Catching Up

In my previous post, I described a local twitter phenomenon, known only as “SMUG,” which stands for “Social Media Usability Gurus.”  It’s a satirical account intended to mock the abundant so-called social media experts who have infested sites like Twitter and Facebook.

One part of SMUG’s mystique is his/her/their anonymity, and I decided to try to play detective/journalist and figure out who was behind SMUG.  Sadly, SMUG has only tweeted once since my previous post.  I sincerely hope that I haven’t scared SMUG into hiding.  The fact of the matter is, I really don’t have any conclusive evidence at this point of exactly who SMUG is, just a few good leads.

Pressing On

Having said that, I intend to consider sharing my observations and clues.  At any tweetup these days, you’ll find hushed people in the corner speculating who SMUG is, and providing their own theories and clues.  This is no different than any of that.

Form 90125

At the recent SMUGup, we were given an amusing fill-in-the-oval “survey” to fill out entitled “Form 90125.”  An example question would be “My online personality matches my personality in real life (Strongly Agree/Agree/Disagree/Strongly Disagree).”  The surveys were unceremoniously shredded on stage after attendees finished filling them out.

If you’re like me, you believe nothing is random, including the title of this form.  Also, if you’re like me, you grew up where the only reasonably “cool” radio station played classic rock.  If you’re really like me, you know all sorts of worthless trivia, particularly about music.

Damning Taste in Music

It turns out 90125 was the name of a really horrible album released in 1984 by a then washed-up version of the British Prog-rock band Yes.  At this point in their career, a few remaining members of Yes decided to abandon its prog-rock roots and record a bunch of banal pop tunes.  Elf-sounding lead singer Jon Anderson was eventually brought back in, and he rewrote all the lyrics and recorded himself on vocals. As is often the case, this crappy little pedestrian album turned out to be Yes’s biggest commercial success (think Metallica’s black album).

From Wikipedia, the album cover was designed on one of the band member’s Apple II computers.  You can hardly tell, can you?

BTW, the history of the band Yes is fraught with soap-opera crap like this, with members leaving and re-joining all the time.  It’s really great.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because at least one member of SMUG is into Prog Rock enough that he/she knows about this awful little album.  It’s the kind of thing that you

• Purchased (on a charming little plastic thing called a “cassette” in those days – look it up) because you like the band, and are happy to get new output from them, regardless of its quality or lack thereof (see Pink Floyd’s “Momentary Lapse of Reason,” or Jethro Tull’s “Catfish Rising” for other examples).
• Purchased because you liked the catchy little pop tunes that were reminiscent of a laundry detergent commercial jingle.
• Didn’t purchase at all, but the ubiquity of “Owner of a Lonely Heart” on every radio station at the time forced the song into your memory against your will.

What does all of this mean?  It means our perpetrator likely listens to classic rock, and probably graduated from high school around, say, 1986.  Oh, he probably lived in white suburbia, where music like this was unavoidable growing up.

Check out all your blip.fm friends to look for classic rock like this, and checkout some facebook profiles for graduation dates – draw your own conclusions.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.