DNFTT

It stands for Do Not Feed The Trolls. And if you're a member of an online community, you're probably familiar with the term. Internet trolls post to online communities with inflammatory speech or speech designed primarily to get a rise out of people. The best way to keep them coming back is to feed them - that is, give them the indignation they want. The best way to get rid of them is to go all Freddy Krueger on their idiotic asses and totally ignore them. But trolls aren't necessarily confined to Internet communities. They're actually all over the media landscape. Wherever there's a channel of communication, there's usually some asshole trying to figure out a way to manipulate it to get people's goats.

A certain not-very-well-known agency announced that it was interested in hiring Neil French, the ex-WPP creative guy who made some very insulting remarks about women at a recent conference. It was so obviously a publicity stunt that I joined a chorus of industry folks in administering a most gratuitous verbal ass-beating unto the agency in question. What I should have done was simply ignore it.

Maybe I should get hats printed up with DNFTT on them.

Why Does This Remind Me Of Goodfellas?

Why, exactly, does Wal-Mart get 15 days notice before labor inspections? Unbelievable that they can boss the government around like that, to the point of making the inspections completely ineffective.

Why Is This A Surprise?

This is conniption-worthy. How can the CEO of the second-largest marketing company claim that there are major changes taking place in media due to emerging media like the Internet, "and we don't understand the speed and scale at which they're taking place."?

It's not like all of this happened overnight. Sir Martin, you've had a dozen years' worth of warning shots. How can you claim to not have a clue what to expect?

You've certainly known for years that new media was eroding television, print and radio consumption. (Incidentally, television didn't need the Internet to continue its yearly ritual of charging more for less. The Internet just accelerated that trend.)

You might have sighed with relief when the Internet bubble burst, but we all knew (and warned the world) that the medium wasn't going away. And it didn't. And you've had a few years since the bubble to reflect on this.

So quit pretending this snuck up on you overnight.

Speaking of Transparency...

You know, faking things always gets you in more trouble. It's rarely worth it. I've been a TotalFarker for quite a while. It's been tempting to use that for commercial gain, considering it's feasible I could bring a client's web server to its knees by posting a thread there and hyping it. But it's asinine to think you won't get caught. Farkers have very finely-tuned bullshit detectors.

And when the whole thing does come crashing down, what does that mean for a brand? (Please refrain from commenting if you're from the "any publicity is good publicity" school. I've heard it all before and I STILL think it's bullshit.)