12 comments

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  Andrew Wright

  1 year ago

  Geoff Livingston supports Shel http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2008/04/07/t...
  
  I think the point is that Shel broke a lot of the rules on crisis management (threatening legal action, investigations) which was just more fodder for Loren. These are some of the things Shel advises clients on, and that's where the significant potential damage may be seen from his perspective.
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  Eric Dewhirst

  1 year ago

  Hey Nick,
  
  Well I guess you can say it is bullying - however we are not eight years old. I think one has to go back to the schoolyard and remember how to handle oneself in situations like this. Loren points out stuff that you might not have noticed and yes he exaggerates it - the heavy breathing - the owl etc. However if you want to deal with a bully you need to stand up - and standing up is not name calling. Standing up is simply diffusing the situation - don't go on a Twitter rant and don't name call. Like Mike A eluded to - Loren seeks out thin skinned people and pokes fun at them so he can get a reaction out of them.
  
  To be brutally honest I think this is a fairly scripted ruse - When I see video from Robert Scoble filming Loren Feldman editing the interview of Loic making fun of Shel - I just have to think something is up. This seems all too convenient to me - everybody gets coverage and attention and in the end my money is on Loren making up with Shel and then moving on to his next target.
  
  I think we have all fallen into a late April fools joke.
  
  Cheers - Eric
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  Nick O'Neill

  1 year ago

  @Eric, you make some solid points ... I was hesitant in posting this in the first place as I don't really want to be the platform for the argument to take place
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  Geoff Livingston

  1 year ago

  Yeah, I know Shel, and I don't think it was a ruse. He is seriously upset and humbled by this situation.
  
  And no, Shel wasn't completely right. He shot bad video, reacted poorly when criticized, and fueled the situation, but since then he has owned his wrongs. It's time for Loren to drop the rock and do the same.
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  William Tildesley

  1 year ago

  to be honest I think it's tantermount to bullying.
  It looks bad for the community in general and shows Arrington's and Feldman's true colours.
  
  From the conversations I've had with Shel (over email and twitter) he seems like a very nice guy and from what I can see he is very humble person.
  
  What Feldman, Arrington (and to some degree Le Muer) are doing can be called bullying and apart from that not looked to lightly on in a legal sense these grown men are acting like school boys.
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  Mike Keliher

  1 year ago

  Perhaps not many people are speaking up because this is petty bullshit. It's truly unfortunate for Shel, and I think he's learned a lesson or two. But beyond that, this is petty - and easy to ignore. I'm going to try to keep doing that.
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  Mike Keliher

  1 year ago

  Do you have a link to more info about this Scoble video of Feldman editing the Loic interview? Just curious.
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  Nick O'Neill

  1 year ago

  @Mike not sure what you are talking about ... who mentioned a Scoble video?
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  Stowe Boyd

  1 year ago

  I think an analogy is in order. Imagine that Shel is a playwright, and he launched a show. Loren is (for the analogy's sake) another aspiring playwright, who also writes an occasional column for (let's say) The New York Times. He sees a (bad) play, and writes a scathing review, that leads to an exchange of letters, all printed in the New York Times. Plausible? Certainly.
  
  So, first, this is not an indicator of the immaturity of some hypothetical 'social media industry'. This is just a feud between two creatives, a dispute about place, reputation, status, and, yes, media and community attention.
  
  Feldman is funny, so long as the shadenfreude doesn't drop on you personally, like watchin Don Rickles insulting some other schlub at a Las Vegas nightclub.
  
  Second, Israel overreacted to the criticisms and heckling: he's human. Let's get over it. Hell, I've critiqued the work of many people, suggesting they are advocating dumb ideas, or use tenuous logic, or are morally bankrupt, but in most cases it hasn't led to open warfare (although some people do cross to the other side of the street when I pass by).
  
  What is needed is not some namby-pamby etiquette based on 19th notions of civility, but instead, a return to the principles of an open dialogue based on ideas, and the give and take of rational discourse. It is perfectly ok to say that someone's work stinks, that their ideas are second rate, and they should find another job. It's a free country.
  
  All involved have to realize that this is not beanbag. It's serious. It's is our life work that we are putting out here. So passions will run high. We know what we know because of what we believe to be true, and that is what we are exchanging: perceptions of what is true.
  
  Shel needs to focus on his work, and get it honed. If he actually has talent as an interviewer, he'll go far. The results to date are ambiguous, to be generous.
  
  Feldman is funny, in a heckling, drunken-clown-at-the-circus sort of way. We need to have the wild-eyed iconoclast yelling "bullshit" in a society like ours, given to idolizing the well-connected and famous. But if you thought you were at a dinner party, and he were to break out into that mode, you would be very very upset. If it happens at the circus, or a Las Vegas nightclub, you would just laugh.
  
  So one of the issues is: where is this, anyway? We should imagine something halfway between the formal dinner party and a drunken orgy. Perhaps a Michael Arrington barbeque? With lots of booze, and open space, and people smoking ganja behind a bush. A place where we can move from high-minded rhetoric to low gutter humor in one step. Over here there is dancing and laughter, and over there people are breaking up a drunken brawl.
  
  Just don't confuse it with something else, and it all makes sense... in a messy, wonderful, and interesting way.
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  Nick O'Neill

  1 year ago

  @Stowe wow that was a substantial comment and a good one!
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  Mike Keliher

  1 year ago

  Sorry. I read about the Scoble video in one of the comments. The video of Feldman is at Scoble's Qik page: http://qik.com/Scobleizer
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  Adam gershenbaum

  1 year ago

  In the rap world this would be called a 'beef'. This is like watching Jay Z and Nas go at at in a bad episode of Sesame Street.... make that Sesame Tweet. Maybe that is lending too much credit to this situation actually. In reality though, I have questioned if this is one big staged 'beef'. Whatever the case each party has attention coming their way.
  
  Bottom line IMHO is that I will admit that I get the point that 1938media is making and I watched maybe 1.5 of his videos about Shel and lol'ed. But I liken this to one of those situations at work where you have an employee with a guilty conscience who brings nothing original to the table walking around all day every day pointing fingers criticising everyone else to shift the attention away from them. Bottom line, Feldman is doing nothing original with his puppets that hasn't done before. Anyone can pick up some puppets and mpock someone else. If you want original puppetry that makes you LOL try watching episodes of WONDERSHOWZEN Lauren Feldman. Do some writing of your own and do a show around your own thoughts instead of trolling others.
  
  Like I said, Feldman's antics were a bit funny but when does it become not funny, and quite honestly a bit obsessive on 1938media's part. When does he become simply a troll? The reason there is not to much attention being given to this is because I think the parties involved really don't believe in feeding the troll.
  
  Don't feed the trolls. Your post did that and so did Arrington as well as all 11 of these replies.
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