Dear Amanda,
Writing to you is one way like writing to Santa Claus. Neither of you actually exists. But there, the similarities diverge. We think of Santa as a jovial elder, filled with goodwill and Amanda, that is just not you. If I write to Santa, I might expect to get gifts back. Amanda, when I write to you I fear that I may receive hostility and venom in return.
Don't get me wrong Amanda. You have been a good show. You are a talented writer and filled with the passion that the best bloggers seem to contain. The PR industry most certainly has its self-inflated members and poking holes in their bubbles can be fun to watch on occasion. In the beginning, Amanda, you were a surprise, even a shock, but not so much anymore.
Amanda, I don't know how to say this, but your act is getting stale, predictable... old. You no longer feel like a satirist, but more like a biting, angry hag, more like a divorcee angry about her settlement, than an observer of the foibles of an industry.
I must admit, I've always had my ambivalence about you. I have a love for blogging and feel pride for the PR industry of which I was a member for 25 years. You are both a blogger and purport to be part of the PR industry. You seem to hate both as much as I respect both. I am an advocate of honesty and humanity in business practice and and Amanda, you practice deception and are not a human at all, but rather a fictitious character, and a pretty bitchy one at that.
Who are you, really Amanda? Is this diatribe of vitriol some form of self purge or self loathing? How can you call others out for not being transparent, when you are so transparent as to not really be there? How can you call for more ethical practices in PR when in your very first post, you boasted about sleeping with clients?
You stand on a virtual soapbox calling for transparency. In fact, you are so transparent that you are but a shadow. You are not there. You are only a pigment of someone's imagination. You are a fantasy blogger, probably giving a strong voice to an essentially meek person.
Amanda, let's talk about truth for a minute, shall we? A few months back, your “webmaster” posted a phony AP wire release that claimed you were seriously injured in a car accident. This turned out to be a fictitious stunt. The AP Release was a phoney. Worse, a photo of a crashed out Porsche was embedded in the false release. This was not your car, but rather one in which people had actually been killed.
Amanda, why did you cheapen yorself with such a stunt? this was not your usual nastiness in the name of satire. This was something lower and I wondered why you had done this. My guess was that you thought we bloggers would pick it up a relay it, then you would jump in and point out what fools we were, but that is not what happened. Bloggers went to work and showed the factual errors. Within hours, the deception was revealed. You whined a couple of times that the accident really happened then, miraculously cured, you just went back to doing whatever it is you think you are doing.
I also wonder about your obsession with the Edelman agency. They certainly have been worth of criticism in recent times. But so have just about all the other major agencies, or for that matter most large organizations. I have come to suspect that it's something personal between you and them, something that makes them your Moby Dick, a great pale whale into which you obsessively wish to shove your harpoon.
I had to wonder about your response to my recent post on Edelman executive Phil Gomes, whom you recently addressed in what I thought was slanderous fashion. Now, I don’t know Phil very well. In fact, I've only met him briefly a couple of times before. The post I made was hardly lauditory, and in fact had a couple of gaffes that Phil saw fit to correct. But I thought he made a good point on the issue of captive and open online communities. I thoughtthat might interest some of my readers, so I posted a few paragraphs.
Thetwist was that I almost didn't write it, because the thought crossed my mind: “Shit, Amanda's going to come after me, if I say something neutral or favorable about Phil." But, Hell, we all have trolls, people who follow prominent bloggers around and say bad things about them wherever and whenever mentioned, and Amanda, you have become Phil's troll.
By the time my plane had landed in California, your Comment had been posted. You implied I had some secret agenda and that I lacked transparency. I do not, but the same back at you, Amanda. Why are you on an Edelman vendetta? Did something happen between you and them? C'mon you can tell us bloggers. And while we are at it, I don't seriously consider attacks on my transparency from people who hide anonymously behind fictional character masks.
Amanda, I suspect that you have multiple personalities because you are written by multiple people. At one time detecting who you are interested me. It no longer does. You are becoming predictable, too-often angry, too rarely funny. What you have to say is no longer fresh.
Amanda, I was 19 years between wives. I had many stormy relationships during those days. Like you, some of my partners were provocative as Hell, but over time, one of us would come to realize the relationship had died of atrophy. That is what is happening for you and the blogosphere Amanda. If we know what it is you have to say, then it is not all that interesting and fewer of us will read or talk about you.
Frankly, Amanda, I’m bored with our relationship. I refer the virtual company of real people. If you want to come back as whoever you are, you may find it liberating. But if you continue down the well worn path you are on, you may find yourself hollering when no one is listening.
Yours truly,
Shel
