Shel Israel and Loren Feldman: A Drunken Brawl?

The following screed is a comment that grew and grew over at Social Times, where Nick O'Neill rehashed the warfare between Shel Isreal and Loren Feldman. I suggest you review that post, as a good summary of the imbroglio, with pointers to many others' thoughts, like Michael Arrington and Geoff Livingston.

I think an analogy is in order. Imagine that Shel is a playwright, and he launched a show. Loren is (for the analogy's sake) another aspiring playwright, who also writes an occasional column for (let's say) The New York Times. He sees a (bad) play, and writes a scathing review, that leads to an exchange of letters, all printed in the New York Times. Plausible? Certainly.

So, first, this is not an indicator of the immaturity of some hypothetical 'social media industry'. This is just a feud between two creatives, a dispute about place, reputation, status, and, yes, media and community attention.

Feldman is funny, so long as the shadenfreude doesn't drop on you personally, like watching Don Rickles insulting some other schlub at a Las Vegas nightclub.

Second, Israel overreacted to the criticisms and heckling: he's human. Let's get over it. Hell, I've critiqued the work of many people, suggesting they are advocating dumb ideas, or use tenuous logic, or are morally bankrupt, but in most cases it hasn't led to open warfare (although some people do cross to the other side of the street when I pass by).

What is needed is not some namby-pamby etiquette based on 19th notions of civility, but instead, a return to the principles of an open dialogue based on ideas, and the give and take of rational discourse. It is perfectly ok to say that someone's work stinks, that their ideas are second rate, and they should find another job. It's a free country.

All involved have to realize that this is not beanbag. It's serious. It's is our life work that we are putting out here. So passions will run high. We know what we know because of what we believe to be true, and that is what we are exchanging: perceptions of what is true.

Shel needs to focus on his work, and get it honed. If he actually has talent as an interviewer, he'll go far. The results to date are ambiguous, to be generous.

Feldman is funny, in a heckling, drunken-clown-at-the-circus sort of way. We need to have the wild-eyed iconoclast yelling "bullshit" in a society like ours, given to idolizing the well-connected and famous. But if you thought you were at a dinner party, and he were to break out into that mode, you would be very very upset. If it happens at the circus, or a Las Vegas nightclub, you would just laugh.

So one of the issues is: where is this, anyway? We should imagine something halfway between the formal dinner party and a drunken orgy. Perhaps a Michael Arrington barbeque? With lots of booze, and open space, and people smoking ganja behind a bush. A place where we can move from high-minded rhetoric to low gutter humor in one step. Over here there is dancing and laughter, and over there people are breaking up a drunken brawl.

Just don't confuse it with something else, and it all makes sense... in a messy, wonderful, and interesting way.

[update: Francine Hardaway weighs in.]

Comments

[Mary Wallace]

True, true. But Loren took shelisrael.com and then mocks Israel for not having the foresight to save his own eponymous domain name. Loren's puppet videos on shelisreal.com are protected free speech, but it shows incredible hubris to go to those lengths to rip apart one man. Loren should go tutor kids after school, walk an elder, do something constructive. We'll see what kind of man he is by how he moves forward from this cyber-squatting and bullying.

[shel israel]

I think this is a fair and accurate assessment of what has happened. Thanks for the wisdom and the balance. My attention is very much on making a better product. it is an incremental process. I have a new clip coming out tomorrow--with GM's Bob Lutz. Still messing a bit with the mike--only less. Still shaking a handheld camera. But, I am hoping that objective folk will see improvement.

[ron]

fatuous and self-righteous, thinly veiled as a grandiose social media experiment exploration exercise **coughs** (blogo-history aspirational) **chuckles** (free speech - i love it when that card is pulled out ;) )

arrington - looks like he's now, finally (aspiring) (for the first time), to hang around w/ cool*

the "experiment" will be taken to its natural extreme (or blogo boredom - which ever comes first)

- Loren (w/ the puppet) will interview Shel (as one big family and make up story) - oh. and how we all (laughed)
- arrington will there (obv) - w/ a post dressed up as social media experiemnt

bundled gaff - turned Cheap PR Trick

*bully