Jeff Foxworthy

Glad you joined me, now read this for context.

We’re all famous to someone.

Jeff Foxworthy is right up there with Brad Pitt who is just a little behind Ghandi, depending on who you want to ask. Here on the web we love fame more than the beating hearts of our iPhones.

We love talking about it, we love being talked about because of it, we love the influence it brings and heck we love the fact that fame equates to cold hard cash in a world fueled by “personal brands” and the dollars of serial speculators.

What’s the culture of the web?

That’s like asking me to summarize the culture of the world. There are millions of people doing millions of things online, most of them in blissful isolation from the little snapshot of the Internet that I am referring to here.

It may not have dawned on you but all of the glitzy, glamorous experts of the web that we see explaining “our culture” to the world at large when MSNBC needs filler footage only make up one perspective, one tiny fraction of what the Internet really looks like. Despite how “connected” and “in tune” we feel as early adopters (ahem), we’re all still just playing around in a sandbox with delusions that it’s the Sahara.

What can I say to you about all this?

As a duly indoctrinated member of the blogorati all I can tell you is what I know and what I know is that the public facing web that the tech pundits and political commentators have created for us is a culture where fame and influence equate to relevance and relevance decides just about everything.

We are a culture that respects ubiquity over depth; we are a culture where new is always a synonym for better; we are a culture so enraptured by an idealized “conversation” that we aren’t even sure what it is we’re supposed to be talking about but we’re pretty certain it has something to do with Sarah Palin (this month).

In short, we’re a permanently refreshing episode of the OC but with more Mac products.

Despite all of this (and because of most of it), there is no other time in the short, chaotic history of the Internet that I would rather work.

The reason is that more than any question short of, “How do I make money online?” The one that turns up the most is, “How do you become Internet famous?”

If this were anywhere, anytime else in the history of the world the answer to the fame question could fill a book or at least a blog post. These days the most appropriate response is, “Well, turn on your computer.” Around here anyone can be famous and everyone is.

Digg Submitters, Friendfeed Addicts, YouTube Stars, Facebook Stalkers, MySpace Lurkers, Twitter Users, SEOs, Programmers, Entrepreneurs, Tech Pundits, Political Preachers, Mommy Bloggers, Marketers, PR Flacks . . . Getting tired yet?

All of these little kingdoms have their heroes, and just about anyone with an idea and a dream can roll into town, six-gun in hand and carve out a little patch of land for himself.

It’s the American Dream written in PHP.

What responsibility do we have to you, stalwart consumers of media? To entertain, mostly. As long as you like our version of As The Web Turns better than someone else’s you’ll come back for more. You’ll read this or you won’t not because I’m presenting you with startling truths but because you like my spin, same as it has always been but with one hairy, Gorilla of a difference — unlike the real world where a normal schmuck like myself would need a production company and a film crew to reach out and touch you, the “social web” and the platforms that define our culture make it as easy as opening up a new Firefox tab.

So I know what you’re wondering by now, how can this help you supercharge your Social Media presence and drive untold pageviews to your ten day old Wordpress install? Well first, slow down for a second hoss and take a few steps back with me.

Before you worry about getting comped to your first conference, or raking in piles of those theoretical Internet dollars get out there and explore the tubes for a while. Allow yourself to get sucked down the hole of micro-celebrity and see how long it is until you’re praying to be beatified on someone’s list of Top Ten Users of Blah or jumping with glee because you got a BETA invite before your friend in Guatemala.

When you can have a 30 minute conversation about the relative merits of Twitter versus Friendfeed and immediately realize how ridiculous you sound then you’re ready to step up to the plate and change our little world. While you’re waiting for the epiphany (and the next episode), check the links in this post, as well as this gem.

Last episode I looked at a really bad post that I had written about a year ago about teamwork. This episode, I wanted to let you in on something I am really proud (a link to which I’ve deftly hidden in the body of this post) — it’s called 5 Things We Forget About The Web, and it’s one of the few lists I’ve written that was meaningful to me.

Why did I like it?

It wasn’t because it got a ton of traffic or that it received link backs from Internet superstars but because it effected the people reading it in some small way. It was a post where every word rang true to me and the information I wanted to convey actually translated to the people reading it.

Why should you care about the culture of the web?

Because it’s the only culture in today’s society where you as an individual can make yourself heard without riding the coattails of some larger organization. The power to express yourself, to build a product, to effect a crowd outside of your geographical cage is stunning. The fact that I know content producers and entrepreneurs in Canada, Russia, Japan and a dozen other countries across the globe and we can share information with each other floors me every time I sit by my computer, and more to my original point the fact that all of them were able to enjoy something that meant something to me and send me their feedback in real time — well, let’s just say that’s power.

While you’re waiting for the next episode, take some time to find the best thing you’ve ever created and leave a link to it in the comments. I’ll try to reply to all of them. You might be surprised at how good it feels just to know someone else has seen it.

Onto Episode Four: Bigger, Better Media

(Images) (Season One)

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