The Only Social Networking Strategy Guide You'll Ever Need

Today I'm here to answer the pressing question: What kind of social network farmer are you? Technically I know next to nothing about actual farming but I feel confident in using farming analogies to describe social networking because I've played a lot of Papaya Farm, Trade Nations, Oregon Trail: American Settler, and other freemium iPhone games. I can plant digital carrots with the best of them. Mistletoe FTW!

Presented without commentary or judgement, with limited commercial interruption, here are some time tested strategies you can use to build a following, avoid co-workers, annoy friends, and generally become a scary numbers monger.

Commercial Agriculture: The goal here is to achieve high "profits" using economies of scale, labour saving technologies, and minimizing effort while maximizing results. All that is just a fancy way of saying, "spam spam spam spam spam spam!" Sing along if you want. Follow anyone and everyone and assume a (low) percentage will follow you back out of reciprocity. A great way to pump up your numbers but significant downside exists as nobody will know who the hell you are. You'll look good on paper though.

Nomadic Herding: Moseying from here to there, you follow your targets over large territories, ceding control to their movement patterns. An idyllic way to tour the socialsphere, nomadic herding means you just sort of glom onto whoever/whatever interests you, letting your interactions arise naturally. This sounds like a dreamy way to live but it's also highly unpredictable. For example, it could take you some time to find a community or to unearth like-minded people. And there's a great chance you're just going to be hanging out by yourself for awhile.

Communal Farming: Gather up a few friends and power your way to social media success together. By pooling your networks and resources, it's likely you'll immediately feel important. Other people notice when you're constantly chattering, retweeting, and linking to the same (user)names. People's reflexive high school brains will recognize that there's a clique here and it will instinctively make them say, "I want to avoid them but I really just want in." Use that to your great advantage.

Also, if one of your buddies suddenly hits it big, the trickle down effect in social media actually works -- unlike in supply side economics. Trickle down success also historically works out well for rap groups, so feel free to name your crew something catchy/obscure/intimidating so you can graffiti/hashtag up those rough social networking streets.

Organic Farming: Being real! Or at least a close approximation of being real. Social networking organic farmers care about the impact they make on their environment and want to work sustainably with those around them. Each precious node in their network gets personal attention and is most importantly, someone they care about. "Yes, all 4,318 of these people are my friends." I know, total eye roll. (It's here that I remind myself not to be a hater. Some people are just that much more genuine and likeable than I am. I can sometimes/barely live with that.)

Intensive Farming: Disclaimer, most of the next sentence is stolen verbatim from somewhere else. Using high inputs of capital, labour, and heavy usage of technologies such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area, intensive farming is the strategy of following everyone and then de-following them after they follow you back to pump up your ratio. Don't be that asshole. Actually, whatever, all's fair in love and social networking. Haha, suckers!

Cash Crop: You pretty much aim straight for the A-List and try to get their attention. You'll skip the riff raff and try to vault the velvet rope. Just one retweet/repost from someone important will make all the difference and you're hoping that will then bring followers, acclaim, and unlimited candy spilling your way. It's a high risk game but I've seen this one play out spectacularly. Watching this strategy unfold from afar is exciting too as you anticipate when/if the big RT happens. It's also enjoyable to see how long the "celebrity" will keep someone dangling.

Industrial Farming: Leveraging all the tools and technology made by modern man, you have evolved into a social networking cyborg. You play TweetDeck like a young Mozart, your Hootsuite solos are Charlie Parker-esque, you guest star/post on everything like Charice. Plus you actually Instapaper Facebook Pages updates to be read later. You send holiday cards with your Klout score displayed prominently. In short, you are RoboNetworker. People are both afraid and in awe of you.

The opposite of this is hoe-farming, which means you like use a digging stick -- a what? -- and do farmy things manually. Without even the help of beasts of burden to befriend/enslave and to lighten your load. Basically you actually log in to the actual Twitter, Facebook, etc. sites to update them. Amateur.

Extensive Farming: "Owing to the extreme age and poverty of the soils, yields per hectare are very low, but the flat terrain and very large farm sizes mean yields per unit of labour are high." I don't even know what that means. I suck at math.

Slash-and-burn: My favorite immortal technique! While I have only a loose grasp of what slash-and-burn agriculture actually involves, I absolutely love everything implied by the name. My version of slash-and-burn social networking involves picking fights with people, preferably people more important than you (for now). By stirring the pot and flinging yourself into flame wars, you piss off the crowd but gain notoriety and infamy. Your goal is to destroy everything in sight and then move on to the next community, gaining fawning acolytes along the way. When in doubt, slash and burn baby. Slash and burn!

Subsistence Agriculture: You are only social networking to clothe your children, feed your family, and to try and maintain a current standard of "not too wired" living. Basically you've taken the "networking" out of the social networking equation. I applaud your nonchalance. No, we applaud your nonchalance. All three of us following you.

Artisan Fishing: I didn't want to leave something so wonderful sounding off the list. Using nets, arrows, harpoons, and massive patience, you glide lightly over the socialsphere, looking only to find the best and brightest. You are a curator of great social media people. You are the artisan fisher. Also, artisan fishing is apparently a World of Warcraft spell. Obviously it is the best spell WoW has to offer.

That's it, I've taken you through a few thousand years of farming history and a decade of Internet life. It was hard but somebody had to do it. Thank you Wikipedia. And in case you're wondering how your number of followers stack up, here's my categorization of your Twitter self-worth using birds. Coming up next time, how Poor Richard's Almanac can help you dominate the interwebs! Quick preview: It can't.

Advanced Reading & Writing, 1st Edition

When you play Dungeon & Dragons, a lot of your time is spent making characters. There's a lot of dice rolling, picking out skills and equipment from various charts, and then cramming all this information onto a character sheet. Here's what a D&D 4th Edition character sheet looks like. Tell me that's not more complicated than your high school homework. But the thing is, all the relevant facts and figures you need to successfully get your Dungeons & Dragons on are right there. Organized, accessible, neat.

The character sheet is one of the greatest contributions Dungeon & Dragons has made to our society -- among many. Where do you think profile pages came from? Facebook totally stole the whole distilling an entire complex person down to just one page thing from D&D! (The Zuck was obviously a tallish half-gnome wizard in his gaming days.) Of course, a genius idea like this needs to be extended to more things. For example, wouldn't it be handy if authors had character sheets?

Now for the few of you who have never played D&D before, the first step is to take three six-sided dice and use them to calculate your ability scores. Dungeon & Dragons uses a few key attributes to determine how good your character is at various tasks: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Of course these wouldn't work for our author character sheets so instead I'll be substituting in key authorly abilities such as (writing) skill, plotting, originality, revision, endurance, and charm. We could probably find a few better ones but that'll have to do for now.

Tack on slots for genre, class, experience points, skills, those all important magic items and here we are, an Advanced Reading & Writing, 1st Edition author character sheet. Take a look at these prototypes for John Green, Stephenie Meyer, and well, me.

See how convenient a character sheet is? And fun? Feel free to make some for your own favorite authors. Next up, collectible author trading cards! Oh right, or you could just buy an author's books and collect the covers. That'll work too.

They're Flocking This Way

Since I've been Chinese all of my life, I know how to measure self worth by numbers. 4.0, 1600 (now 2400), valedictorian, 3.14159265, 1.3 billion, 888, M3, six figures, half price, two for one, one child...

Since Twitter self-esteem can often be tied into how many followers you have, I thought it would be nice to put together a handy guide to what you've achieved so far and how much your parents will love you. And if they'll humble brag about you at other people's family dinners.

TWITTER FOLLOWERS (#)
Kiwi (5+): Someone coerced you into signing up for Twitter. Two years ago. You barely have any social media wings and are flightless.
Pigeon (25+): You used the friend search function. You don't really want to interact with anyone it found, except that one person who you text all the time anyway. Twitter is laaaaame.
Seagull (50-100+): Your have IRL friends on Twitter and you guys love it. Mine, mine, mine!
Hummingbird (250+): You're an artist of some kind, or an entrepreneur, you are using Twitter to "expand your network."
Woodpecker: (500+): You are still trying to expand your network. You wonder if you're narcissistic in your semi-private journal.
Owl (1,000+): You now officially have more Twitter friends than real friends. Possibly by a lot.
Flamingo (3,000+): You have achieved niche fame. You wield influence and power, but in small doses.
Peacock (10,000+): You've been offered some cash for a sponsored tweet. You turned them down to preserve your integrity. And then tweeted about it.
Hawk (100,000+): "How much are you paying? Where do I sign?" Signs of early onset megalomania.
Condor (500,000+): You are an athlete, or already famous.
Gryphon (1,000,000+): You are a movie star or celebrity. But not yet as popular as MC Hammer.
Phoenix (5,888,146): You've hit the pinnacle, you are Mariah Carey.
Bieber (17,000,000+): Actually there's one more level, one boy to rule us all. Mariah's co-star on the "All I Want For Christmas Is You" remake.

FOLLOWER/FOLLOWING RATIO
1/5: You are spamming people and just trying to get that count up. It's okay, everybody's gotta start somewhere.
1/1: Quid pro quo. You follow back people who follow you.
5/1: You follow people back selectively. Maybe you just went through a Twitter follower purge.
20/1: There's a doorman working your Twitter account. He is totally blasé and makes people line up outside for no reason.
100/1: Who do you think you are?!

1,000/1: Too self important to care about us little people eh?
10,000/1: You are Ashton Kutcher
100,000/1: You are Bill Simmons
1,000,000/1: You are Lady Gaga
9,035,175/1: You are Marshall Mathers. Seriously? Eminem's PR people couldn't follow just one person for show? Dr. Dre?

I hope this has helped you place yourself in the Twitterverse. I know I feel much better. Like the Immortals of Persian army fame, my new goal is to hit 1,000 followers and then trim them down to always exactly 1,000. "The unit's name stemmed from the custom that every killed, seriously wounded or sick member was immediately replaced with a new one, maintaining the cohesion of the unit." I won't ask anyone be killed or seriously wounded but if you're sick, we'll handle it on a case by case basis.

Oh geezes, upon further research, the Immortals actually always numbered 10,000. Forget it, I'm just going to call my team the "1/10th Immortals." I'm an underachieving Asian anyway, it's more appropriate. Also, this is a good time to shout out my favorite Persians: Xerxes, Lilly, and Ameer. Not necessarily in that order of course.

I can't believe I just said "shout out." And used "IRL" up above. Forgive me.

Consider the Seating Chart

Have you ever had this problem? A big group of people go out to dinner, you all sit down and conversation just dies. Maybe not right away, maybe not even obviously, but the fun spirit of eating out with people is totally gone. This wasn't a problem until a few years ago. In college, you can roll to dinners with twenty plus people and spirits remain high for hours. But that's college. Who has the energy nowadays?

For years, my friend and I have undertaken a rigorous course of observation about what makes group dinners "work" and we've decided that seating arrangements are the key. Given the chance, I'd socially manipulate every dinner I attend. Oh what power! Oh what fun! Is there a job where I can just seat arrange people all the time? Like a supplementary service to a wedding planner? I'd do it for free.

Let's come up with a scenario and work through it. A group of eight have reservations for a nice sit down meal. Most of them at least know each other, a few are close friends, and there is also a semi-stranger in the mix. First, let's consider the formation. Assuming a rectangular table, do you go boy-girl-boy-girl style like Emily Post suggests, or do you do something entirely different? I think we should forget Ms. Post, since she's slightly outdated and too formal for this crowd.

My seating arrangement philosophy centers around noise. Generally speaking, if talking, laughing, and discussions are happening, the dinner is happening. So where do you place the loud talkers? The ones with all the stories, the ones who make people laugh, the ones that spice up the place? More than likely, loud talkers congregate toward the middle, as those are the traditional power seats. I think this is a terrible mistake. If all the loud people are centered, the two edges are suddenly relegated to, well, the edge. The loud talkers need to be interspersed otherwise their sheer volume will make it look like their end of the table is having all the fun.

In fact, I prefer to stack the ends of the table with the two loudest people. They are the anchors for each side, #1 and #8. Plus, if they need to speak to each other, there's a great chance their voices will travel. The person least familiar with everyone must be nestled in the middle at #4, eliminating the chance that they'll feel left out.

Put the person closest to #4 at position #3, or if there isn't one, throw in someone good at being engaging and welcoming. That person is #4's lifeline, should they need it, and in charge of taking care of the newbie. A common mistake is to put the add-on and their friend (#3) next to each other. This just turns into them having a side-to-side conversation while facing each other, forcing everyone else out. Don't make this mistake, put them across from each other.

Your third loudest person goes at position #5. They must provide the energy to bridge the two sides of the table. And then there's the most crucial position of all, number six. Whoever sits at #6 has the potential to ruin everything. If they decide to turn away from the stranger at #4 and instead focus on talking to #5, 7, 8, the group conversation is done and the table is bifurcated. Disaster!

Number Six is the glue seat, the one that requires the most versatile talker and listener. This is the person that makes sure the group meal stays a group meal. It's a big responsibility, so be careful who you choose. A good number six will bond with #4, occasionally interact with all the odd numbers on the board, and shush #8 when he gets too loud. Which he will.

For seat #2, put a good friend of #1 there. These two need to have an easy relaxed rapport together. They'll be in charge of double teaming #4 when needed (to give #3 a break), or sometimes just interact amongst themselves for a moment. However, they can't be the type of duo who exclude everyone else, otherwise they just downsized an eight top into a six. The worst person to put at #2 is a quiet person, especially someone #1 doesn't really know. The reason is because #1 will then have to keep tossing "getting to know you" darts to #2, instead of being loud like their position requires.

Now there's two options as to what happens at #7. You can safely put a quiet person here, as they will be sitting near #5 and #7. Sure they could be volumed out but at least they'll feel like they're part of the party if #5, 6, 8 do their jobs right. The other thing you can do with #7 is to make it a dump seat. Sometimes someone is having a bad day, or they have a headache, or they just aren't into it. If they're going to be checking their cell phone all night or craning their neck to see the television, just put them at #7. That way they can be easily x'ed out without the table losing any momentum.

So that's my ideal formation/arrangement. How would you set up a table to maximize interaction and fun? You can ignore all this if for some reason all your big group dinners are sterling and super fun. Your fabulous friends must just magically coalesce around a table. Congratulations.

Lest you think all I care about is noise, that's not actually true. "Loud" is a catch all category for people who are engaging, socially (over-)adept, able to maintain constant chatter, and have the innate ability to just grab attention and entertain. Actual decibel level is not as important as a nice mix of these other characteristics. If you are simply loud without any of these qualities, you should probably just fucking pipe down.

A few notes: You cannot allow the good friends to clump together. They will leave everyone else out. Four people is a clump, sometimes even three. Split the friends apart, they'll get to see each other later. This splitting also applies for clumps of any kind. Like if you get me and two or more of my tech dorks sitting together, we're going to be talking about torrenting or the optimal way to set up your keyboard configuration or something. The rest of the table starts nodding off and that kills the mood.

Also, in a perfect world, you could switch seats mid-meal. This would be awesome and is a tradition I'd like to see ported over from wherever people regularly do that kind of thing. Short of doing that, it's good enough if people feel comfortable about temporarily switching seats when someone pops out to the bathroom. A quick seat swap always changes the dynamic and change is good. Nothing feels worse than feeling stuck at your seat. Move around, shake it out. Play musical chairs if things aren't working! Truth: Sometimes my friend and I will text each other to swap seats real quick to see if it makes a difference. Results are mixed but at least we try.

Another take home life assignment: What's your favorite/most qualified position to sit in assuming my positions and formation? Under normal circumstances, I generally like to be #2, sometimes #3.

Okay this is getting way too long. I may be too passionate about this topic. Perhaps I need to make a podcast about this so I can go more in-depth and also explore some alternate plans. Next time out I'd like to address specific types of people and where to seat them. For example: The Conversation Killer, The Quiet Talker, The Rude One, The Exclusionaire, The Sad Sack, The Platitude, The Couple, The Attention Hog, The Person Who Always Eats Too Loud, The Instant Food Coma-er, The Laugher, The "I don't want to talk about anything of substance" hater, etc. Basically it'll be a post calling out my friends.

The Game of Publishing

One day I'd like to design a board game that allows you to experience the ups and downs of a writer's life. It'd be super complicated and not straight up boring like Monopoly -- although I do love me some Monopoly.

I'd pattern it after Settlers and the other German games, with their more advanced and involved mechanics. It not only has to be engaging but also informative and educational. Creating such a game would be quite the challenge but if done right, it would be amazingly fun! Luckily I know how to make it just right.

There would be a general path you'd have to advance on of course, but it would also have some branching options where you can flex your powers of free will. Plus every player would have to accumulate cash and reputation points in order to buy things like equipment and good karma. Event cards would also dictate much of the action, similar to Community Chest and Chance.

SAMPLE CARDS:
Create a writing schedule and swear to stick to it: Spin your playing token in a furious circle, like an angry dreidel. Do not actually move the token forward or backwards any spaces.

Hit your word count for the day: Move forward one space. If you draw this card again, move forward two spaces. If you draw it a third time, move forward four spaces. A fourth time, move forward eight spaces. And so on.

Find a critique group: Choose someone at the table to become partners with. You will now revel in each other's successes while supporting each other through setbacks. If you pull this card again, choose another person to join your duo and decide if you want to be referred to as "The ____ Mafia" instead.

An agent wants to see a full manuscript: Move forward three spaces and roll D6 to see how many weeks before you get a reply.

Bidding war ensues: The banker flings a handful of (play) money in the air. Grab as much as you can before they fall to the ground. Other players must rate your effort as "nice, very nice, good, significant, or major" while clapping enthusiastically.

Keep the day job: Collect $X each time you complete one pass of the board. Collect $X times 2 if you're a lawyer. Collect $X divided by 2 if you work in publishing.

Decide to self publish: Draw three extra cards and keep them in your hand. You can play these cards at any time but which one is randomly chosen by another player.

Throw a book party: Roll a D20 to see how many people attend, D100 if you're famous or in your hometown. D4 if you're anti-social and people generally dislike you.

Publisher gives you their cover design: Change your playing token to the first thing you find in the person sitting to your right's pocket. Hope you love it!

Debut day: Roll a D100,000,000 to see which Amazon rank you're at. Roll it four more times. Take the arithmetric, geometric, or harmonic mean of those results. If you're confused and don't know how to do any of them, well, you should have paid attention in math class instead of journaling.

Bloggers flame your book: Dunk your playing token in any nearby acidic liquids. If nothing appropriate is around, every other player must spit on your token.

Censored: Remove your token from the board. You now must remember where your token should be and play in invisible mode until you can get 75% of the other players to sign a petition to bring your token back. Bribes encouraged.

Google check: Go to a computer, type in your real name. Move ahead five spaces if you are the first hit. Otherwise take one step back for each result down you have to go until you find something related to you. Double the penalty if it's something embarrassing or inappropriate.

Kirkus rips apart your book: Shrug, like literally. If you don't shrug, you lose your next turn.

Hit massive writing block: Quickly flip the entire board over in one swift motion. (Apologize to everyone immediately afterwards for being an asshole.) Reset the board from memory.

Royalties come in: During your next game, you get $X extra to start with but only if the next session is played at least six months from now. Any earlier and you must wait to receive that $X.

Suffer poor sales related illness and go to the hospital: Lose half your cash. Have the player sitting directly across from you shoot a Silly Bandz toward your face. You can close your eyes but you cannot move. For the next two turns, complain about lack of health insurance and threaten to go play in a game environment with socialized medicine.

Film option for trilogy sold: Collect $X minus 15% and announce to the table who your dream cast would be. Hit redial on your cell phone and scream excitedly into it for five seconds before hanging up. Move forward three spaces, then back two. Then back one more.

Disparage another author: Within the next five turns you must slap the player sitting to your left. Bonus points if you knock something out of their mouth. Like food. Or a tooth. If they slap you back, you are now enemies. If they don't, that player has chosen to take the high road and you are now penalized one turn while they go twice.

Secure a teaching gig: Change your outfit into something scholarly and semi-presentable. Other players can offer their clothing if needed. Everyone must now address you as "professor" for the rest of the session and they must raise their hand before doing so.

Make it onto the NYT Best Sellers List: Roll D10 to see how many weeks. Roll D20 to see which spot. Affix a star sticker to your token. If you land on the same square as another unstarred player, your token must be displayed more prominently and pushed to the front. That player can then give you jealous eyes.

Shortlisted for the Pulitzer: You've instantly won the game! Now keep playing.

Oh man, I had so much fun thinking about this that I may need to make such a game right now. I could create event cards for hours. Forget my other responsibilities, this is much more important. Someone please find me a distributor and some collaborators and artists. The Game of Publishing is going to sell like those Henry Potter books. Pre-order now!

I was inspired to create this thing after thinking about how much (additional) fun publishing would be if you got scores and points for every little action. A bonus for social networking, three scores for prompt email responses, etc. The idea of making everything you do count for points is "gamification" and I for one would like it to take over the entire world.

O is for Other, P is for People...

Listening to: Luna, "Everybody's Talking (Harry Nilsson)"

Talking with a friend the other day, she lamented the fact that she seemed to be getting an extra earful of other people's problems recently. She requested that we analyze what she was doing to be the target of such rants, diatribes, and egocentric repetitive problem venting with no discernible positive actions or solutions. I said I didn't even have to analyze anything. I already knew her problem: her friend PR was all wrong. Let's look at what an actual public relations firm does. Actually no, that's pretty obvious, instead let's dive right into what friend PR should do.

Control access: A good firm manages what you are willing to do and sets boundaries about what is acceptable -- and when exceptions can be made. Think of it as crowd control and preventing yourself from being overwhelmed. When you are celebulous (as you most certainly are), people need you for a variety of things. The problem is, you only have a life to live, one world to turn. Friend favors, expected attendance at events, shoulders to cry on, mundane office gossip, random requests, all of these things can be draining. As much as you want to be there for everyone, you can't be. Every starlet has a few people manning the velvet rope. You should too.

Sample phrases:
"I don't do airport runs after midnight. Get your own magic pumpkin."
"I'm running out the door, but we can do this over text. Or Twitter."
"That's a baby shower and a colonoscopy in one? Thanks but I'll pass."

The key here is to not feel like you have to apologize. "Sorry" is nice but not part of the PR vocabulary. You don't have to feel bad about telling someone that you can't do something. We are grown ass people. "No" is enough. Trust me, as adults I'm sure people will appreciate knowing what you're available for and what you're not. "I am good with illogical career advice, irresponsible financial planning, Mac product recommendations, details about mega-drama that I'll inevitably spread later, and weekday runs to Costco. I can also say 'no' to that dress."

Marketing: This brings me to the next component of friend PR. Come up with a comprehensive plan to promote the things you are good at, preferably with a memorable tagline. For example, a classic: "Always there when you call, frequently on time. (But I'll ditch you if my boyfriend is around.)" The message is honest and clear, proper expectations are formed, and friends are made aware of your positive/negative traits. Simple is good. Individual messages can also be tailored to different demographics.

"Carefully reassembling the pieces from your emotional wreckages since 1997."
"When you need to bitch, call a friend. Me."
"Unbiased advice, almost never."
"The best part of waking up is I'll be out the door by seven."
"I used to fiend for your ex-girlfriend/sister/best friend/mother, but never went up in her."

Advertising: Now you gotta get this information out there. Take all that stuff you decided on in the marketing meetings and then tell people about it. Drop things into conversation about how you're "always awake at five am, and it's important that my friends can call at any time." People will appreciate knowing this tidbit about you. Or tell them about "another friend" who always bores you with the annoying recaps of his essentially non-existent dating life. He'll get the hint soon enough. Remember, good advertising can be sometimes be passive(-aggressive), oftentimes it has to be. The most important thing to do is focus on expression and effectiveness. Tell your friends who you can be in their lives, communicate.

Nowadays I personally prefer to be a little more upfront about it, and I'm willing to gently interject mid-whatever, "Am I really the best person for this situation?" That will make them double take and really consider if I am truly the person they should be telling their "my dog went to the vet and I'm so worried about him because he shakes so bad when other people touch him that sometimes he tinkles" story. In this example, a momentary pause will reveal to both of us that I am clearly not the right guy for this particular job. Hey, I care about your dog (a little) but there's probably somebody else who will be more capable of giving you the reaction you're looking for. Maybe reach out to them? "What's their number? No, I'll go ahead and dial that for you. It's ringing... Call me later when you have salacious secrets to share."

I do have a friend who very expertly says, "Hmmmm, yeah, I think I just stopped caring." I kind of love that style too. It's all personal preference really. Just be sure to use all your tools to get the message across. Be creative, use different mediums. Think audio, video, notes, innuendo, flashing banner ads, anonymous Facebook messages from a newly created account. Whatever. You can't have this great marketing plan and then not buy the ad space to inform people.

Note: A good PR firm will also know how to damage control. That's a key component actually. You're gonna inevitably piss off some friends during your short tenure on Earth. A good crisis management team will prepare you to handle that. Sometimes.

So the aforementioned friend has a problem with people always coming to her for a patented blend of patient listening skills and hard edged advice. However this tends to lead her down the path of having too much crap she doesn't care about thrown at her. For example, she is not good with "it'll be okay" and "that sucks, I'm so sorry" talks but she's constantly being put in that position. The incessant whining about dead end relationships is wearing on her too.

Currently, she has been doing all the things a normal person does. Not picking up the phone, long delays on reply texts, going invisible on chat. Yet somehow she is still being hunted down. I told her that she needs to fire her current friend PR firm and hire me. I'll clarify her vision, recontextualize her conversations, adjust her apologetic attitude, wipe that "want to be nice" drool off her chin, and really get her on her shit. Basically I recommended a complete brand overhaul. I also said I'd waive my normal hefty consulting fee. My new suggested tagline for her: "I've always got (about) five minutes for you."

If you need, I'll be your Ogilvy & Mather of friendship too. Pretty please?

Coming soon: A detailed look at the corporate structure of friendships. A few months ago, at a bar, a friend mentioned that she had to talk to her "board of directors." When I asked her what that meant, she replied, "You know, the people who help me make major life decisions." Brilliant! I'd like to take this idea to its fullest extreme and send "Welcome to the board!" invite letters on fancy stationary. If only I had taken calligraphy that one summer camp instead of ham radio or stained glass. A lot of damn good bottle rocketry did me too. "Life skills workshops," they had to have been kidding.

Shiny Happy People

Listening to: Phil Collins, "Against All Odds." As a friend duty, I'm compiling a list of my friend's top five karaoke songs. I figure it's a service that will pay off in the near future since we karaoke weekly. During these karaoke sessions I'm introduced to many songs that were once popular but I completely missed out on. So now I associate these songs with my friends, instead of the original artist. I usually prefer my friends' versions. Get thee to a studio, friends, so I can listen to you on shuffle and one track repeat.

During a dinner conversation last week, I commented to someone that he's always got friendship rivalries going on. I noted that there's usually some pair of friends in his life that are either subtly or overtly trying to secure or win a higher place on his friend totem. This got me thinking about how to create your own friend rivalry. But before we get into that, let's talk a few basic types of friend rivalries.

(1) First, there's the equitable friend rivalry. Two really great friends, two equally valuable people who might even play similar roles in your life. The more the merrier you'd think, but for some reason, these two people just can't get along. You've tried to bring them together and to plan some trio brunches but at the end of the day, "any friend of yours is a friend of mine" just gets proved false once again. The niche these two occupy in the context of your life is too small for them to ever get along. Or they're just way too opposite because they survive in independent friend ecosystems. This type of rivalry is usually subtle as neither party wants to smear their own reputation by bad mouthing the other VIP in your life. There's some real intensity here but also some great respect.
NBA Parallel: Larry Bird versus Magic Johnson.

(2) Then there's the one sided rivalry, where a friend thinks h/she's in competition with another friend but in reality, they are so far behind their target that they're never actually in BFF contention. Keep in mind, friend rivalries don't apply just to best friends, it can be for anything. The plus one for a wedding, the extra ticket to that play you scored from work, or the top spot in your phone's favorites list. Feel free to consult the Friend Hierarchy for positions that could be rivalried about. In the one sided rivalry, one person is definitely waging a campaign to take down the other -- friend war is declared and openly discussed. The unassailable friend barely cares about this matchup though because they know they'll win. Think of a sports team who is 30-2 all time versus another team but the media keeps playing it up as a rivalry and often fails. Remember, proximity does not necessarily equal rivalry.
NBA Parallel: Los Angeles Lakers versus Los Angeles Clippers.

(3) The historical rivalry. This isn't what it sounds like. While there could be a lot of actual history for this rivalry, I'm talking more about when one person competes against the ghost of another friend. "Did you ever tell ____ this? Am I the first person to have ever done ____ with you?!" This kind of rivalry is more common than you might think; and awfully common in relationships. There's nothing tangible placing these two figures in competition but one party is so obsessed with what the other one has done in the past, the heights that have been achieved before them, that they are determined to match and exceed it. The hidden tragedy is that they are competing with the past and will have to overachieve by a wide margin in order to combat the halcyon memories of yesteryear.

As the person at the fulcrum of this type of rivalry, it's very easy to milk this for good or for evil. "You know, Brent used to always make sure he got my coffee order right, and he even went back the one time they messed it up. I really liked that about him." I'm guilty of this one quite a bit, as all it takes is a little historical competition for me to be motivated to be a better friend. I'm always gunning for that almost top spot as you should know.
NBA Parallel: Kobe Bryant versus Michael Jordan.

(4) Another very common rivalry is the new kid on the block type. Sometimes when you gush over a new person, the old friend starts to feel a little slighted. "Wait," he thinks, "we used to do that. He used to talk about me that way." This creates anxiety in the old friend as they see the potential threat of this new friend. Don't be surprised if oldie inexplicably turn their noses up at your new friendship or says things like "Whatever, you'll be over that in a few weeks. Let's see how long this lasts."

When you introduce them to each other, the new friend will be super nice and say "I heard so much about you!" while the old friend will likely dismiss them to take a fake phone call. Oftentimes this type of rivalry is mostly hype and only time can tell if it actually evolves into something real. The newbie has to achieve some success that actually bruises the oldie's friend ego before this can properly be called a rivalry.
NBA Parallel: Miami Heat versus Boston Celtics.

(5) Last, there's the hate rivalry. These two friends detest each other. Given the chance, they'd tear each other apart and you have to do your damnedest to not to even mention them to each other. Usually this comes about because the two of them had some sort of falling out and both sides can't believe that you're still friends with the other one. The hate rivalry goes a little overboard and you wish they would just get along so you don't have to panic about having them in the same room at your thirty third birthday or second wedding or something. This type of friend rivalry is not only dangerous all around but also the best for bystanders and media types (aka your other friends).
NBA Parallel: Los Angeles Lakers versus Boston Celtics.

Okay this got way too long so I'm going to save the "How to Create and Maintain a Friend Rivalry 101" for a later post. Maybe I'll bring in a guest writer, my friend who I made this rivalry observation about. A true expert in the field. That would be exciting right?

Actually I'm pretty sure I missed a few broad friend rivalry categories, but there could probably be an infinite number. I will define them all in due time. It's good to make life goals.

Dance Like Somebody's Watching

Remember a while back when I was looking for a mini-genre of movie to be into? Well, I picked assassin movies and to be honest, it's been a lot of hit and miss. That wasn't an attempted pun, really. While I soldier on and continue my assassin movie research, I realized I already have a mini-genre I'm totally dedicated to: dance movies. I don't even think my fandom qualifies as a guilty pleasure because dance movies and shows are so mainstream now. So what I'd like to do is combine two of my loves -- dance movies and rankings -- to pen detailed reviews of all the dance films of the recent past. Important cinematic events like Step Up, You Got Served, Save the Last Dance, Honey, Stomp the Yard, and the rest of the modern classics.

Some rules I'm making for myself: All movies must be fictional, so that eliminates documentaries (sorry Planet B-Boy, Rize, Mad Hot Ballroom). For now I'm avoiding anything before 1990, but I may have to lift that rule eventually. If only to cover Dirty Dancing -- which I've never seen all the way through -- and Footloose. I'm not sure how far I'll expand my definition of dance movie either. If it'll include stuff like Shall We Dance or Saturday Night Fever, which are arguably character films.

Most importantly, a movie with dancing in it is not necessarily a dance movie. Does it have laughable acting and a cliche-laden plot? Yes and yes? Then I want to watch it. Is the lead character taking their nontraditional street skills to an esteemed academy? Is the romantic relationship fraught with racial and/or sociological tension? Will you liberally utilize the fast forward button through repeat viewings yet rewind for key lines? That's the kind of movie I'm talking about. I could call the mini-genre "hip hop dance movies," but I'd like to leave some room for Bring It On (and its four sequels), which just might be the Citizen Kane of the genre.

"I am a choreographer. That's what I do. You are cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded. What you do is a tiny, pathetic subset of dancing. I will attempt to turn your robotic routines into poetry, written with the human body. Follow me, or perish, sweater monkeys."
-Bring It On-

Important things we'll be rating on a 1-10 scale include: Can the lead actors/actresses actually dance? How much fun are their sidekicks? What are the best lines from the movie? How's the music selection? What is this film's overall cultural impact?

If you'd like to guest judge or watch anything with me, please don't hesitate to ask. Nothing is better than watching dance movies with other dance-ophiles. Bring your snark, bring your fashion commentary, bring popcorn. On the other hand, if you want to know when I'm watching one of these and would like to not be around for the next three hours (DVD extras are a must), I can let you know that information too. And please tell me any suggestions you might have for movies I need to watch. Like the J.Lo produced Feel the Noise, or the upcoming Turn the Beat Around from MTV.

Are you excited people? All of this will culminate in a group viewing of Dance Flick, obviously.

Reviews
3.03.2010: Step Up
4.26.2010: Center Stage
6.04.2010: Street Dance
8.16.2010: Step Up 3
12.14.2010: You Got Served
5.23.2011: White Nights
10.18.2011: Footloose
8.03.2012: Step Up Revolution
10.11.2013: Battle of the Year
6.19.2014: Street Dance 2
9.18.2014: Step Up All In
7.02.2015: Magic Mike XXL
4.14.2019: Swing Kids / Seuwingkizeu
Next up: The Company

I'll Be There for You

You know me, I love lists, categories, and anything that involves names and rankings. Well, here's a project I've been working on for some time. Ever since seeing this NBA Archetype Hierarchy [ Image  ], I've been wondering how such a model could apply to friendships.

Even if you don't know much about basketball, it can help to take a look and see how it's set up. There are five tiers, each containing a certain archetype coveted -- or not coveted -- by NBA teams. As you can see, the top tier is an elite point guard or a refined big man. Think Chris Paul and Shaquille O'Neal, respectively. Traditionally, finding a true superstar at either position will set your franchise up for success if you can surround them with the appropriate complementary parts. (Ignore the blue dot that is Lebron James; he's a freak and doesn't really fit into any archetype.) Basically, the NBA Archetype Hierarchy defines the types of players that are available and then orders which ones are more valuable -- and also harder to acquire.

Using those guidelines, I thought it'd be fun to construct a friendship archetype hierarchy. Personally, I've always maintained a strict rule of fives for my friendship pyramids. Five tiers ranging from super close friends to acquaintances. Five "best" friends. Five important people to fill communication routines (in person, phone call, email, text, AIM). I've always tossed around the idea of a hierarchy, we all do, I'm sure. What I haven't done is come up with archetypes, or roles, that my friends fulfill. Well, now I have.

Introducing my Friendship Archetype Hierarchy. Keep in mind that by definition, this would have to be individualized for each person. Mine won't look like yours and vice versa. It's impossible, there is no generic template. Some people have a bigger tier three than a tier two. Some people have a ton of super close friends, some people have a few. It's all dependent on what kind of person you are and how you've structured your social circle.

The point of such an exercise is to figure out what sorts of roles, and support systems, you need in your life. I mean, sometimes when you think something is missing (friendship wise), you can't figure out what it is exactly. You miss a specific person maybe but at the same time, what you're also missing is someone to fill their niche. Not to say that people are replaceable, because they're not, but having a broad view of the sorts of niches you require for maximum happiness should illuminate something about yourself.

I mean, if friends are a huge part of filling up our happiness meter, shouldn't they deserve just as much thought and study as our careers, relationships, and families? After all, friends contribute heavily to our hierarchy of needs don't they?

Lest you think that such an exercise is frivolous and entirely narcissistic, there's a lot of ramifications for figuring out how to create friend hierarchies. Think about the current state of social networking. You may have 300 Facebook friends but wouldn't it be nice for the program to somehow differentiate between tiers? I mean, Facebook gives you a few options to do that (by changing your privacy settings) but someday soon, social networking sites will start to group your friends automatically.

"Current social networks differ from reality on where action is required: In the real world, friendships fade because of inaction: He slowly stops calling and emailing as much, you don't think to invite him to your party. No one is to blame, it happens all the time.

But in the current online world, friendships can only end by action. Someone has to make the decision to actively de-friend the other. This feels intuitively slimy, and it's a waste of effort and attention on someone who by definition you aren't concerned with."
-Friend Decay: Social Networks need passive un-friending-

Also, this blog post from Adaptive Blue talks about a "hierarchy around friendships built on trust across verticals and subject matters: I trust this person on subject matter X, and this person on subject matter Y even though the network might trust Z." That's such an awesome point. There are broad tiers but then entirely different categories and networks.

The online catch all term "friend" will soon be spliced apart into its component parts, just like we do in the real world. That's the next step for social networking sites, once they can figure out how to get around the (admittedly thorny) problem of offending people who think they're closer to someone than they are. I mean, think of the fights that people already had over their MySpace Top Eight and multiply it. Whew, that's not going to be a fun feature to implement. But it'll be more honest, and revealing, wouldn't it?

One of the key phrases that gets thrown around is "trust relationships." Fundamentally, social networking is a great idea but currently it's too invasive and broad for some people. We want to have something that allows us to maintain our trust circles while remaining open to the possibility of staying in touch with random people. It's a very hard tightrope to walk. If you go too exclusive, you get Facebook in the earlier days, and not enough users. If you get too inclusive, you get the cluster fuck that is MySpace. Will Facebook find the answer? Will something new?

I hope somebody hires me to think about the dynamics of friendship all day long. Or maybe I should have studied this in school instead of whatever the hell I ended up studying...