POINTS TO ME MADE HERE
(Unlike points for scoring)
- Bear's Packers Game - Played last week. So what? They play every year. Twice a year. Yeah, but first time since 1941 that they played in a playoff game. I live west of Chicago. I live in enemy territory. People in Wisconsin grilling Bear fans. People in Illinois drilling Packer Fans. I live in Illinois and I got pummelled.....ALL WEEK. AND IT WAS A BLAST! I had more fun bantering the week prior to the game than the actual game itself. All my friends came out in full force and took sides. It was so much fun.
- FACEBOOK - Smack talk begins the as soon as the Bears beat Seattle. All friends who are on each side of the border war immediately dig there heals in. For one week friends become enemies. Every time I sign on I'm tagged in some photo of a Packer being pee'd on, a Packer being defecated on, a Packer being a toilet. Then comes the Packer cheerleader jokes. "What do you call a 350 pound Packer cheerleader??? Anorexic. The jokes digressed from there. I was nervous, everytime I signed on Facebook, but in a fun way. The ultimate blow was me dressed up as Jay Cutler;
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Phat or Fat or Fat or Phat? Who knows and who cares? I am pretty sure that in general fat is bad, but in slang Phat is good. I actually knew 2 friends when I was growing up who were Vietnamese who's first name were both Phat. In response to the Packer Cheerleader comment I google FB pictures for "Fat Chicago Bear's Cheerleaders" and put the picture on my FB wall saying "New Chicago Bear's Cheerleaders." It's the one post that I put on FB that has had the most comments that I've ever seen for me (over 70 comments and over 15 likes).
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Active Rain - I post about the response I get and realize that FB is really hitting the masses, but that I'm missing the boat for business purposes. I've done great on FB professionally, but the response that I get from the post on Facebook leads me to believe that there's a bigger potential to hit. ON ACTIVE RAIN, I THEN post Fat Chicks in Bikinis Made me Realize that I'm Missing the Sweet Spot on Facebook! Not a great post, but a good one for stating the fact that I'm barely touching the tip of what FB has to offer. I get some slam comments from a couple of folks. Needless to say, one member here who was offended by the picture and/or post had a really good private dialogue. I fully appreciated her take on what I was saying and, for the most part, I think we left understanding each other better. Honestly, even amidst disagreement, I've decided that I really like this person. Another person, however, slams me and tells me that it was not wonder that I wasn't married and that I'm a disrespecter of women!!!! SAY WHAT??????
Lessons Learned
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Sensitivity - Let's start with me because really I need to be accountable to whomever on how I affect people. While I will never be politcally correct, I always try to be "nice" to folks who I interact with. My banter was between my high school, college, and law school buddies who were throwing it as well as taking it. The response was over whelming on FB. No one on FB said anything about the post that was derogatory to women, but rather to each other as a fan of their team. The Active Rain collateral was shocking. But I guess the collateral was kinda like saying that you're in a food fight in the cafeteria between you and your friends. It's all fun and games until some food hits one of the bystanders and blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is that while not directed at anyone except my enemies for the week, some folks didn't get the message that I was conveying and weren't pleased that I would use such a photo....Not on Facebook mind you, but just when I told the story here. Again, while not a PC kinda guy, I want transparency, but I do need to take into great consideration the people who may read the post.
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Sensitve People - I can't stand sensitive people. I don't mind people who are sensitve and have sensitive feelings, but people who are downright sensitive....I don't get em. I used to be "fat" if you will, when I was younger. I never had issues with that. But I did have other issues and addressed them with the help of a great family. Nothing major, but I had issues that I was sensitve to. I grew up (it took a long time) and out grew them eventually, but I sure had my issues. People who are sensitve have a great trait. Sensitive people drive me nuts. Get the difference or not? I'm OK with what happened on FB. I'm an attorney and I've posted here attorney jokes. I just feel that people are too sensitive in general today. If my post was about a particular type of "group," then I get it. But my post was about the potential of FB
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Brad Andersohn - So this week Brad writes a post called ActiveRain Comment Linking - Where's Your Comment Today?. In his post he talks about comments and how they hang out there for, like, eternity. I think the same can be said for your blog posts. You need to be careful as to what's being said....And actually, I do too. I really want to be transparent, and I can't and won't try to appease everyone. However.......
LESSON LEARNED
First, YES....I need to have more sensitivity to pay attention to those with particular sensitivities. It's going to hang out there forever maybe? While I like people who have sensitive traits, I sure don't like people who are so sensitive that they can't see the forest through the trees. I love banter and a good joke. Others.....ahhhhhh, not so much. The first person is married and, from what I gathered during our conversation, an impeccable person. I apologized to her. I get it. I reached out to the other person, a couple of nights ago, and just heard at the time of this post. I don't expect that the other person will ever "get me", and I think we both get that.
I'll take my odds. I, Larry Bettag, piss off people, less than one out of every one thousand posts. Don't we all need to laugh a little more. I know that the first person was right. I need to walk a little bit more carefully. The second person just needs to laugh more. Life's too short, in my eyes.
