Happy Festivus, for the rest of us! My 2009 airing of grievances.

I can’t believe I almost forgot it was Festivus today. I was reminded by Rico Thomas Rico, who posted his airing of grievances on his blog. Knowing I’m long overdue for a blog post, I’m following his lead and now posting my 2009 Airing of Grievances. Enjoy!

Dissappointing me this year in the world of social media were …

1) Auto-dmers. People on twitter who automatically follow you with a direct message when you follow them. A very amateur move. Especially disconcerting when said person claims to be a social media marketer, or even worse if it’s a “Thanks for following, click my junk!” type of DM.  You people should not be allowed online.

2) People who claim they won’t join Facebook “because they don’t want everybody to know all their business.” Grr … that’s what the privacy settings are for, idiots.

3) On that note, people who over-protect their stuff on Facebook so much that they appear as a faceless “Facebook user” when commenting, and refuse to share ANYTHING. OK, seriously? I’m all about the privacy settings but if you think you have THAT MUCH to hide, that’s called paranoia and there’s medication for that.

4) People who claim to work “in social media” but then say they can’t stand gossip. I got news for you — gossip fuels social media. In a very big way, social media IS gossip. Can’t handle the heat? Get the hell outta the kitchen.

5) Places that start their e-newsletters that I receive with “Dear Communicator” - I have a name, and if YOU were a communicator, you’d know that. You’d also know the %name% function in your email client to insert it so that it wouldn’t sound so generic.

6) People who say they “do” social media as their job. Do you say you “do” the copy machine? Do you “do” the phone? Do you “do” a word processor? No, those are tools you use in order to do your job. Use it as a means, not an end.

7) People who assume I’m a graphics designer just because they hear that what I do has something to do with the internet. I don’t know how many times I hear “I know a guy who needs a graphics designer, I referred him to you…” That’s great, but I’m admittedly artistically retarded. I’ll have to give them a referral to one of the 1000000000000000 graphics/web designers I DO know.

8 ) All these “life coaches” who insist on following me on Twitter. What — you couldn’t figure out what to do with your life so you decided to tell people how to live theirs? For real — go away.

9) Those who do not question “thought leaders.” There’s a term for you that’s not as nice as “thought follower,” it’s “sheep.” See this post.

10) SEO people, especially those who feel the need to put “SEO” after their name. OK, here’s a newsflash — SEO is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. Having said that, if you are in the Cult of SEO (a.k.a. those who believe you have to be in some kind of secret society and know some kind of secret handshake in order to get SEO), YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT SEO AFTER YOUR NAME. SEO is NOT a PhD. You do not need a doctorate degree to figure it out, and if your name is “John Jones, SEO” on LinkedIN or Twitter, it does not make you look credible, it makes you look like a douchebag.

Disappointing me this year in the rest of the world were …

1) Whoever took Randa Jawhari. This person is actually at the TOP of my list. My hometown of Fenton has a hole in it because she has been missing since February 2009. It won’t be filled until she’s found. Please give her back.

2) Traffic weavers. I hate you. You people are DANGEROUS. And you know what? Danica Patrick does it a helluva lot better than you. And she’s much better looking.

3) The people who live above me. I haven’t lived here for long but I’m convinced they think their living room is a mosh pit.

4) Kanye West. Do I have to even explain why?

5) People who toss cigarette butts out car windows. Dude, if you absolutely HAVE to pollute your lungs, don’t pollute the planet, too.

6) That guy who warns everybody about being “that guy” but doesn’t realize that HE IS THAT GUY. You know that guy.

7) Ghost bloggers/writers. Pardon me for being a purist, but I find it highly ironic that the very things that would get someone expelled from college (plagiarism) are common practice in the professional world today. That’s nothing but B.S.

So there we go. My airing of grievances for 2009. There’s no doubt in my mind that I have more, but these are the ones off the top of my head. Now I ask you — what are YOUR 2009 Festivus grievances? Leave ‘em in the comments.