All right, I’m a tool who misused a tool. That is, I posted “The nice thing about having a distinctive community voice is players can tell when there is a gun to your head. #aproposofnothing” to Twitter, which of course caused a bit of panic.
I am definitely not talking about my new gig. First of all, one of the many, many reasons I wanted to work for a startup was because startups rarely do that sort of thing to people. Second of all, I’m… me. Y’all, I am too old, too tired, and too mean to put up with the gun-to-head nonsense. If someone says “you will post this pack of lies as if it were your idea,” I will snicker and go back to freelancing.
That doesn’t mean I have always been, or will always be, enthused over every single thing I post. At the end of the day, a ship only has one captain, that captain isn’t the community person, and all of us holding oars gotta row in the same direction. I am a professional and I’m proud to do my best for my hire.
But I’ve never lied. What I have done on a few very rare occasions is post a pile of bullshit and pretend it was frosting, and THAT I won’t do anymore. It’s a waste of time, and I am now old enough and confident enough to say so. Why is it a waste? Players can always tell when something about a voice is off, especially if that voice is distinctive.
I’m not the only community weenie with a distinctive voice, and I’m not the only one who ever had to post a monumentally stupid idea in a way guaranteed to offend my core audience. My tweet was meant more as reassurance to other community reps who find themselves at the table this morning or on any other, trying not to get any “frosting” on their hands. The fact is, you don’t need to tell your players there was a gun to your head. The good ones already know.
Yeah, you can tell when your getting the company line. I don’t worry about it much. I know as well as any player out there that when you get the company line on something, they either don’t know how to respond or choose not to.
All is forgiven. E-hugs all around! It’s hard to get everything across in a tweet especially when you are trying to not call anybody out specifically…as I proved to myself in messaging you earlier today, lol. Talk about ambiguous. Freaked you out for nothing!
I thought the tweet was fairly clear, even before the clarification. Just because not everyone understood doesn’t mean you’ve misused a tool, especially when that tool is in your private name, not your employer’s name. Yeah, yeah, blurry line, some people can’t distinguish between personal and work, whatever. Still doesn’t make you a tool.