I was surprised to find a Twitter message that said Alton Brown is now following you because my Twitter handle is AltonBrownSucks. I had made the account for shits and giggles one day. I confess to being a fan of Good Eats. But I saw a lot other people giving him a hard time and wondered if there was an actual Alton Brown Sucks page. There wasn’t one until I made it.
In the time since making the handle and yesterday, Mr. Brown had a bad run in with a Twitter twit and left. I forgot all about the handle until that email. Then I wondered why on earth would Mr. Brown care so much about one little Twitter account with nothing on it, just a stupid name. Surely, he knew not everyone was a fan? So I stirred the pot a bit and asked him why follow me.
The rest? Well, damn, I couldn’t have asked for a better result. He asked his followers to follow me in the interest of balance. Huh? Ok, I saw the tweet to me and waited. Reading the growing unfriendly messages, the calls and taunts to be venomous (even a few from Mr. Brown) and the general chaos the name alone caused, I played along.
What happened, I’m sure, would make some of my psychology major friends envious. I tried to turn the whole thing into an experiment by asking people why, if they are fans of Mr. Brown’s, would they join up with an anti-Alton Brown site. And asking Mr. Brown a few pointed questions about how he does come across on Twitter. Some of my friends say the Twitter persona isn’t what they expect from him.
Not being wise to the ways of psychology I didn’t get far with the questions. So I tried to see if the fans who so clearly stated their love of Mr. Brown would support a site that actually is about being a fan. No dice.
I even got smacked down by Micheal Rhulman! The joys of joys people thought I was Mr. Brown yanking their collective chains! Then it got out of hand.
The whole experiment just showed me the Internet is an odd beast. People tend to enjoy hate and negativity over good. No wonder we love reality TV so much in America. If no one from the followers group ever makes it to reality TV stardom, we always have the day Alton Brown Sucks hit it big!
And if having the name Alton Brown Sucks offended Mr. Brown, I offer an apology, as public as this is. I was just playing and never expected the handle to be found or “highlighted” on his page.
You don’t suck Mr Brown.
Now back to searching the want ads for businesses needing farting sock puppets.
