Rebranding the Flackosphere
What do you call that ever-expanding segment of the global blogging community that is populated by PR people?
In the past, I've generally referred to PR bloggers en masse as the "flackosphere", but then tonight I had the daftest idea (while ironing a shirt, as it happens. Like Julie, I find ironing can be a great way of "loosening up the neurons").
Perhaps the curious online world PR-people-who-blog inhabit should better be referred to as the Troposphere.
Two excerpts from the appropriate Wikipedia definitions, in a doomed attempt to illuminate the pretzel logic of my reasoning:
1. "The Troposphere is the lowermost portion of Earth's atmosphere. It is the densest layer of the atmosphere and contains approximately 75% of the mass of the atmosphere and almost all the water vapor and aerosol."
See what I mean?
Often considered the lowermost portion (on the same plane of existence as lawyers, I believe); the densest layer, and consisting almost entirely of vapour.
But bear with me, there's another piece:
2. In linguistics, trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e., using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form.
Ah yes; like "collateral damage" or "wardrobe malfunction", for example. Or - even better - "transparency". There's a word all too often used in the PR world "in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form", for sure.
We're all just rolling around in one big, turbulent sphere of tropes here. *cough*
[Note to self: what on earth do you think you're playing at, being so smugly snarky about your fellow flacks, on the eve of taking on a shiny new gig with a highly-respected agency? Must have been the steam from the iron. I think it poached my self-restraint circuits.]
In the past, I've generally referred to PR bloggers en masse as the "flackosphere", but then tonight I had the daftest idea (while ironing a shirt, as it happens. Like Julie, I find ironing can be a great way of "loosening up the neurons").
Perhaps the curious online world PR-people-who-blog inhabit should better be referred to as the Troposphere.
Two excerpts from the appropriate Wikipedia definitions, in a doomed attempt to illuminate the pretzel logic of my reasoning:
1. "The Troposphere is the lowermost portion of Earth's atmosphere. It is the densest layer of the atmosphere and contains approximately 75% of the mass of the atmosphere and almost all the water vapor and aerosol."
See what I mean?
Often considered the lowermost portion (on the same plane of existence as lawyers, I believe); the densest layer, and consisting almost entirely of vapour.
But bear with me, there's another piece:
2. In linguistics, trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e., using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form.
Ah yes; like "collateral damage" or "wardrobe malfunction", for example. Or - even better - "transparency". There's a word all too often used in the PR world "in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form", for sure.
We're all just rolling around in one big, turbulent sphere of tropes here. *cough*
[Note to self: what on earth do you think you're playing at, being so smugly snarky about your fellow flacks, on the eve of taking on a shiny new gig with a highly-respected agency? Must have been the steam from the iron. I think it poached my self-restraint circuits.]
