You know you’ve made it when you are forced to communicate simply and broadly or else risk tarnishing your reputation and other interests. This appears to be the situation that New Marketing Labs president Chris Brogan finds himself in at this moment.  I think this sucks and I’m going to explain why.

Pardon me, Chris, but I’m going to quote quite liberally from your blog post My Pledge To You:

In the unintended consequences department, I’ve come to a realization: I have to drop satire and sarcasm as a vehicle for education, with regards to this blog. If you read the comments on this post, you’ll see what I’m getting at here.

I had no intention of misleading people with my satirical attempt.

My pledge to you, hence forth, is that if I’m telling you about something here, I’ll write from the perspective of positive improvement.

Because I have NO memory, please remind me if I ever blow this. I’m human. I get sad and frustrated and stuff.

The backstory to date:  Chris wrote a couple of satirical posts in early August 2009 about how to get more Twitter followers and how to be a social media expert.  Ironically, of course, Chris is one of the few people out there who has legitimately written about this in the past based on his own experiences.  For whatever reason, he chose to try writing a couple of posts which mildly lampoon the type of bogus posts that many, many scammers or neophytes try to write.  By all indications he got some decent traffic out of the posts.

NOTE:  the first post, which was written in a parody of the style of  a number of so-called expert posts, actually contained a lot of good information and was tagged with the phrase imnotkidding.  Clear enough, at least if you take the time to read it.  The second post was clearly not serious and, to make it more clear, Chris tagged it with the word parody.

However, after reading the various comments and seeing the other feedback he’s gotten on the posts, he seems to be worried that he crossed a line in how he feeds information back to the rest of the world.  Perhaps he’s concerned that the posts, which I think he tried to have some fun with, run contrary to his normal modus operandi and that he risks deviating too far from his desired persona as a trust agent:  the kind of person that we can look to for valuable help, recommendation and information even if we’ve never met him in person.  He’s pledged to only write from the perspective of positive improvement, which seems to eliminate humor, satire, parody, or anything other than simple, easy to understand prose.

Here’s why I think this sucks:  because it seems to show that, in the end, it’s not really a big new media world out there after all, it’s the same old one with a few different toys.

This is a case study in mass media communication and consequences.  What, you say?  This occured on a blog, via Twitter, etc.  so this means it’s social media and the rules are different, right?

Apparently not, especially when your audience is significantly bigger that the average social media practioner’s readership.

The approach that Chris appears to be taking seems to similar to the prescripted, sanitized, “keeping the analysts happy”, bland, and occasionally misleading world that old school PR and communications have been tagged with for years.  Don’t you dare devitate from the script or the message or the platform or face the consequences.  Only create communications that won’t offend, won’t cause trouble, and that are distinctly inhuman.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think that Chris has a good (and big) heart and that’s trying to do what he thinks is best.  After all, if you are trying to be a trust agent, then you really don’t want to ever seem like you are misleading your readers.

On the other hand, if you have to assume that your reader only has a basic education and an unsophisticated sense of humour… well, life would become a bit less enjoyable, wouldn’t it?  If you can only show one side of your personality or creativity, doesn’t that make you a little bit less real?

I’m not ragging on Chris Brogan in this post, I’m just lamenting certain aspects of human behavior and listening skills.  In his comments, Chris notes the following:

I am forever smacking into the “can’t win” wall. I realize that I shouldn’t try. I just feel for people.

That’s honest and legitimate.  So is having a nuanced sense of humor and being able to express it.

I realize that it’s easy for me to say these things as this blog is pretty securely separated from my day job and my livelihood.  It’s much harder for Chris to do this where he’s a much more public figure than I am and there’s so much overlap.

I don’t have any grand answers for this.  I just think there should be ways to express multiple aspects of your personality, even if you are a visible public figure.  More importantly, is this going to happen to any or all bloggers who pass a certain threshold in their audience size and success?

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• ChatterCrack – a social addiction
• How do you like to communicate with social media contacts?
• Thoughts from Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer
• Maybe Every Thought Aggregates
• A simple theory on why social media is losing its mojo