There’s a serious battle erupting in the blogosphere and people are taking sides but no thorough discussion has erupted over the ethical stance of 1938 Media & Techcrunch versus Shel Israel (and increasingly Robert Scoble). While on one hand I don’t want to rehash the whole story, I think given the circumstance and the names that are involved, it warrants some sort of brief discussion. Given that the blogosphere is about conversation, I’m surprised the conversation hasn’t yet expanded beyond the comments of Techcrunch and Twitter.
If you haven’t been paying attention, the whole battle begun when Loren Feldman of 1938 Media lambasted Shel Israel for his first video of FastCompany.tv. Shel himself has admitted that the first episode was not great but has also stated that they will be hiring a new camera man in an interview with Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah himself has been a subject of Feldman’s verbal punishment in a number of videos.
Either way, after a trip to visiting Mike Arrington at his house in Atherton, California and after acquiring the domain name which spells out Shel Israel’s name, he continued to criticize Shel. In between all of this there was an outburt by Shel on Twitter as well as on his blog. This outburst was used by Mike Arrington as justification to write a post outlining everything that has gone down so far.
By today, it continued to warrant another two Techcrunch posts, one about Flickr launching their video service which included a video of the puppet Shel Israel and another post announcing that 1938 Media received sponsorship before FastCompany.tv. In my own opinion this has pretty much become bullying at this point but nobody has the balls to publicly call it that. I also think that some of Loren Feldman’s jokes entertain me.
Is this really technology news? Would the New York Times technology section post about this? Definitely not. It shows how professional blogging for some is still far from professional. What makes this all worse though is that the largest blog about technology can simply post articles about it and nobody says anything. Whether it’s right or wrong, people should say something because one of their fellow community members is being roasted pretty hard.
There is a ton of chatter that’s taking place on Twitter over the issue but nothing substantial has appeared on Techmeme and everything that has appeared seems to support Feldman & Arrington. Where are the people that will stand up for the other side? So far Jeremiah Owyang is the only person to say anything and I guess everyone else doesn’t want to link to the issue because they don’t want to drive more traffic to Techcrunch. At least that’s the only thing I can rationalize.
Also, Loic Le Meur looks ridiculous for sitting in an interview where Loren Feldman can just call him a “dumb French bastard.” Are you serious Loic? You should have ignored him and not agreed to an interview. Also, all of the other people that are being interviewed by Loren Feldman are being degraded. Do you think it’s coincidental that Arrington hasn’t been interviewed by Feldman yet even though they’ve been sleeping in the same house for almost a week?
Do you think what’s going on is justified? Is it a little bit of fun or is it school yard bullying? Is nobody else going to say anything? Honestly, I think all of it lacks professionalism but in new media lines are continuously crossed and perhaps that’s just part of the game. Personally, I find it ironic when Arrington bitches about how harsh Valleywag can be and says “When will we have our first Valleywag suicide?” and then continues to engage in the same behavior. I guess when he isn’t breaking the law though, all that can be done is more traffic comes his way. It’s funny that some people will do anything for traffic.
Do you think sparking conversation about it only furthers the behavior? Do you think this behavior is justified or unjustified? Geoff Livingston seems to think it’s all ridiculous and Shel is in the right.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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