Bill Cammack

Are *you* a Tech Elitist? If so, how’s that workin’ for ya?

As it’s now Christmas, and we think of The Grinch sitting high on the hill, looking down on all the little people of the village with contempt… Let’s consider our own positions in our respective fields and how we’ve chosen social media sites & groups as well as whom we’ve chosen to affiliate ourselves with.

There was much change during 2007. More ways to communicate. More social sites to join. More video hosts with their own little gimmicks that made them slightly different from the rest. New video editing software. New storage solutions. New live streaming options….

As new opportunities arose, there was a lot of bandwagon-jumping. Sometimes it stuck, sometimes it didn’t. When Twitter was initially unreliable, OFTEN, eventually, Jaiku came along, and there was a mass exodus. The backup plan for when Twitter would go down was for people to immediately start posting on Jaiku until the problem was resolved. Eventually, Twitter became stable, and I didn’t hear a peep about Jaiku for months until they got bought by Google. All of a sudden, here come the Jaiku friend requests.

Even within Twitter, there was bandwagon-jumping. Apps were created so you didn’t have to use the twitter web page with your browser. Some people stuck with them. Some people bailed back to the web site when they realized how many twitter posts the apps weren’t picking up. Eventually, people found found satisfaction in how they received twitter posts. At some point during ’07, Pownce became a player as well.

There was much debate about which status update application was better between the three of them. I ended up sticking with Twitter, and once every so often, I copy/paste redundant posts to Pownce & Jaiku for people that primarily (if not exclusively) use those sites. I’m also biased towards Twitter because I have 341 contacts there vs. 117 on Pownce and 50 on Jaiku, many of which are redundant for the reason I stated earlier. So, for the sake of this post, I’ll say I made the ‘elitist’ decision that Twitter was better for my purposes and essentially neglect the other two services.

On the social site front, I used to have a regular MySpace presence. I had somewhere around 500 “friends” that were rather randomly acquired. What I mean by that is that I had probably 100 contacts that I knew from some other site or forum or that I actually knew IRL and then another 400 or so people/companies that sent me a friends request and then essentially never talked to me “again”. :D … “Again” has to be in quotes, because they never TALKED to me the first time. All they did was click a button that sent me a friends request, and I accepted it. I enjoyed interacting with my actual friends on MySpace, but the vast majority of it I found to be utterly worthless. MySpace is fantastic if you’re a musician or an artist, but I didn’t make many new relationships on MySpace that were worth anything.

Eventually, Facebook stepped its game up, and I migrated to “the better site”. Similar to my Twitter bias for status updates, my MySpace dealings dwindled to ZERO. In fact, if someone didn’t have a facebook account, I wouldn’t even bother to look them up on MySpace. :) “Everybody who was anybody” was on Facebook, so there wasn’t any need to ‘waste’ time on other mass social sites. Recently, someone mentioned MySpace to me, and I inadvertently laughed and said something like “You *still* use your MySpace account?” She replied that she interacts with the people that she knows because of business on Facebook, but her IRL friends are all still on MySpace. I hadn’t thought about it before, but as I sit here on my Facebook hill with contempt… I’m now wondering how many of my ACTUAL friends are still down in the MySpace village, having never made the jump to “the better site”.

The reason Facebook is better for me is that I deal with social media every day of the week. Now that I’m thinking about it, for the average joe, MySpace is more than enough, and there’s no reason for them to look for better connectivity to more REAL people. So now I have to consider whether it’s more beneficial to me to move some of my Facebook-time back to MySpace instead of concentrating solely on the site that’s clearly superior for my purposes.

Next, you have video hosts. I use blip.tv because the options and functionalities serve my purposes as I maintain my own video blogs using WordPress, Show-In-A-Box and vPiP. Meanwhile, other people talk into their webcams and post videos to YouTube. I’ve posted a few videos to YouTube for test purposes, but I wasn’t impressed with the video compression quality at the time, I wasn’t impressed with the Terms of Service and I *CERTAINLY* wasn’t impressed with the dimwitted remarks people love to leave in the comments sections.

For those reasons and others, I’ve left YouTube just about completely alone… However, you can’t argue with the numbers of views that people get, assuming they get “featured”. YouTube has become the go-to for people looking for any kind of video under the sun, so just by having your video there, you have more of a chance of it going viral than if you oh-so-elitely plan, film, edit, compress, upload, post, tag and advertise your own videos like I do. :)

The question, again, is “How’s that workin’ for ya?”. Fortunately, another 2007 development is TubeMogul which enables you to upload a video once and have it distributed to multiple video sharing sites. TubeMogul also tracks statistics for you across several sites. So now, there’s less incentive to keep “all your eggs in one basket”.

I’m sure we can look forward to lots more fantastic developments in 2008. :) Personally, I’ll be paying more attention than I was this year as far as whether I’d like to consolidate or expand in the areas of status updates, social sites and video hosting sites. I didn’t even get to talk about live streaming options, like how I think Operator11 is infinitely better than BlogTV….. except Operator11 went completely offline for more than a week, so people like Jonny Goldstein had to retreat to other live streaming sites to keep their shows going. Of course, there’s no way to add a BlogTV archive to your Operator11 show archive, so c’est la vie. :/

Anyway… I think it’s in all of our best interests to pay attention not only to which new app or site has cool features or the elite people flocking to it, but also to whether we’re trading away communications with our core viewers, friends, contacts and followers. Just like The Grinch found out… it’s lonely at the top.

Bill Cammack • Cammack Media Group, LLC

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Title: “The Holiday Sweater Song”
Directed/Written/Edited by Justin Johnson
Music: Steve Nelson
Vocals: Patty DeArteaga & Justin Johnson
Lyrics: Justin Johnson and Steve Nelson
Vimeo Permalink: [link]
YouTube Permalink: [link]

What says HOLIDAY COMFORT AND FUN more than a festive sweater, adorned with all manner of snowmen, snow women, dogs, snowflakes, and more. Let’s celebrate the beauty of holiday sweaters with some music combined with video!

HUGE thanks to all the people who submitted their videos for this, couldn’t have made it without all your support.

STARRING:
Jodi’s Kids

Alan and Wife

George and Nintern

Erik, Jared, and Lee

Giancarlo Florentini & Jon Grimm
http://wiseguypictures.net/

Amanda Ferri and Alex
http://bustedtees.com/

Shawn Pearlman

Ramon “The Iron Dove”

Steve Garfield
http://www.stevegarfield.com/

Josh Leo
http://joshleo.com/

Veronica Belmont
http://www.veronicabelmont.com/

Hayden Black
http://goodnightburbank.com/

Tim and Rachel
http://nextnewnetworks.com/

Streeter and Amir
http://collegehumor.com/

Michelle and Felicia
http://youtube.com/

Andrea Feczko
http://fastlanedaily.com/

Dave Seger
http://www.a-okfilms.com/

Dan Meth
http://methminute39.com/

Marissa Nystrom
http://celebzaredum.tumblr.com/

Erik Beck
http://indymogul.com/

Bill Cammack
http://reelsolid.tv/

Gary the Puppet

Nick and Richard
http://gawker.com/

Nick Douglas
http://valleywag.com/

Blame Society Productions
http://www.splu.net/

Erik X Raj
http://njfilmcore.com/

Kyle Fasanella
http://vilekyle.com/

The Thread Heads
http://threadbanger.com/

Halcyon
http://www.cockybastard.com/

ART BY
Ben Ross

MUSIC BY
Steve Nelson

LYRICS BY
Justin Johnson and Steve Nelson

DIRECTED / WRITTEN / EDITED BY
Justin Johnson

So, DatingGenius ran into Bookstore-Chick last night… The one that inspired “Take her to the Book Store!” or book-store-technique. She reports that she’s still happily dating Bookstore-Guy, so that’s a good testimonial for the technique! DatingGenius is happy for them. :D

As usual, which is why I gave Sorcha her propers for speaking her mind and sharing her opinion… It turns out that Bookstore-Chick *READ* the post, knowing DAMNED WELL that it was entirely about HER… DID *NOT* reply to the thread, positively or negatively, DID *NOT* make any other attempts to contact DatingGenius, probably WOULD NOT HAVE mentioned anything at all, if I had not brought it up, AND asked her if she had read it AND what she thought of it….. :D

Not only did she read it, she had Bookstore-Guy read it as well. Same deal. Zero communication. I guess this is why they’re called BOOKSTORE guy and girl and not INTERNET guy and girl! :D Anyway… They’re not the point here…

So Bookstore-Chick shows up all late to the hangout. She also brought her ok-looking female friend with her.

NOTE: From the dim lighting in the spot, and being pretty well alcoholized by the time they showed up, her friend actually qualified as “cute”. However, DO NOT mention this to chicks off the bat. Make sure they know that you think they’re “ok”, or my personal favorite, “alright”.

Yo! You saw that chick? :D
Yeah… She’s aiiite. :/

Do NOT let chicks get souped up on themselves off the bat. It’s a HORRIBLE bargaining position, and you’ll be working your way out from under that one for-EV*A*R.

This presented DatingGenius with a problem…. The problem of CONTEXT. Under normal circumstances, by that time of the night, DatingGenius is verbally fighting against 5 or 6 people, siting around a table trying to bash either him as an evil, despicable, dastardly, underhanded individual or bash his theories! >:D This is a progression, however. I don’t walk in the door kicking game. We meet and greet, have some boring fun, then it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty! :D Bookstore-Chick had already been through this process… Actually, it was HER mentioning all HAPPILY that she was taken on a date to a BOOKSTORE that got the festivities jumping off that evening. With her friend (the “ok” one), I received the double-whammy.

First, when I asked Bookstore-Chick if she had read the post, she turns to her friend and says like three words, and her friend is like “OH… THIS IS THE GUY THAT WROTE THAT?” So I’m like “awwww here we GO!” hahahaha. Second, instead of making it there for meet & greet happy-time social hour, they show up during a heated debate about something like the irrelevance of a chick claiming lesbian status in the grand scheme of whether you’re going to get on or not, so The Kid was in full effect, all gears spinning, battle-mode. So, of course, with this new chick having ZERO IRL context of meeting DatingGenius BEFORE battle-mode, I get into an argument with this chick about bookstore technique.

Usually (and this was no exception), when someone arrives without context to one of my conversations, they make two fundamental errors. 1) They assume that the way I’m talking with the group is how I would tangibly represent myself in a situation of “kickin’ it” with a chick. 2) They assume that what I’m ADVISING for other people is what *I* use, myself. :D

I try to let chicks understand that what they’ve been invited to is the proverbial “locker room”, as in “locker room conversation”, meaning the stuff that guys talk about and KEEP CHICKS FROM KNOWING ABOUT. They are receiving the *BENEFIT* of being treated like a guy and welcomed into the inner circle where we discuss IMPORTANT ish! :D Because they now have dual-citizenship of ACTUALLY being females, but being talked to AS IF they were males, in “the locker room”, they misunderstand my locker-room behavior as my kicking-it-to-a-viable-chick behavior. This is where you start hearing stuff like “I can’t believe you said that!” and “I’d NEVER date *YOU*! :(” blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…..

Think about it like an actual football game. What happens in the locker room? The guys declare that they’re going to go out there and RIP the other team’s HEADS OFF!!! :D ….. Then… What happens when those same two teams EXIT the locker room and get on the field? … That’s right. They SHAKE HANDS! Have you ever seen a boxing-style staredown during the coin toss? Nope! Complete gentlemen. Then, what happens when you try to catch that pass high and away over the middle? CRAAAAAAAAAACK, the middle linebacker smashes you in the ribs! :D

“The Game” is exactly the same way. You don’t bring your locker-room style out onto the field. In the locker room, we’re kickin’ INFRASTRUCTURE. It’s the “WHY?” behind what you ACTUALLY do when it’s Game ON! It’s the real deal. It’s not some bullshit Dr. Phil advice like “buy her some flowers” or “be nice to her”. It’s tactics, techniques and the underlying psychology behind WHY those tactics and techniques actually work. Are chick supposed to like it or be happy about it? No. :D They’re SUPPOSED to be mad about it because they don’t want to believe how easily they’re manipulated. It’s like how this stewardess-looking chick was on “The View” as the girlfriend of this so-called “greatest pickup artist” who looks and sounds like he doesn’t even LIKE WOMEN, and she’s talking about “none of his tactics worked on me… that’s what he liked about me! :D” ….. idiot. Look at YOU and Look at HIM. You.Got.Gamed. He schemed on getting you in the locker room, shook your hand and smiled in your face when you met him and then proceeded to SMASH YOU IN YOUR RIBS when you came floating across the middle after that high-and-away pass.

The second contextual issue with people jumping into these conversations all late is that the assumption is made that what I’m ADVISING for other people to do is what I HAVE TO DO, myself.

I don’t have to do *ANYTHING*. It’s a numbers game. There’s a percentage chance that any given chick will be into me off the bat. Even if that percentage is low, when you apply that percentage in a city that LITERALLY has over 1,000,000 (one million) chicks in it, all you have to do is SHOW UP to get on. You don’t even have to SAY anything! :D I’ve had chicks approach me that don’t.even.speak.English, and I’ve had to get people to translate what they were saying to me.

My advice is for people who are having PROBLEMS with getting chicks to do what they want them to do. I’d like to have more advice for the ladies as well, haha but as you can see, they’d rather LURK on internet boards than chime in and ask a brotha a question or three! :D Anyway, there’s no better tactic than “be the best person you can be, looks-wise and personality-wise”. Just by being better than other people, you automatically go to the head of the class and become a target. It’s the same thing that works for chicks. When that stunning girl walks in the room and everybody’s like :O she doesn’t have to SAY or DO anything. It’s a wrap as soon as she shows up. SOMEBODY in that room wants to give her what she wants…..

Bill Cammack
DatingGenius

Yes, I know I said “only date broke chicks”, but now, we’re talking about marriage! :D

If you’re going to get married to a chick, make *SURE* she’s got ‘mad ducats’! :D

Don’t put yourself in the screwed-up position of having to support some deadbeat chick. That went out of style with The Flintstones and The Honeymooners. Women’s Lib is in FULL EFFECT… YA HEARD? Chicks have their own jobs… Chicks have their own money…. They’re even allowed to own land now. There’s no reason why you can’t find yourself a *RICH* chick to get married to. None.

You may have to do a little bullshitting, because chicks like to hook up with guys that are more successful than they are. Go hang out at the country club. Order an overpriced water and act like you’re drinking vodka. Drop a lot of references to your yacht and the several homes you own around the world. You know the drill. ;)

Anyway…

Now, there are two types of rich chicks you can go for. There’s the self-made rich chick that is educated and has her own career and has done what she’s needed to do to elevate her lifestyle to the lap of luxury. All props and credit to those women! :D … Then, there’s the type that’s rich because either her father or her ex-husband worked A LOT, and she’s become the beneficiary of their labor. It all depends on what you plan to do with her money, which kind of rich chick you want to go for….

If you want to keep her money to yourself, marry the rich, self-made chick. The higher she gets in her career, the more hours she’s going to have to spend working. This means you get to drive her fancy luxury car back and forth to the store to pick up the latest video games on her credit card. In this case, you’re basically the butler, Jeeves. It’s your job to pick her up from work after you chilled all day, drive her to the restaurant for dinner, since your ass probably can’t cook worth a damn, drive her back home and pamper her for about an hour before she falls asleep since she needs to get up early to go make you some more money in the morning. So, basically, by ‘working’ between 6 and 10pm every day, the equivalent of a part-time job, you enjoy all the luxuries she’s working so hard to make available to you. This works best with chicks you have no intention of having sex with.

OTOH… >:D … If you actually ENJOY her company and want to hang out with her and hit it, etc… then make sure you get one of those beneficiary-chicks. The bad thing about trust fund chicks and divorcees is that they’re spending their money faster than YOU’RE spending their money! :O The good thing about them is that they don’t actually have to waste time going to GET that money, so you have loads of time to hang out with them all day, every day! :D Paris on a Tuesday? No problem! :D Tavern On The Green on Thursday afternoon? No problem! :D

Fortunately, even though the divorce/cheating rates hover around 50% to 60%, there are still a bunch of dummies that get married without prenuptial agreements, so there are tons of divorcees around. um…. And don’t think I’m talking about old-ass chicks, either! :D Check out what Wikipedia has to say about Marriageable Age in Utah! :O

Utah: 18 generally for first marriage, 16 with parental consent, 14 with court approval or previous marriage.

… um…. Previous marriage *BEFORE* 14? :/ …. Anyway, you see what I’m getting at. By the time those chicks are divorced, they’ll just be turning legal age. By the time they’re divorced for the second or third time, they’ll be the age they would have been if they had graduated college…. *IF* they had gone to school past the 4th grade, when they got married the first time :/ So that’s two alimony checks, and the chick’s dumb as a box of rocks!…..

SWEET!!! :D

DatingGenius

I just got my Hulu beta access code, so I’m checking out the embed function. The clip above is from the “Dick In A Box” SNL Short hosted on hulu.com.

There’s a timeline you can drag to make a custom length clip. It’s not easy to use right now, because the thumbnail doesn’t scrub with the playhead when you’re selecting in and out points.

For some reason, when it gets to the out point I selected, when you close the box, the video keeps playing.

Actually, if I drag the playhead back in the timeline, it’ll play the entire clip, so it’s embedding the entire clip regardless, just setting different start and finish points.

–
Bill Cammack

ok… So, DatingGenius stumbled onto this great new technique for kicking it to geek-chicks! :D (assuming you’d want to do that in the first place)….

This chick was talking about how happy she was that she was on a date, and the guy took her to A BOOK STORE!!! :/ … Now, of course, DatingGenius thought this was a ridiculous as well as RETARDED idea, so I needed to get to the bottom of this…. hmm… does anyone know proper form for referring to one’s self in third person? It seems strange to say “HE needed to get to the bottom of this”… hmm… anyway…

Now, obviously, taking a chick to a book store doesn’t help you to get on, ASAP… which is the entire reason you took her out in the first place. If you didn’t want to tap that, you wouldn’t be on a date with her. You’d be HANGING OUT. So, since she considered herself on a date, the job of the guy was to demonstrate to her WHY she should be his girlfriend/fiancee/wife, whatever he has in mind for her. All he was expressing to her by taking her to the book store was that he DIDN’T intend to hit it anytime soon, and he’d rather read a book then try to get her alone in a bar bathroom with a couch and a lock on the door.

So we got into this conversation, and I can just see the LIGHT in her eyes while she’s talking about being in this book store, and being happy about his choice of books, because if they weren’t into reading the same kinds of things, she wouldn’t have been as interested in him, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah….. So I’m like WTF is she talking about? His choice of books? Do you even know if this guy likes chicks? Do you know if he’s going to tap it proppah? WTF difference does it make WHAT BOOKS HE READS if you’re DATING this guy, trying to find a boyfriend? :/

See, that’s what’s wrong with relationships, and that’s why the cheating and divorce rates are through the roof. People hook up for the most RETARDED reasons! :D … HEY! We like the same books! Let’s go out with each other! OKAYYYY! :D … Next thing you know, they’re calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, and he’s trying to screw her five times a week, and she’s trying to screw him five times A MONTH! :O

See the problem there? They didn’t check the IMPORTANT stuff before giving each other meaningless titles. That’s why taking a chick to a book store is RETARDED before hitting it, because it’s a waste of your time. You’re checking to see if y’all can be *FRIENDS*, NOT boyfriend/girlfriend.

However… hehehe Like I said, this chick was going for the okey-doke, so it occurred to DatingGenius that this was a valuable concept that needed to be explored.

As we all know, Chicks give sex to get relationships and guys give relationships to get sex. In the case of GEEK-chicks, though… they’re not thinking about the sex AT.ALL! :D They’re not even planning to barter it to you to get you to call them your girlfriend. See, what you have to remember about the geek chicks is that most of them grew up…… geeks. :D They were NOT the fashion plates. They were NOT the popular girls. They were NOT the pretty girls or the cheerleaders. They were NOT in high demand whatsoever by the male population. Therefore, by the time they get to dating age, they’re not used to being physically touched.

The reason this is important is that when they think about themselves with their hypothetical “boyfriends”, all they’re thinking about is someone to do stuff with. They have no mental concept of actually getting laid, other than by some fluke. They have no intention on “giving it up” on a regular basis, because that’s not their physical experience of life. SO… If you go out on a date, and you suddenly come to the realization that this girl is a geek, switch gears! Go into “fun stuff we can do together when we’re boyfriend/girlfriend” mode.

Take her to the book store.
Go roller blading with her.
Buy her ice cream in Central Park.
Take her to the waterfront in Brooklyn so you can see the Manhattan lights at night…

All that waste-of-time stuff that you wouldn’t actually do with a regular chick… DO IT! :D This way, you endear yourself to her because you socialize in the same way she does. You come off as one of those geek-guys that had the same experience of life that she did. BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM, next thing you know, you’re tapping that, and all is right with the world! :D

DatingGenius