Understanding The Hidden Cables That Connects Us All

I’ve been reading a great thriller recently – it’s an old n’ dusty Stephen King thriller from the mid-90’s – but it wasn’t the fearful imagery that the thriller writer in question managed to raise my buns from the couch but the written words contained within certain passages of text that we are all interconnected by “hidden cables” that got me edgy and then some.

So what do I mean by “hidden cables”? We’ll to take a quick insight of my thinking I want to draw on a few heatable discussions that have taken centre stage this year in the search world. Please, be aware that I’m not mud-raking, merely using examples to illustrate my point.

The first and most famous was Lyndon’s global link bait that not only split your sides with laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all but also split a community into groups decrying each other in a scale unknown to the search community before or since. Many undercurrent thoughts went to play on this escapade myself included. So, looking back what made myself pick-up Lyndon’s torch and help fight his corner, go public with my thoughts, cut social media ties that will strain to be the same again.

What causes myself to defend an individual that I have never met. What causes others to wipe him from their friends list on social media sites. I mean in all honesty we’re talking about a website here that published a funny story not something that put a person in front of danger or was the cause for mass battles in the streets. Bur there I was standing in the digital horizon, binary sword in hand, ready, waiting, to defend Lyndon’s name. And the hidden cables tugged ever more so.

Rand Fishkin was another, a man on the other side of the world. A man prominent in the blog radar, a man who was caught up in the paid links war via a blog post about StumbleUpon. I thought it was wrong as did many others, majority rule, then the denouncements started, after that I was clutching the flag of Rand and willingly waved it where need shown. Cables tugging at my every move, making me do this and thinking that.

There has been other spats, Danny and Wired, Black Hat SMX or Advanced SEO, Google in general, SEO famous wannabes to name a few. Each draw their own lines, each act as further sub-divisions, each propell the protagonist to a new, heady height. Each connected with their ability to tear apart.

But within them all and so many more there is one common denominator that shines. That of the individual to inform, touch and interact with the many. It’s what makes myself so proud to be called a blogger. To go to that spot and hang your thoughts out there, see them blow freely in the wind then watch as it gets tugged, pulled and twisted from the cable that holds it. This is interaction, communication, the focus of modern thought. This is where the cables hang … the question is, how long will they let you hang there with them?