Dopp Juice Archive

Robert Scoble has a blog. Robert Scoble’s blog is kinda famous. Robert is kinda famous for his blog.

And by “kinda famous” I mean “very famous.”

Famous people tend to get sucked into the realm of “needing to stay famous.” Sometimes that means getting self-conscious and changing their style. And sometimes doing that is a mistake.

His post yesterday was brilliant:

“If you aren’t willing to look like an idiot in public (or, even, prove that you ARE one) you won’t be a really great blogger.

Lately I’ve found that I’ve started worrying about LOOKING like an idiot to all of you and it’s stilted my writing. I started worrying about getting a better “rank” (whatever the heck THAT means). And all the hubris-filled-bullpucky that goes along with this stuff.

If you asked me whether I wanted to be invited to an Apple or Google press conference I’d drool on the floor and say “yes, yes, yes.” Now that I’ve been? I really can’t understand why I thought that at one point. It was a major flaw in my thinking.

But I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately. Who are the guys who I’d rather hang out with?

People who prove they are human.

Human beings make mistakes.

Human beings aren’t always smart. Even the smartest ones…”

He goes on, and ends with:

“In the meantime, if you worry about looking like an idiot you’ll never take risks and you’ll never explore yourself. More idiocy ahead! “

Robert Scoble, thank you for keeping it real.

What color would you say my eyes are?

My driver’s license says “brown,” but it’s a lie. My mother taught me my eyes were “hazel,” but over the years I’ve learned that “hazel” just means “a hard color to describe in one word” and actually carries no consistency across faces. One of my close friends in high school gave up on trying to answer this question and just started calling me “the girl with kaleidescope eyes.” But let’s not cop out here. I’ll give you a hint: my eyes are green and amber with red flecks and brown highlights.

I make an effort to look people in the eye when I talk to them, and I’ve been noticing lately, that I’m not so alone in my kaledescopiness. I’m seeing my own eyes show up on more and more people, and more often than not on creative professionals — those rebellious independent folk who create their own careers and answer first to themselves. So I’m now asserting a theory: green/amber/red/brown kaleidescope eyes are a sign of a creative, ambitious individual who probably has issues with authority.

This theory will likely be proven absurd and fall by the wayside, as my silly theories often die. (For years, I’ve been trying to prove that everybody named Amy is a lesbian and that no one actually lives in Montana.) But, regardless, I am collecting evidence now. If you have some, please send it my way.

The Experiment…
People throw around a lot of names at conferences; sometimes you recognize them, sometimes you don’t. I went into my week at SXSWi 2007 with a mission: to write down every name that was dropped on me (see my pre-trip mission statement, Namedropping 2.0, for the back story and the rules).

The end result, in theory, would be a list of everyone who is Internet Famous in my spheres of interest as of SXSWi 2007. This is, of course, an oversimplification, an overdramatization, and a gross generalization, but hey, let’s look at the list anyway.

The Disclaimer…
This project was truly impossible and this list is incomplete. For many, many reasons I know I’ve left off significant people whose names were dropped at the conference. It’s really not on purpose — I just couldn’t keep up. So I invite you now to review the list and comment below with your own additions to it. Who is Internet Famous to you?

The Results…
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