| Tall Poppy Syndrome |
| Written by Nez | |
| Friday, 20 June 2008 | |
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In Australia, we have this social effect where anyone who gets too successful eventually gets cut down by everyone else. Effectively, if you get too big for your britches, people feel they have a right to cut you back down. It's probably the single largest thing about being Australian that I have always hated. For some reason, we get jealous and vindictive about the success of others. But why? I've never understood it. People work hard, make all the right choices, make smart decisions, and reap the rewards. Fair enough to me. I'm not at the point yet myself, but I'm getting there, so why begrudge the succes of others who have gotten there before me. But I digress.... Today I woke up to find a firestorm of controversy over an article written in Mashable. That can't right I thought, I like Mashable and read it every day. I better have a look. What I read was really just a personal attack on John Reese. It is unfounded, inaccurate, and quite frankly, just rubbish. Aside from attacking John, the inaccurate prediction that internet marketers are going to ruin Twitter for everybody is just mind boggling.Tall poppy syndrome at its finest
What an utterly rediculous argument. I've really enjoyed reading Mashable until today. I want you to make your own mind up, so I'm not going to put in any quotes from either source. Instead, below I'll link to the Mashable article in question, and then John Reese's response to the attack on his blog. I know who think shows more ethics but I want you to see it for yourself. Make sure you read the comments section too, that's very enlightening all by itself. Trackback(0)
Comments (8)
  written by Thomas, June 20, 2008 Mashable is a highly, highly monetised site, that uses Twitter to drive traffic. I addition to the uncalled for personal jab at John the above statement is what really got me twisted over the post. The link baited post itself was plugged via a twitter from them to drive traffic to their highly monetized blog, making the entire post hypocritical. How many of the 9,000 twitters they have made link to their blog? A quick look and a little math tells you all you need to know. I was happy to see John take the high road with such an eloquent response. Unfortunately I can't seem to show such restraint. Tom report abuse
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 written by Meg Meyer, June 20, 2008
Oddly enough, I've been hearing the phrase "Tall Poppy Syndrome" quite a bit lately.
It equates to "Crabs in a Bucket" in the states. I believe it is a real phenomenon, where if you put one crab in a bucket, it will climb out on its own, but if there's more than one, the other crabs will pull any crab trying to get out, back down. Too many people act like that. It makes me proud to be part of the internet marketing community where people support each other and herald each other's successes! Sincerely, Meg Meyer report abuse
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 written by Peter, June 20, 2008
As Internet Marketers big and small we're all in this together and should be helping each other out, not running each other down. We should be lifting those more successful onto our shoulders to celebrate their brilliance and from our shoulders the more successful should be reaching down to give a hand up to those less successful - as well as shaking the hands of those equally successful (Utopian view perhaps?). I hadn't read the Mashable blog before now and prior to this, if I'd known that people like yourself and Ed Dale were readers of it then I would definitely have subscribed. With this as my first taste of the place though I think I'll pass...
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 written by ColinM, June 20, 2008
I don't that trait is confined to the Aussies...
Besides it's only a matter of time before Twitter implodes from scalability issues 
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written by ColinM, June 20, 2008
*EDIT* I don't THINK that trait is confined to the Aussies.
I forgot the THINKing bit... Need caffeine! report abuse
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 written by Shannon, June 21, 2008
Great post Nez.
Unfortunately that's a bad trait that's common everywhere. People are always there to trip the person on the road to success. Shannon report abuse
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 written by Brent Hodgson, June 21, 2008
...Just they said something stupid. (@Peter)
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It's also funny that you and I (and others who follow Ed Dale and Dan Raine) were among the earliest users of Twitter, and what are we? Oh yes, that'd be Internet Marketers
I hate adding to Mashable's traffic by posting about this article but sometimes these things have to be answered or the poor writing and, worse, the personal attacks on decent people keep coming and folks start to believe it all!
Hope the rest of your day is calmer