So this showed up in my emails today:
Someone else told me they got one of these from Paul today as well. I think Mr. Elam must have accidentally clicked something on LinkedIn that sent this message to everyone who’s ever exchanged email with him. The internet is hard!
Anyway, here’s my response to Paul, in the form of a Gary Numan song.
Actually, I have no idea what’s supposed to be going on in the lyrics of that song, though the opening lines do sort of capture what it feels like on the very rare occasions I log into LinkedIn.
The alarm rang for days
You could tell from conversations
I was waiting by the screen
I couldn’t recognise my photograph
Me, I disconnect from you
In any case, you should take this as a no, Mr. E!
Also, when I went to An Ear for Men today to grab that lovely image of Elam to use in my little photo illustration at the top, this is what I saw:
The penis pen is in your hand!?
I guess the Men’s Rights movement is just one big circlejerk.
I wouldn’t say LinkedIn is a spamming site – I closed my profile and I have never heard a thing since, and no extra spam.
I know that a lot of perfectly reputable people have LinkedIn profiles.
Elam not being one of them.
Spindrift,
Read the FAQ. In most cases, you’ll be glad to know, they can handle your wood.
@Orion
I bet they get a lot of braggarts boasting that they won’t be able to handle it though.
Wow, Gary Numan is actually a really bad singer live.
David, just send him this:
http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc383/JessWink22/Funnies/tumblr_mc5v5y3MTC1qgbguro5_250.gif
Elam looks disturbingly like my dad.
The AEFM logo looks just…weird. The name of the business is great, but the logo doesn’t really match. At least it’s not ugly-pretentious like the AVFM coffee mug stain.
Their messaging is all over the place. The business is called ‘An ear for men’; the logo is a figure of a man with a blue stripey head, which makes me think of MTV and Max Headroom for some reason. Or maybe a robot concierge? I have no idea what it is supposed to siginify. At the every least, it’s a faceless man… which is unintentionally revealing, IMO. But the name of the business suggests listening, that I (if I’m a man) will be listened to.
Then we get into the copy – which is about screw society/write your own story (and may or may not be about peens in hands). Then a call to action of ‘get service’. Doesn’t support the initial promise of someone to listen to me… and what is the service I should click to get? Is someone going to write my story for me? Or are they going to listen to me and offer support? Or will they listen to me and then tell me what to do? Is a peen involved????
If I didn’t already know, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what this business was for. I would just wonder why and how a creepy Dad in jammies was involved, and then click far, far away.
The logo reminded me of the character White Noise from the venture bros cartoon.
http://36.media.tumblr.com/2c47e6bef069d7dc67bbbc81b7c26cd0/tumblr_ncua8xKtIi1tydii3o1_1280.jpg
Seems right somehow…
Yeah, LinkedIn is pretty much business Facebook. Besides looking for job postings, I’ve used it to get back in touch with a couple of people from work/school. You can send private messages to “connections” – not friends, “connections” (to me that’s a weird way to refer to other human beings, but ah well) – and from there. give them your personal email if you don’t want to list it on your profile.
Now that I have job-like things, I don’t spend much time on it, but I love the Grammar Geeks group there. Pandapool will not be surprised 🙂
Of course, there’s also the potential for spamming. Once I accepted a connection request from somebody I didn’t know but had gone to school with, and he promptly sent me a message asking if I wanted his consulting services. Instead of ignoring him, I wrote back, “No thanks, but bet you can get more customers by promoting your services with LinkedIn’s self-publishing article thing!” (A bit passive-aggressive, but hey. He didn’t email me again.)
Oh yeah, Paul Elam. I guess Paul Elam is easy to ignore. At least he’s got a consistent metaphor with the “author of your own life” crap, minus the possible penis joke.
“The pen is in your hand.”
Well, yeah. Seeing as I don’t write with my teeth or my toes, it would be there, would it not? (When it’s not in the mug on my desk, that is.)
+1 for the use of that excellent Gary Numan song, BTW.
That picture of Elam next to the “pen is/penis in your hand” comment is one the creepier things I’ve seen in awhile.
Sorry to necromance the thread, but…
A couple weeks ago I installed a browser add-on that changes the names of presidential candidates, to make news articles more interesting. It changes Rand Paul to Taco Bonerstink. What I didn’t expect is that it changes every instance of “Paul” to “Bonerstink”. So I get a good laugh when I come here and see an article about “Bonerstink Elam”.
XD
@Ray
I know fuck all about browsers but I feel compelled to point out that Taco Bonerstink is the worst porn name ever.