This post is all about web gossip. If this bores you, move on.  Thanks!

Yeah, I’ve been easily amused by Twitter, lately!  It’s become the public IM device du jour.  Sure, there’s Pownce and Jaiku, and Swarm.   But Twitter is where all the big boys hang out - not to mention, most of my offline friends.   Sure I get bored with the mostly “OMG!! I washed my face today” kind of stuff, but hey! It can’t be “I’m in jail in Cairo” all the time.  Besides, it’s not as if I provide the most scintillating content either.  That’s what makes the web the great digital democracy that it is!  We have the choice of either being fab or drab and noone would give a rat’s ass.   Sometimes both at the same time.   It’s (for the most part) just our friends watching us, right?  It’s all good.

Anyway, I’ve been alternately entertained and dismayed at the current smackdown between these two guys: 1938media and shelisrael.  Apparently, they are both social-media icons with their own sets of loyal followers (shelisrael’s appears to be bigger, but, since I’m a little late to this party, who am I to say).  I actually am more acquainted with 1938media’s writings through his comments on the not-often-updated-anymore-Chartreuse blog. It’s also worth noting that shelisrael is also friends with Scobleizer, who’s been discussing the use of social networking, among other things, with congressmen in DC while all this has been going down - hey! One of these SV dweebs has a life! Who knew! (FWIW, I’ve been following Scobleizer since he started blogging on WordPress as a Microserf.  I’m still a fan of his, though his tweets tend to run along the lines of “We’re dining with the fabulous @so-and-so at the foot of El Capitan in Yosemite - and YOU’RE NOT!” (I made up that last part, but that’s how it comes across.  Sorry, but it does).  

Scobleizer is worth mentioning here because, according a blog entry shelisrael wrote about his experiences with 1938media today, 1938media’s real beef is with anyone associated with Scobleizer, since Scobleizer and 1938media worked together once at a Podcast oriented company - and Scobleizer may - MAY - have been instrumental in getting 1938media fired over some offensive video he did.   Which is, apparently, how this feud started.

I’m not joking.  This feud started over someone being attacked over something a friend of his MAY have done.

So why isn’t 1938media going after Scobleizer?  Seriously?  Does Scobleizer know something that would tear 1938media open from his cajones up? Is 1938media really afraid of Scobleizer’s web popularity and renown?  The worst thing I’ve seen this guy say about Scobleizer via tweets is going to Scobleizer’s website, not liking the content, and calling him a moron.  Meanwhile, poor shelisrael is heavily mocked via 1938media’s sock puppet videos about him, harassed via visceral attacks from his “Twitter pulpit”, and even purchasing his name in a domain so as to (possibly) sell to a porn company (hmmm…would he?)

Again.  Why?

This is the part I find most interesting (this?  interesting?).  On his blog entry on the feud from today, shelisrael claims, “I have never met [1938media]“.  Yet, not just 24 hours ago, 1938media tweeted in reply to shelisrael “I was losing interest in you, and then you had to go opening your arrogant mouth again. Now I really make sure your done.”, “you just refuse to learn humility, after all this and you are still arrogant. Do you even realized you are finished you dope?” and explained to another “follower” “Here’s why Shel is on my shit list. He fucked with me hard when I was first starting. Food off my plate. I swore I’d get revenge.”

Really?  They’ve never met?  You don’t get a stranger so pissed off at you that he hijacks your domain name and creates more of a buzz from sock puppet videos than from your own reputation.  Because you “fucked with him hard”?

Someone is, er, fudging the space a bit, so to speak.

I can understand both sides on this issue.  shelisrael is feeling victimized by an uber-troll with a blog, a Twitter account and a PR firm (the Ariel Waldman situation pretty much stated that Twitter will do nothing about folks who use their service to harass other users, no matter how unseemly the commentary).  1938media, on the other hand, feels he has a legitimate gripe against someone who did him some (apparent) egregious professional harm, and is willing to go to any lengths to settle his score.

But if I were to set these two guys aside in a room (and not one at SXSW), I’d say the following:

1938media: Dude, I’ve been a fan since the Chartreuse blog days.  You’re funny. You’re witty.  You’re successful.  But this thing with shelisrael is making you look bad.  Really, really bad.  You are looking like a monster.  An ogre.  A big, fat bully.  None of these tech dweebs want to work with a bully. Bullies made their lives hell and stole their lunch money in high school.  They will not support one in the working world.  Trust me.  I know this from personal experience.  

You want to beat up on an old guy?  For what?  For some dumb ass job that you’ve apparently moved on from, anyway? What sort of heinous deed did he unleash upon you for you to slowly tear him limb from limb, professionally?

Seriously, you need to stop.  And not with just the “Rebranding” thing, either.

shelisrael: Hon, I feel your pain.  Growing up in the mean streets of Menlo Park, I had to put up with vicious taunts from well-off Palo Alto and Mountain View girls, nearly getting bumped off by Aston-Martins while riding my bike through Atherton, and jealous, vindictive San Jose women trying to get me fired from various jobs, because their potential workplace love-interests thought I was hot as well. 

All this just serves to make me stronger, y’know?

From the comments I read after your blog entry, I see that this wasn’t the first time you let these douchebags get under your skin.  So, I’ve got two words for you.

Man.  Up.

This is the wild, wooly internet.  EVERYONE gets dissed.  I’ve gotten dissed so many times it’s not even funny.  I’ve done my fair share of dissing as well.  It’s no big thing.   There’s frankly no greater joy than pissing the dissers off by getting up, dusting yourself off, and going on about your business as if nothing happened.   It just makes them angrier, so they do more dissing, and when they see that it doesn’t affect you, they give up and move on to a more effective target.  You DON’T need to be that target.

You’ve got to prove you’re stronger than THEM (and this goes for you too 1938media) by doing what you want, living your life as you want to live it, and not giving a fuck.  I know it’s not the lay of the land in SV, but, hell, it helped me survive my rough and tumble childhood there.

Maybe it will help you survive your’s.

Peace…

Watch these peeps try to block me now.  Heh! I’ll get around…