Does Porn and Obscenity Affect Your Listening?
Posted by Vicki FlaugherMar 17
This week at the Austin Social Media Club, @db, one of the evening’s presenters, used a tongue in cheek porn analogy to comically discuss social media. He showed highly pixelated pictures of beautiful naked women (with the BEST designer shoes anyone can buy) captioned with crowd sourced responses to his question “What do porn and social media have in common?”. I found it amusing. Not everyone did.
Let me say, I don’t think porn is bad. Yes, I am a feminist, but not the kind that thinks being naked, or overtly sexy, or having sex (whether you film it or not) is exploitative. I am speaking generally here, of course, but I actually fall more into the consenting adults can do what they want to category. And, frankly, some porn is hot. If I had a complaint, it was that @db didn’t include any beefcake pictures to make the analogy more accessible to the women in the room. I mean, these pictures weren’t of anyone doing sexual acts – they were of naked women in high classed fantasy situations. And, again – the SHOES! Wow.
Some women in the audience complained that the pictures were offensive. Some other people (both men and women) complained about the f-bomb usage in the presentation. Again, I didn’t agree. I was able to look past any potential offenses, as it appeared to simply be @db’s style rather than a verbal affront, and listen to his message. And what a message it was!
Perhaps @db could have chosen a different approach, but he was brilliant, simply brilliant. I approached him after his presentation and he was friendly, accessible, very well connected, and a super nice guy. He made many relevant and helpful comments that I will put to use in my social media and I hope to meet up with him again. I liked him a lot.
So what about you? Does porn affect your listening? Have you ever been so put off by a person’s presentation style or power point slides that you couldn’t pay attention to the good stuff they were saying? I want to hear how you feel about this. Was @db wrong to give this type of presentation? Time for you to sound off!…
3 comments
Comment by @katebuckjr on March 17, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Girl, you know I agree with you. I’m all about shaking up the norm. Why must we all be so dange PC? Frankly, I find that just being me narrows the audience to just those that actually want to hear what I have to say.
(And I happen to be a HUGE @db fan… sad I missed the opportunity to be there hooting and hollering with you!)
Comment by SmartWomanGuides on March 17, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Thanks for the comment, KBJ. Part of @db’s message was to cut loose and be completely yourself – completely, without compromises – and I think his presentation was a real life example of that. Love him or hate it, you knew it by the time his preso was done.
I find that too often it’s easy to second guess yourself to death and end up a watered down caricature of a sort of good branding concept gone wrong. For me, the shoes alone were total porn…yummo! *wink*
Comment by EC (Lisa) Stewart on April 12, 2010 at 9:50 am
I enjoy a good presentation and this sounds it would have been top of my list. Compared to the most recent ‘social media’ symposium I attended that was full of hot air, mindless tactics, and a plethora of ego-stroking moments, I would have actually been moved by the message.
If it’s about the brilliance and not about show, I’m all for it.
@ecstewart