People have always made decisions and formed opinions based on their personal experiences and knowledge. I get that. It’s the easiest way to decide most things. “Based on what I know, how will this action effect me and my family?” It’s how people have come to define what they know that’s driving me crazy.

More credible information is available more easily today than at any point in history. A solid internet search can turn up dozens of credible studies, journals, blogs written by experts, articles, etc. (I’ll get to defining credible in a moment.) Yet more people seem willfully determined to ignore verifiable, proven and tested evidence in favor of crackpot theories and unproven hypotheses than ever before. It’s a dichotomy that honestly puzzles me.

It’s not hard to learn how to tell a credible source from a non-credible source. I teach my students to do it in a week’s worth of instruction. It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to figure out that Glenn Beck, a pseudo-journalist, is not a credible source of information on, oh, let’s say swine flu. The first lesson I teach my students is the closer you get to the primary source, the more credible the information is likely to be. This is why, in the old days, journalists were taught to get two independent sources before publishing a story. (The second lesson is that credibility doesn’t necessarily equal ironclad truth, but that’s another blog.)

Unfortunately, we can no longer trust the media, social or traditional, to provide unbiased information, if they ever did. It’s become incumbent upon us to do our own fact finding, form our own opinions, and make our own decisions based on those facts and opinions. Too many people never even bother to ask themselves, “Is this posting on an internet forum about someone’s Aunt Martha getting the flu from a flu shot more credible than this scientific study that says that’s not possible?” or to delve further, “Who funded this scientific study and how does that affect its credibility?” They never even bother to *try* to access the amazing wealth of credible information that exists on the Internet and elsewhere.

Yes, there’s an overload of information out there. Yes, it’s intimidating. It’s no wonder that many people willfully choose to remain ignorant or blindly follow the Glenn Becks of the world. But these are our lives and our families lives we’re talking about. Isn’t it worth it to wade in and become informed, if only about the things that affect us most closely? Next time you express an opinion or make an important decision, stop for just a minute and ask yourself, what am I basing this on? A message-board post? A friend-of-a-friend? A self-diagnosis? A talk show heard on the way to work? Do you believe these to be truly credible sources?

If so, there’s not much I can do about it. People are going to believe what people are going to believe and I must respect their right to believe it, frustrating though it might be for me. There is, however, one thing I can and will do. If someone brings their opinions and decisions into my public spaces (my home, my blog, my Facebook, etc.) without credible evidence to back them up, they should expect to be politely questioned about their rationale and possibly presented with evidence to the contrary. And for the record, getting butthurt when these things occur will not score them points in the debate, believe me.

I respect my own intellect too much to silently acquiesce to willful ignorance without question. My public spaces give me the platform to question, and question I will. (Actually, if you know me, you know that last sentence should read: question I *must*.)

I think I’ve learned the answer the hard way this last week both by clumsily unfollowing several people on Twitter and being de-friended on Facebook by someone different. I’ve experienced it from both sides, so to speak.

People view their social networking personas as an extension of themselves. To be de-friended or unfollowed can feel like a very personal rejection. Distancing or severing social networking ties requires a delicate touch if you wish to retain the friendship behind the screen. Sometimes, a person is so attached to their social networking persona that it’s not possible to separate one from the other. I might be able to see that someone has de-friended me, scratch my head for a moment and move on. Other people are going to be far more upset. It’s the nature of people.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only acceptable etiquette is no etiquette at all. You just do it. Click the button and walk away. Don’t bother trying to cushion the blow or explain yourself because there’s nothing you can say that doesn’t amount to, “I don’t want to read what you’re putting out there.” If someone’s going to be hurt by that, they’re going to be hurt and you can’t stop it.

Should the person ask for an explanation, don’t provide one. Instead, say this: “It was a personal decision. You can still get in touch with me via (Facebook, email, telephone, whatever),” and leave it at that. Otherwise you risk getting drawn into a protracted social networking drama war with all it’s attendant idiocy and really, no one wants that.

Life. Learning the lessons and passing them on. That’s all it’s really about.

It took just 15 hours to raise enough money to replace the fiddle.

Brian has spent a ton of time and effort establishing ETH on the social networks. ETH has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and a bunch more sites. He figured out a way to stream the majority of their shows live and generally has achieved a level of accessibility that far surpasses most bands.

Today, he reaped the benefits of that effort. It’s a testament not only to his fans and his music, but to the incredible power of social networking.

Have fun shopping, Brian!

p.s. Brian suggested this morning that those who didn’t get the chance to donate should consider donating to school music programs. The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation does fantastic work in this area, if you wish to donate.

He came into the chat and there was, again, minor snarkage. He blew his fucking top and started cursing and insulting me in front of about 40 people. He singled me out of the group of snarkers, for some reason. The chat mod appropriately commanded us to take it to IM. I was reluctant to give out my IM info, but I really respect the mod, so I did.

I’m still shaken by what followed. He demanded that we “work things out” and wanted to know why I have a “vendetta” against him. Buh? Dude, I’ve talked to you all of 4-5 times, the last time being more than two months ago. I said as much and added that I felt no obligation to work things out as I *don’t know him*. He pushed for a reason why I “don’t like him.”

You do not ask me questions like that unless you’re willing to hear an honest answer. Which I gave, in detail, including the fact that he’s an annoying little assclown with no sense of appropriate boundaries. Sorry, but he pushed me.

What followed was a string of profanity, sexual insults and threats the likes of which I have never experienced. Insults that were so graphic and personal that I thought I was going to vomit. I banned his ass from my IM and told him if I heard even one more word, I was reporting him to the authorities.

Not *five minutes later* in the public chat, he slimed in trying to make it seem like we’d just had a misunderstanding and I was blowing it out of proportion. No, dude. We did not have a misunderstanding. You singled me out, violated my boundaries, violated *me* and as far as I can tell you did it for no other reason than being in a bad mood.

What’s the problem here? This is someone that I may have to share actual, physical space with at some point. To say I feel uncomfortable about that is a vast understatement.  What I don’t understand is apparently this isn’t the first time this guy has pulled a stunt like this. Apparently he shows up every couple of months, pitches a psycho fit, attempts to ameliorate his behavior by sliming on people and then leaves again. Yet, his presence is still tolerated in the virtual and physical community. W…T…F…?

And yeah…didn’t save the chat log. *sigh*

No…what I’m going to write about are the deeper implications of social networking for people with a fan base. My favorite band, Enter the Haggis, has been delving deeper and deeper into social networking the last few months and I’ve been able to observe first-hand some of the results. It’s raised a lot of questions in my mind.

Having strong social networking ties with someone creates this weird grey area even before you add in the musican/fan thing. You friend someone on Facebook, read their Twitter stream, visit their MySpace page. Maybe you exchange a few random emails, Twitter DMs, or FB messages. You might even chat directly via video as Enter the Haggis frequently does. You do all this and you come to know things about people that you don’t know about random strangers. You probably know their relationship status, where they live, their views on certain topics, what they’re doing on a daily basis. You start feeling like you’re friends…sort of.

But when the person in question is a public figure (regardless of the size of their fan base), things get complicated. Trent found that out the hard way. When you put yourself out there and reveal your ‘off-stage’ personality, you chip away at the natural wall that exists between fan and friend, creating a weird headspace I’m starting to call fanship.

It’s a weird headspace because, if I know you well enough online to know your birthday, that you colored your hair last week, your political views, where you ate lunch yesterday. etc. I know you as well as I know a lot of my real-life friends. I would, then, when I saw you, probably treat you the same way as I would any friend I hadn’t seen in awhile.

But, and this is a huge but, my real life friends know those things about me as well. They’re as tuned in to my life as I am to theirs. This is where I think the fanship construct breaks down. When you’re a public figure and you open up via social networking, you’re offering a level of intimacy you can’t possibly reciprocate. How could you, even with a smallish following, keep up with the hundreds (or in Trent’s case thousands) of people who follow you via social media? So what happens is you create a set of expectations you can’t possibly fulfill.

Most people are going to get that. I get it. But a subset of your following is *not* going to get it and they’re going to presume a bond that doesn’t exisit. Then when you do something that doesn’t meet their expectations, they’re going to go off the rails as Trent unfortunately found out.

So what’s an indie musician to do? Take your toys and go home as Trent has, apparently, done? Continue and develop a thicker skin than you might have to otherwise? I suspect the answer lies in finding the balance in the information you reveal. Not too much, so as not to encourage the weirdos, not too little or that would defeat the purpose. Thankfully, it’s not a question I have to answer.

It’s definitely something that I’ve been thinking about, though. What do you think?