Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

After reading a recent story in AdWeek, I can't help but think of the W.C. Fields' classic, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. If these people are dumb enough to fall for this ploy, so be it. C'mon folks, you've got read everything with a critical eye, especially on the internet. I thought it was a clever ploy for this organization to garner awareness about its members' interest to stop copyright infringement. Furthermore, who got hurt by this anyway? The integrity of the fake student blogger? No. The integrity of Coach for creating awareness of the issue and increasing value to shareholders? No. The integrity of the entire blogosphere? Perhaps. But, creating some banal code of ethics will not solve the problem. It is up to the consumer to decipher who benefits from said action and if the benefactor has the means to affect the story. It is clear that the purse industry would benefit from a rally against counterfitters and they definitely had the means to make this.

Blogs are not and will never be transparent. If this fake blogger would have revealed her agenda, she would have immediately been revealed as the fraud that she is and no one would have visited her site. She was doing what she needed to do to promote her respective cause. I would argue that most traditional media outlets are guilty of the same journalistic sins. If the talking heads on CNBC revealed exactly what stocks they were personally investing in, one might second guess their recommendations too. (I'll leave my rant on CNBC for a coming post). So, we must take in what people blog about, babble about on CNBC, or write on the front page of the NY Times and critically analyze it by looking at who benefits from what is being said. And if you don't, the media and blogosphere will continue to never give a sucker an easy break.

On that note, I'd like to share with you what I feel blogs were actually put on earth for....sharing funny YouTube videos: