The Internet Restaurant

This is a parable that should have been put in the bible, and in one form of another was in the marketing bible 'Positioning: the battle for the mind' by Al Ries and Jack Trout, if only they had anticipated the internet at the time.

So there's this restaurant, a very old traditional restaurant that had been around since 1454 or so. Everybody loved it, but it had a bit of a monopoly on public discourse, being that somewhat intrinsic to it's design were a bunch of signs, people wherever they looked, no matter where they were seated in the restaurant were confronted by the fact that they would be reminded by the omnipresent signage:

No shouting

For most of history one could only enjoy the conversation of one's immediate dining company, one could simply not talk at a level of volume to be heard by all patrons of the restaurant. One was lucky if one's influence was felt even on your own table.
One could only communicate in the civil art of communication with family, friends or neighbours, the few people the patrons could attract to join them for an evenings dining.
Because of the 'no shouting' reminder, it was considered uncouth to demand the attention of the whole dining hall. One was expected to keep one's opinions to themselves to be shared only with their immediate company.

To many it was frustratingly boring, after all, one's friends, family and neighbors really only wanted to hear about things relevant to them, not talking about things of world wide import. It was so frustratingly local.

Then one day in the early 1990's the signs mysteriously dissappeared.

It took a while though for people to appreciate the true potential of this lack of policy. Some of the wealthier, more regular patrons started shouting their opinions to all. Some of the more observant and educated also realised the potential now to not just be heard by your immediate peers, but by everyone in the room.

Gradually volume levels began to rise. Young people in particular quickly adopted the practice of having shouted conversations directly across the room whenever they noticed a friend or acquaintance seated at a different table from them.

Of course, one of the biggest incentives to shout was the dating seen. It was relatively safe and anonymous to shout 'Nice tits!' at someone across the room, then quickly look to your meal before retaliation could take place.
Much voice traffic as such was dedicated to wolf-whistles and sexist jibes, but it was possible to tune out on this.

Some-time before or after 2006 a major publication ran a story about the benefits of the 'No Shouting' policy. Suddenly everyone in town flocked to the restaurant whenever they had a spare moment to make use of the new ability to shout.

What did they shout about? As far as many could determine, people loved to shout about themselves, offer alternative commentaries on big news stories, promote their own business, try and flog their own albums......................................................ting complex instructions to Adobe Graphical software applications.

It was hard to tell though, because there was just so much fucking shouting. And whilst theoretically being able to shout allowed someone to be heard by a global population of diners, fact was that the attention individuals received was actually in most cases far less than before the no-shouting policy.

Furthermore, there was very little feedback to actually exert any quality control or reinforcement of conversation. Standards dropped, which was relieving for some, but the academic community of diners have not stopped complaining to this day.

Freedom of speech it seems, does not entail the freedom to be heard, and many a narcissistic opportunist that thought the 'no shouting' repeal was a one way street to success and recognition still struggle to realise this is the case.

But instead of adopting some concerted grass roots strategy, involving hard work and actual value creation, most people are just motherfuckers shouting about their own problems as if the world revolves around them.