• The Loudest Guy in the Room

    Posted on August 27th, 2009 by and currently 13 commenting.

    I was talking with Robbin yesterday and she gave me a whack on the side of the head set of words that I not only wanted to write down, but explore.

    We’ve all heard the metaphor that social media is like a party. People mingling and mixing, meeting new and old friends, having a grand ol’ time, debating, agreeing, catching up. You get the picture.

    But have you ever stopped to think about the personalities at the party? The wallflowers. The DJ. The frat boys and snarky girls. And then there’s always that one guy: The Loudest Guy in the Room.

    When you first enter the party, he’s the center of attention. Everyone wants to be near him. They are hanging on his every word and he’s got them eating out of the palm of his hand. But as the party goes on, and more people enter the room, he realizes that to maintain his status as the “life of the party,” – which we now see is just about the most important thing to him – his has to get louder. A little more obnoxious. A little more annoying. A lot more cocky. And as a result, people start tuning him out. He begins to lose his status. And people move on.

    So many companies – and individuals for that matter – are trying to be the loudest guy at the party. Sure, it feels good as you gain that attention and momentum. But I really believe that we are starting to see a backlash against the loudest guy in the room. It’s not really an attention contest anymore. And those that have set out to be the loudest in the room are starting to find out that there’s only so much of them the rest of us can take before we turn our backs and go on with our lives. And then where does that leave them? Sad and lonely.

  • http://www.backbayflower.com Becky

    I think I dated that guy. What’s snarky?

  • http://www.backbayflower.com Becky

    Nevermind. I googled.

  • http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/ john moore (from Brand Autopsy)

    “The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room.” (Frank Lucas from AMERICAN GANGSTER)

    I’m with ya Spike. And so is Frank Lucas as portrayed in AMERICAN GANGSTER. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/loudest-is-weakest

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  • http://www.bizcoachdeb.com/blog Deb Kolaras

    Totally fun, but also spot on. There’s a technique in diffusing overbearing people in regular conversation: if they’re too loud, you speak more softly so they instinctively turn down their volume to hear you better (oddly because their own voice drowns you out.) Your post reminds us we have a way to control the volume of the this kind of noise.

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  • http://www.confrontingintelligence.com Lucas

    Was it ever really about being the loudest? I really think that, regardless of context, people are constantly in search of value. When people enter the crowded party (i.e., marketplace) they are looking for value. In the party situation, they are looking for friends or people who will provide fun for them. In this quest for value, are many people going to be initially drawn to the loud obnoxious guy? Sure. Will they quickly be able to identify the lack of value? Typically.

    The perfect balance is key. People will ultimately flock to the guy that is not load but makes his presence known, while offering value. He is the type that when he speaks, everyone listens and gets value, but he doesn’t speak so little that no one knows who he is. I guess it really comes down to balance.

    Too many metaphors – my head hurts now.

  • http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com olivier blanchard

    Yet, the world lauds campaigns like The Subservient Chicken – which was all noise, no signal. A viral flavor of the month that did more for Burger King’s agency than Burger King itself. (Unless buying attention for a few months is any company’s measure of real success.)

    The loudest guy in the room tends to be the one with the biggest advertising and PR budget. And in many circles – most circles, even – louder is still better. Why? Because media measurement tells us so: Louder = more reach. More eyeballs. More impressions. More KPI. More visitors to the website. More clickthroughs. And it’s all bunk.

    The truth is that the loudest guy in the room usually happens to be the most powerful guy in the room. So even if nobody really likes him, everyone still wants a piece of him. Everyone wants to bask in its warm light for however long they can. Vicious cycles and all. That’s how they get perpetuated.

    [Note: No offense to the Frank Lucas quote, but the context of loud is very different here. Frank Lucas was a gangster who needed to keep himself in the shadows. Brands don't function that way. Coca Cola is the loudest can on the aisle, but I doubt anyone can say it's the weakest. Stereotypes and absolutes don't work very well in the real world.]

    I don’t think you’ll ever see a real backlash against the loudest guy in the room. The Superbowl will still be the USA’s advertising extravaganza. ESPN and the NFL won’t lose any fans or revenue by censoring their employees and players. “Snap into a Slim Jim” and “where’s the beef” are still two of the most recognizable “loud,” in your face campaign slogans. People love to be entertained, and people love to feel cool by association. Projection isn’t going to stop being part of our codependent psychological makeup just because we’ve tapped into soul or passion or the power of movements. And that’s very sad because I wish people as a whole would stop being so damn predictable sometimes. Not individuals, mind you. Individuals are great. But people. Something happens when we get into large groups. That projection thing, when it scales, it can turn us into idiots. Champions too, but most of the time, not so much.

    Less figuratively though, I want to add one more observation. I go to parties, social events, conferences, etc. And I see what you’re talking about. But I have a different perspective on it: What I see is usually not so much the loudest guy in the room getting the attention. What I see is the people around the most interesting guy in the room making all the noise. Why he’s so interesting is irrelevant. Maybe he’s famous. Maybe he’s smart. Maybe he’s glamorous. Maybe he’s a rock star. Maybe he’s throwing money around or telling great jokes, or answering difficult questions. Who cares. It could be any combination of these things.

    But consider that maybe he’s just the most engaging person in the room. The most approachable. The most willing to talk to people, and the other peeps at the party, they’re just responding to that.

    When crowds gather around someone like that, the volume tends to increase. That little section gets louder and louder. Social Media, the real world… Same difference. At a party, you can count how many people gather around that guy, and you can measure how many decibels that gathering generates. Online, the tools get a little more sophisticated and fun to use. But the principle is the same: People prioritize their attention. People tend to focus on what brings the most value to them at any given time. Passion, excitement, greed, curiosity, sex dive, political debates, the driver(s) could be anything. The point being that the guy, the company, the brand getting all the attention at the party may just be the most valuable ticket at that party. The noise is just an unfortunate but unavoidable byproduct of that engagement.

    I knew kids in high school who liked to sit in the corner at parties and criticize the popular crowd. Ran into them in college too. And in the business world after that. The wallflowers who secretly wished they had all the attention. The accolades. They fantasized about the popular kids losing that attention as well. And my guess is, they’ll probably grow old carrying that complex with them, always finding people, companies and brands to be jealous of. Waiting for that “backlash” to validate decades of amorphous jealous angst. The truth is, that backlash, it never comes.

    Popularity ebbs, tastes change, parties move around. The flavor of the moment could be a flash in the pan or it could grow to be a cultural phenomenon. Look at Rush Limbaugh’s success. Joan Rivers. Mohammad Ali. All loud. All popular. Love them or hate them, talent is talent. Importance is importance. People don’t turn their backs on what they find valuable, no matter how loud things get.

    Case in point: Your dial goes up to 11 too.

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  • http://www.recoverybull.com Jenny Watts

    “Loudest Guy in the Room” is very captivating post. nice discussion on socail media.