Last week, Janet Lyons wrote me this email about Lance Armstrong:
"I have noticed most of the tweeting that has gone on
during his Oprah interview is very negative. Now that could be because he is
hateful, or it could be because it is simply more fun to be snarky and negative
in the tweeting world."
There was definitely a lot of animosity in the air among
people holding strong opinions on Lance Armstrong. I have my own thoughts on
Lance, but most people seem to fall into one of two schools of thought:
1. I am angry at Lance Armstrong.
2. I am angry at people who are angry at Lance Armstrong.
Twitter is a pretty effective vehicle for negative
thoughts. As forms of communication get shorter (from articles, to blog posts,
to microblogging), are we getting meaner? There's a reason why the word "short" can mean "obnoxious." As in, "Why are you getting short with me?"
We all want to be funny and smart. Which makes it tough
to remain calm, friendly, and charitable within 140 characters. One-liners tend
to be the territory of the insult comic.
I wish I could claim to be innocent of this, but I can
see myself gravitating into the same habits. I used to do it in school. If you
want to write a paper that's quick and short, just criticize something you
read. Proposing new ideas is hard work. Attacking other people is easy. It's
really hard to be (1) terse, (2) clever, and (3) POSITIVE at the same time.
After all, short, positive phrases are often attacked as
cheesy…
This instinct has carried over into my professional life in
advertising. For example, I recently had to write copy for the front of a
postcard. The challenge in this assignment was that I had maybe 20 words to get
across a pretty complex concept in a clever, amusing way. Queue those natural
tweeting instincts. I proposed that the front of the postcard depict someone
doing the OPPOSITE of our message. The copy would then cut him down. "Don't be
that guy!" was the message.
The idea was quickly rejected by the client. "We're
looking for a positive message," was the response.
Ugh, I thought. So I guess we're doing this the hard way.
But this is what the partners for New Think have been
doing their whole lives: coming up with short, clever, POSITIVE phrases to
describe clients (see: Have It Your Way, We Bring Good Things To Life, We Love To Fly and It Shows, Life Takes Visa). It's easy to be smart when you're tearing something down,
whether it's Lance Armstrong or Hot Pockets. It's much harder to be clever while
promoting something positively. It’s something that's not taught very often in school these
days… and even less often on Twitter.