Brian Tannebaum pisses off a lot of early adopters, harping as he does on such IRL concerns such as honesty, integrity and the fact that no hi-tech device makes you a better person.  He wasn’t the only person who thought this, apparently, as  he posts about someone named Loren Feldman.

Loren Feldman is a big thorn in the side of all the losers who see social media as a road to riches, as something that defines their existence, as a “real” world of “friends.” Social media evangelists hate Loren, because for one, he makes videos (all now deleted from the internet) that can be summed up with this message:

Are you people kidding me?

Loren attacks the phonys, the frauds, the ones whose image is nothing more than a twitter account and Facebook fan page. He goes after those in social media who have attempted to make money off telling people what they already know, while trying to convince them that the riches will follow if only their advice is heeded.

Now I’ll reveal a little something about Tannebaum that many of you don’t know.  He doesn’t really hate the iPhone.  He doesn’t really hate people who have and use the iPhone.  What he does hate are people who twit and post and Facebook about the iPhone, as if the iPhone is what makes you a worthwhile human being rather than, say, being a worthwhile human being.

Feldman, who apparently works in the digital media arena, appreciates its limitations in ways that failed lawyers and mommies who are angry that they can’t jump in and out of practicing law at their convenience do not.  It’s an intellectual void. 

I’ve said before that there is no intelligent life on twitter.  Feldman thinks so too.  Those who adore twitter and feel compelled to justify the time wasted twitting disagree.  Their wives and children, sitting there watching daddy tapping away to swap short, cutesy comments with teeny-boppers in distant lands, aren’t amused.

But Feldman captured a greater truth problem issue when he wrote about something called the “Social Graph.”  He says the Social Graph is Stupid.  Not knowing what the social graph is, having missed last week’s memo on cool, new social media lingo, I felt compelled to learn.

I hear a lot of talk about the web social graph. Another made up meaningless word these web clowns thought up. It’s a fancy way of saying people you know online. Apparently these dopes think that this is important to you. It’s not. Here’s why your web social graph is meaningless to you and your life.

Firstly, you barely know the people in your social graph. These aren’t real friends, they are people whose avatar you recognize. Following someone and giving a shit, about them, or their opinion on what soap to use are two very different things. I’ve met some nice people on the web, but I do not know them well enough to care about their opinions. About anything. You care about the opinions of smart people you know and trust. Think for a second and be honest. How many smart people have you met online? Would you trust these people?

You already have your social graph. It’s your friends in real life. Your friends online? Sure they are nice and all, but do you really trust them? You haven’t even met them in real life, and you are going to trust their opinions? That’s just stupid. Real stupid. Trust me, after all I’m in your social graph.

I’m still not clear on what a social graph is, but it seems to be an infectious disease.

Loren Feldman’s views are from, and about, tech people.  Here, it’s all about lawyers, a different breed altogether, right?  After all, rather than merely concern ourselves with shiny gadgets, we deal in lives won and lost.  Not nearly the same big stakes, but big enough.

Back in the good old days, I didn’t ask a listserv a question about how to defend my client.  Why?  Because I had no idea who would respond, what they knew, whether they were right.  I did my own research, spoke with people whose knowledge, experience, opinion I respected, then did more research.  It would have been much easier to ask a question of the crowd, but how could I possibly put my client’s life in the hands of the crowd?  It’s just nuts.

Today, the listserv (which, ironically, is still going strong and still as awful as ever among the few dozen New York State criminal defense lawyers who post among themselves) is quaint compared with new tech.  The cool kids ask on Facebook or Twitter rather than a listserv.  After all, those are newer technological resources, and newer must be better.

Which brings me to the “friend” thing of which Feldman writes.  I’ve been told I’m stand-off-ish, maybe even elitist.  If you follow me on twitter, chances are not good at all that I will follow you back.  If you friend me on Facebook, chances are even worse that I’ll engage you, as I don’t use Facebook at all even though I have an account.  I only opened it to lock up my name, as trick that  Niki Black taught me.

It’s not that I don’t like you, or don’t respect you, or don’t think you’re worth my time.  It’s that I don’t know who the hell you are.  You are one of millions of people online to me, just as I’m one of millions of people online to you.  Are you a lawyer? We are equals in every respect, as far as avatars with letters following. What we are not is friends.

Should I follow your every word, your every twit?  Why?  I can’t tell if you’re someone who will enlighten me or a dog with a keyboard.  You may be the most brilliant lawyer in the world, seriously, but how would I know?  Law students, trusts & estates lawyers and nutjobs inform me that I’m wrong and a moron all the time.  How would I distinguish a brilliant lawyer from a dog?

And so I offend people who are kind enough to retwit something I’ve twitted, or comment about something I’ve posted, by not showing appreciation, whether by way of a thank you or follow.  Feelings are hurt, and instead of developing a coterie of followers who enjoy mutual validation, part of the cult  of mindless “niceness,” I’m just a mean old man who won’t befriend the isolated baby lawyers searching for virtual self-esteem.  Yup, that’s me.

Sadly, I would follow this guy, Loren Feldman, at least for a little while to see if he’s got more to say that crystalizes my thoughts about the dangers of social media being taken as a goal, a solution, rather than just another tool in the box of lawyers, and people, who live in the real world, where they have real friends and real accomplishments.  These are people who don’t need to “authentically engage” with avatars as substitutes for the friends they don’t have in real life.

But I can’t follow Feldman as he’s deleted his twitter account.  And he wouldn’t follow me back anyway.