So Who Are You Anyway?
So I just read a post from The Anti-Social Media which asks “Is there a Place for Swearing in Social Media?“. The editorial is borne out of a couple of posts by Jay Dolan, about the recent s.n.a.f.u around Chrysler firing an employee for using f!#$ in a tweet. In his article he reacts to someone’s statement that “it’s wholeheartedly inappropriate to swear online” arguing that people (not brands) have every right to say what they like.
I wonder about this. One the one hand social media is supposed to be all about being yourself. In that sense I agree with Jay 100%. If you are someone who swears a lot why pretend to be someone else?
On the other hand, there’s probably no question that if you do swear a lot, you are probably going to offend some people sometimes. So I guess the question becomes; are you prepared to accept that you might turn people off by being yourself? And do you want that real you to be the permanent face you present to the world?
For me personally? I think not. Mind you I’m not the biggest swearer in the world, except when I hang around with my old boss. So I suppose it’s not much of an issue in my case. It would also probably be pretty weird to the people that know me if I suddenly started cursing up a storm plus I’d likely come off as a fake in writing.
I really enjoy Jay’s blog, he seems a funny, no bullshit kind of a guy and I hope he keeps doing what he does. It works for him. And if I wanted to hire someone to tell me the no-nonsense, unvarnished truth about things, I’d probably hire him. Hopefully that’s exactly the personal brand he was going for. And I guess that’s my point.
What picture of yourself you want to portray?
