? If he completely stops posting for a couple days, he'll be crucified.
I'll be trying to stay updated on this "news" as it continues. On the larger scale, look at the storm that has been created over this simple thing. Now extrapolate that to a large company, or look at what happened to Walmart when it decided to secretly pay off bloggers.
Two lessons whose obviousness doesn't make them any less poignant*:
1. Be transparent.
Whether it's @prodigalsam or Walmart, you have to be transparent with what you're doing. Honestly, I don't think that people should be surprised that Samsung wants to sell you a phone or that Panera thinks you should buy its bread, or that a comedian wants you to buy tickets to his stand-up. Just be honest with what you're doing and consistently add value to your brand or product.
2. What you write lives FOREVER online.
I should add, "even if you delete it." I promise you KitchenAid deleted that post pretty darn quickly, but have you ever heard of a screen grab? Not only can people do that immediately, but in Rhodes' case, someone (albeit with an envious amount of spare time) can go through your entire catalog of posts and bring something from the past directly into the present with a new Tweet, status, or post.
Whose side would you take? Does it lessen the humor of something if it's a rehash of something else? Is plagiarism even a thing? What business lessons did this make you think of, o sage? Do you take something someone says in real life and use it for your own social schemes?
*confession: I almost definitely didn't come up with these. Bring it on!
UPDATE 6/7: Salon.com did an email interview with Sam to discuss the whole issue. Check it out. I'm convinced.
UPDATE 6/11: Over the weekend, Sam got off Twitter. He said he's going to "step away from Twitter for a season, for the sake of my family, ministry, & own soul...."
The amazing thing is how likable he has come off with this whole thing. He hasn't jumped in the dirt to fight it out and start name-calling. He's remained respectful and humble. Perhaps my favorite response to this up until now has been this one from @Iagreewithjoe:
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