Who is that StumbleTroll in the Mirror?

Ever had one of those mornings when you look in the mirror and you barely recognize the person looking back. Happened to me today. There I was cranking up my favorite social media site, StumbleUpon, when I had noticed a handful of new reviews. They weren’t pretty reviews either.

I’ve had nasty reviews before its part and parcel of being an out-and-out optimizer or marketer on Stumble, just ask Marty. But one of them quite simply stated “Spams StumbleUpon database with his own website”. Now, hold on there ’sunshine’ I thought. I ain’t no Spammer!

So, me being me, I followed his link through to his page and lo’ there it was laid out before me. The stark, naked truth. It was an ingenious way to bring the matter to my own doorstep. The stumbler, who I had previously tagged as a troll had went through my submissions dating back to when I first started using StumbleUpon and had thumbed them down. He had even added cute remarks to help drive home the message.

I sat back and stared as the reality hit me like a “slap in the face from a wet kipper”. Page after page of my sites submissions sitting there glistening like a dark dewdrop of dishonesty. Spammer!

Once I had worked out a few things in my mind it all seemed pretty straight forward. These submissions had been during my learning curve with social media marketing. I like to call these times my Pre-Jeff days (Hi Jeff). When I had no awareness of my surroundings.

However, how does that look to those that have been part of Stumble since its awakening. How did I present myself to them (the trolls) as I thumbed-up my content. My self-promoting content. Not good I imagine.

So I cleaned up my act. I spent time un-thumbing my own submits, wiping away my own reviews and basically washed that spammy history from my account.

Now, I know there are ways to catch a persons attention and show them the error of their ways. But I take my hat off to ThungurKnifur for the shrewd way he helped me realise that sometimes as we move forward and progress in our understanding - some people have to bear the brunt of our recklessness as we take our first steps into the social media environment.

He used proof to back his claims. Not insults! Not plastic hard man talk! Not threats against a persons life! Simple proof that the persona I had of myself could be shattered just like that of a mirror.

Cheers,
Paul
Ex-Spammer.