As you know if you’ve been paying attention, Todd Carpenter exposed himself revealed himself to be the real Fake Greg Swann last night. I confess myself to have been totally sussed by the prank, despite Todd’s having hidden several Easter eggs along his trail that, had I not been completely clueless, I might have used to solve the mystery of his secret identity. In any case, it was a lot of fun, and Todd got to make his point in a gentle and even-handed way.
I think Todd was surprised by the venom of some of the reactions his alter ego got, citing one commenter in particular as being particularly vile. Welcome to the world of the real Greg Swann. People say the dumbest stuff about me and about BloodhoundBlog as a whole, and it means nothing at all to me — one of Todd’s clues to me was echoing back my own self-description as an armadillo. If you demonstrate to me that I’ve made an error, I’m in your debt. If you rant about something I already know is correct, you will have induced me to question your mind, your character — or both. If you expect me to be emotionally involved with you, you had better be my wife — and you should try to catch me when I’m not too busy.
But: The bogus claim itself is interesting, first because it’s really stoopid, and second because thinking about why it is so stoopid leads us to a better understanding of how to be wise instead. Angry bullshit piles up everywhere, but, if you’re willing to use your mind, it can make for good fertilizer.
So this is the claim from the comment on the Fake Greg Swann site:
greg swan’s playbook
[….]
Generate Traffic to your Site in 24hrs or less
[….]
Linkbaiting
[….]
Awards
I have five arguments to make against a strategy like this.
1. We don’t behave this way. I don’t give a rat’s ass about traffic. What I care about is telling the truth as beautifully as possible — saying what we want in the way that we want. If we’re right, we’ll attract people who Read more