ColumnWhen simple just doesn’t suffice.

“Why is bone luging a thing?”

It was 3:30 on a Monday afternoon and this had to be the oddest text of the day.

“I did not know if this was a new foodie thing to do,” my friend followed up by way of explanation.

When you write a column on food, your friends and colleagues often take it upon themselves to one-up you on knowing what the latest and hippest thing in the food world is. And they’re often pretty successful.

I had no idea what bone luging was. So I looked it up.

For starters, the fourth Google option upon searching “bone luging” was a site called How Hipsters Date. I clicked hestitantly, slightly turning my head and squinting with both eyes the way you do when you’re watching a scary movie, in fear of what would pop up on the screen. You just never know.

Called “the new drinking fad food writers love to hate,” by Gothamist, bone luging combines the trend of bone marrow with the obsession of taking shots in ways reminiscent of college days. It’s simple: Eat the marrow out of a transected piece of bone, then use the empty bone to direct a shot into your mouth.

Cue disgusted shivering.

Tasting Table claims the trend hails from Portland – the little foodie bubble that I like to call home – and although I have never been to Metrovino which has bone luge on their menu, I can envision several local hot spots offering it sooner or later.

If you’re shaving fennel and serving crispy pig ears, a bone luge is really only so far away.

There is a lot of talk of food trends, but sometimes I wonder if trends are really trends at all, or simply the odd creation of a socially networked generation that’s obsessed with creating more internet fodder. Journalist Felicia Heaton went to the efforts of making a how-to guide:

Bone Luge How-To

Part 1: Order the bone marrow. Scrape it from the bone and eat it by spreading it on toasted bread. Or, if you’re die hard, suck it right off the spoon.

Part 2: Pick a liquor or fortified wine to compliment the marrow.

Part 3: Grab your smart phone in preparation for the obligatory Bone Luge photo.

Part 4: Pick up the bone as a funnel, pouring the drink at the top and watch it flow down the hatch. (Don’t forget to snap the photo!)

Part 5: Share your work via social networking.

Because would a food trend even be a food trend without the internet and people uploading photos of themselves in semi-compromising situations [note: most bone luging photos are not the most becoming, and it's not because of the 80s ski sweaters]? There is a bone luge Tumblr page and a hashtag. Give it a few weeks and it might end up going the route of bacon. Just read the manifesto. I can’t wait for the “Sh*t Bone Lugers Say” video to come out.

Is anyone else sick of food trends? What happened to regular artisan goat cheese made from happy animals and organic farms with farmers trying to make a difference? Have these admirably foodie foods gotten lost in the mix of smoke-infused cocktails and bartender mustaches?

As the same friend who tipped me off to bone luging in the first place said, “Can’t I just go somewhere that doesn’t serve complicated things?”

Social media and the internet have allowed us to connect with food lovers, influence the discussion on food politics and be inspired to eat better, but it’s also a wide world of cats eating cupcakes, which I am certain isn’t doing a damn thing for advancing the food movement.

Bad trends happen to good people. Keep in mind that taking the joy of food out of the equation and replacing it with the need to jump on the latest bandwagon isn’t hip or underground, it’s just trite and disappointing. When someone offers you some bone marrow and tequila, feel good about saying no. Because when it comes to food, you should keep it simple, stupid.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: thegift73

ColumnNeed to look good on Facebook? Ask an editor.

Presenting yourself as the envy of everyone’s Facebook wall comes down to editing (that we’d want to do this is a foregone conclusion). As a colleague said recently, “Editing is the skill of the century.” Your digital life, unedited? So MySpace. This is Facebook, where the savvy Eye of social discernment is a requisite. You’ve got walls. Subscriptions. Integrated tweets. Photo albums. Friends tagging god-knows-what (probably your arm from the fat side). It’s a borg on there, and you’ll need to practice some serious curation of your life to be perceived like-ably. You want the highs to be high, the lows to be slightly less high, and the ex to know your arms are still skinny. As every good editor knows, the product is all in the packaging. Present your life from the most pleasing angle, and don’t forget the witty caption! Here’s how.

Lolcats

IRL: You’ve got guests in town. Your cat cannot handle the den of estrogen that your flat has become and meows – bleats, really – all night long, keeping both you and your guests in the other room miserably half-asleep well into sunrise. The cat settles in for slumber, of course, right at the time you all have to wake up for work on Monday morning. You find yourself wondering if your cat would even notice if you gave it away.

How to Facebook it: Cheezburger it up and put a caption on it. Lol all the way to the likes. Cats are hilarious, always! Suggested captions:

IM IN UR SLEEP, DISRUPTIN UR ZZZ

MEOWS-ON-REPEAT: EVEN MORE ANNOYING THAN DUBSTEP

HOSTESS KITTEH: TEH GUESTS HAZ OVERSTAYED TEH WELCOMEZ

Workaday Wonderful

IRL: You’re stuck in the worst-of-the-worst conference on earth, the kind for corporate types in need of the downlow, or lowdown, on how to do the Twitter. You sneak out of the “You Need a Social Media Strategy!” session with the Arial Powerpoint slides about engagement and channels delivered by the woman decked in menopausal jewelry wearing highwater gabardine trousers. You race to catch the de Kooning exhibit at MoMA for 30 life-giving minutes before heading back in for the rest of the sessions. At the break, you’re fed stale grocery store bagels slathered in Kraft cream cheese, and hi, you are allergic to gluten and also really prefer organic dairy. You’ll have to catch up on all your work that night where you’ll eat string cheese, also not organic, and alternate cans of Illy and Freixenet from the corner deli because you don’t have time to go to dinner. And, you did not bring enough pairs of underwear, because it’s suddenly your time of the month.

How to Facebook it: Snap and post a shot of the de Kooning sign in the lobby (angle: casually askew; interest point: allow single corner pop of color). Prepare for the “You have such a fabulous jet-setting life!” comments. You’ll need that validation to retain consciousness through “Is Your Website Sticky?”

Being Informed

IRL: Your teetering stack of unread New Yorkers threatens to knock a tooth out in your sleep any night now, you’re only halfway into the novel your best friend gave you for Christmas (and neither one of you even celebrates the holidays!), your bookmarks are so clogged you’re getting warning emails from Xmarks, and you still haven’t finished the latest Seth Godin bestseller.

How to Facebook it: Post the Portlandia “Did You Read?” clip below and caption as follows: “Funny because it’s so true!” You need to outsource your reading at this point. You just need to look like you read, except not so much that it looks like your career isn’t on fire.

Dining Out

IRL: The bread is a burnt offering, the hipster waiters do not approve of your lack of facial hair and you’re pretty sure there was just a shooting outside the vintage Ray Ban and ski sweater shop.

How to Facebook it: Just post a picture of the mussels and Cava, cropping out the bread and beards. Appropriate caption: “Just another night of foodie fun in the Mission!” #nofilter (#liar #andyouliveinPacificHeights #byachurch #notthecoolchurch #becausethatsintheMission)

Being Popular and Successful

IRL: No one shows up to your event except your staff and that one weird guy who always comes to your events. Your dad.

How to Facebook it: The bartender and most attractive bar patrons will never notice you’re taking pictures of them and claiming them as your own. Jen, right? She looks like a Jen.

Your Love Life

IRL: You’re being pestered by no less than six suitors you could care less about and the one you want (the cute one, of course) is totes noncommits. Or, you haven’t had sex in over a year and you’re 28 and even your mother who waited until marriage thinks there is something unhealthy about this. Or you’re using Facebook to stalk your ex. When he finally blocks you, you resort to pleading with your friends to let you comb his photos for signs of a new girlfriend via their accounts. So, you’re still stalking your ex. Any way you work it, the picture isn’t pretty. Or is it? No need for the cutting room floor: we can so save this content!

How to Facebook: Go out to dinner every night with a string of your 100%-just-friends male friends and check in to the restaurants anyway. “Lisa has checked into Gary Danko with Joe.” That’ll learn those pestering suitors, all right. To alleviate Mom’s concerns, post updates like “Yet another crazy night! Can’t wait to get some sleep tonight!” and let her find relief in her own conclusions. For everything else, post a humble brag about the neighbor spotting you naked through the kitchen window, tee-hee! Leave out the part about him being 99. Or gay. Or blind.

Family Fun

IRL: Your grandmother dies on Christmas Day, a cousin reveals the Alice-in-Wonderland extent of his mental illness to you over too many eggnogs, your aunt announces she is getting divorced because she’s actually lesbian and your uncle is also out – of work (again). You develop a raging yeast infection. On your face. Probably from all the bourbon you’re drinking to cope.

How to Facebook it: “Feeling so grateful despite life’s challenges this holiday season!” and bask in the approving likes.

Simply leave off the “to be alive…I guess” part.

Conclusion to Column

IRL: Love, loss, hipsters, hashtags. We’ve covered it all.

How I’ll Facebook it: As if I’d post this to Facebook!

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Francisco Vargas

ColumnEnglish doesn’t have the feminine case. Stop trying to add it to the rotation.

“These ‘Influence-Hers’ have considerably larger social networks — both online and offline…Besides having a larger social circle, they also tend to be more actively engaged with brands. The Influence-Hers are 38% more likely than typical women to ‘like’ brands on Facebook or to provide personal information to brands they like on Facebook.” – via AdvertisingAge

This morning, like many mornings, I was awakened by the sound of the coffee makeHer. I hopped into the showHer to freshen up before heading to work at EcoSalon headquartHers, where we create and distribute content for smart, stylish women who are early adoptHers and influenceHers. There, I scan the blogs by blogHers and also chat with photograpHers, social media marketHers (you know, like diggHers and redditHers) and a programmHer. Just kidding! Girls aren’t programmers.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of awkward insinuations of the feminine where it isn’t required, I will fear no condescension, for you, dear reader who does not need an “h” added, are with me. My pen and my words, they comfort me, and scare the shit out of idiots. I prepare a post in the presence of trolls; you anoint me with tweets; my inbox overflows.

But where was I.

Gendered nouns like actress and editrix have been around for eons/however long Urban Dictionary says they’ve been around. What I find useless is the her habit: that clever habit of marketers to conceive of terms like “influence-Her”, as seen in the above noted social media study that finds influential women are influential. (In seriousness, the study is actually quite interesting for this nugget: the more influential you are, the more likely you are to be influenced. Ahem, ladies. They are so on to us.)

Is the her habit in language used by media and marketers trivial or cynical? My personal reaction to the “Influence-Her” term was more amusement than bemusement, but I do wonder if calling out the girly, particularly by the types of people who are apt to describe women as targets and think in terms of segments, age and income demographics, widgets and sectors, is exactly benign.

I’m similarly perplexed by the Her that seems to have started it all, in the new media era at least, Blogher.com. Blogher claims to be “ the Web’s leading guide to the hottest news and trends among women in social media” and home of  “The best writing by women online” in a variety of categories. I can’t agree with any of that, but with millions of readers and bloggers (bloghers?), popular conferences and plenty of Pagerank, Blogher is indisputably popular and clearly wields considerable influence in its sphere. But that’s the problem: its sphere. Referring to oneself as a blogher feels awfully close to barefoot, pregnant and mommyblogging in the kitchen. In a word: marginalized. And primed for market. Why are we segregating suffixes?

To this I say: Nobody puts Baby in a cornHer.

I’ll take the wider sphere. The one where sometimes I am a woman, sometimes a boss, sometimes a friend, sometimes a lover, sometimes a daughter, sometimes a colleague. The one where I love children, animals and ruffles no more nor less than any man. (Possibly less on the ruffles.) The one where we all dwell, where we all have skin in it, where the grandest game is actually in play.

The one where I am just and always me, Sara Ost, at large, no if’s, and’s or her’s about it.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Temari 09

ColumnDefining friendship online.

“We need a new word for friend.”

This, from a web-savvy colleague who is one of the seventeen remaining people on the planet not to be grasped by the far-reaching fingers of the Facebook people garden, after I mentioned a study finding people have twice as many friends online as they do in real life.

Ask your friends about this. Everyone’s got an opinion. A friend (former neighbor, best) recently told me, “Thanks to Facebook I am now overwhelmed by people I would never consider my friends. I don’t really care what you’ve been up to since high school. ‘I knew you when’ does not mean I want to know you again!” One friend (related, possibly parental) has not checked her wall in five months and 29 days but complains that I forgot her birthday. Another friend (new, friend of friend), explained over IRL margaritas that he likes Facebook because it helps his family keep up on his globe-trotting. And another friend (acquaintance, professional), finds the whole thing to be a preening popularity contest, the equivalent of the high school cafeteria we’d all like to forget…back in action and armed with a cache. Still another friend (actual, close), refers to Facebook as Faceplant.

Facebook brings people together in ways that would never happen offline except at extremely ambitious weddings. Take today’s wall post I made about the Nakation pitch I was reading. (That’s nudist vacationing: the latest way spare yourself the hassles of checking luggage, Sincerely, The American Association of Nude Recreation, and Did We Mention Over 250 Member Locations.)

And what of Nakation? A sustainable designer, my best friend from college, a friend of a former boyfriend, a college friend I used to take road trips with and a social media power user friend I’ve never met all “like” my status. I’m a little disappointed that my mother or maybe a high school teacher isn’t in the mix but it’s still only lunchtime.

If Facebook can bring together, as it has on my own wall, a creationist stay-at-home mom, a (still? really?) Republican, a self-professed raging commie and an EcoSalon staff member without World War Wall breaking out, maybe we should give this thing a little credit. Facebook: lousy on privacy, great with that world peace thing, and never mind what the Assange guy says. In a culture where communication breakdown is the glaring rule, could Facebook be the exception?

You know what they say about friends: the more, the merrier! In the era of Facebook, it’s one big happy friendship.

Of course, detente does not come without its diplomatic roils. The obnoxious acquaintance you are obligated to be online friends with because you both work in social media, oops did I write that. The ex you stay friends with so you can stalk them. The ex you stay friends with because you barely can be bothered to remember them. That random guy with no online footprint you have no idea how you know but he is your friend and moreover, he really likes your Pandora shares which is cool. He also likes your shares about the weekend with the girls which is less cool. The friend who likes absolutely everything and is apparently preparing for a career in spam. The friend who is always getting hacked. (Note to self: suggest that they become friends). The still-capitalizes-Internet friend who has forgotten you have an email address and then gets mad when you don’t show up to events you didn’t know about. The Digg friend you just tweet, anyway.

Person I (Might) Know doesn’t have much of a ring, and Comrade? Too soon, at least for the red states. Differing degrees of “friendship,” and no elegant way to identify an acquaintance, colleague, family, love interest, partner, friend or Friend Forever.

These aren’t friends, these are friends with benefits. They make us look popular, interesting, established. They make us feel less lonely and more distributed. They make themselves a networking smorgasbord for later sampling. They make us pass the time. They make the past the times.

And, online friends help those who are isolated, such as the chronically ill or just the really busy, to remain connected. Contrary to popular wisdom, I believe having a wide range of online friends has an eventual authenticating effect, paring the personal PR campaigns from our lives for all but the most insecure. And online friends drive optimism, as many users believe the next great relationship or job could be a friendship confirmation away, which is a pretty good belief to have because it’s increasingly true.

Who’s not to Like?

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Johan Larsson

Experienced that overwhelming feeling of holiday stress yet? You know, the one that hits you the second you see Christmas displays at your local grocery store not even a few seconds after the Halloween candy has been moved to the discount shelf?

The holiday season is full of an array of wonderful things: good food, family, friends, candles, kitchens filled with the smell of baking, the potential for snow, vacation – the list goes on. But there’s also the consumer-induced stress that’s indicative of the season, and even if you yourself have given up the tradition of conventional presents and gifting, getting away from the onslaught of “buy buy buy” can be difficult. Sometimes downright impossible.

That’s why it’s refreshing to see all those holiday initiatives that are focused on something bigger. Taking the spirit of the season and getting people really excited about doing something good instead of stressing over when and where they’re going to pick up last minute presents. Passports With Purpose (PWP) is making that happen with social media.

Started as a way to rally the power of travel bloggers – who all believe in the “power of travel to change the world” – PWP has evolved into a major social media giving campaign, involving not only bloggers, but online travel companies and corporate sponsors. The money all goes to a selected non-profit, this year, LAFTI, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the Dalit (untouchable) population in India.

“As bloggers, travel or otherwise, we seem to live in a bubble – sitting behind our computers as we talk AT the world. Passports with Purpose allows for engagement between the other participants, the companies that have donated items for prizes and our readers, who are thrilled to be part of such an effort. And we can feel oh-so-good in the process,” says co-founder Beth Whitman.

The initiative, in its third year, is simple: bloggers host a prize on their site, and a $10 donation gets you a raffle ticket to enter to win the prize of your choice. That makes giving not only simple, but doable.

“Personally, I like the idea that instead of spending ten bucks on a stocking stuffers, you can make a ten dollar donation. Maybe it’s a ten dollar donation, that’s all it is, and it goes towards our beneficiary this year. But it could also be a ten dollar donation AND a luxe hotel stay or some cool gear or any number of great things. Maybe we mitigate some of that mad frenzy of holiday shopping stress by tying the funds to a significant cause,” says co-founder Pam Mandel.

As of the end of November, PWP has already raised $41,000, putting them even closer to their ultimate goal of $50,000.

To find out more and make a donation, visit the PWP website.

Image: mckaysavage

Then came the telephone, with its squawking ring and jangling ear piece. People could communicate with each other without the handwritten word. Fast forward a hundred years to most people unable to write a legible note. (This is me, raising my hand.) Communication now speeds along fiber-optics straight into our brains.

The cost of speed? An eternal buzz we get off information, which to some equates to nothing less than the complete sizzling of our brains. Don’t you ever get that not-so-fresh feeling that you might just possibly dissolve into a pile of updates if you read one more status line?

Sure, it’s great to reconnect with old friends and stay up-to-date on the news. But for some, social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can take a life of their own. You start moving among them like a virtual extension of yourself. You start losing the ability to walk in sunlight. You start sticking to your office chair.

It just might be time for a social media detox. This entails some time away from your blog, Twitter, Facebook, email, StumbleUpon, Digg, and any other site that requires a password or worse, a sassy pseudonym. You might have to ask a friend to change your passwords, unplug your computer, and help you step away from the laptop and/or iPhone.

If any of the following rings true, turn over your passwords and take at least a day away. Your brain will detox, your back will stretch, and you will party like its 1999.

1. You are so used to your Twitter feed for news that you consider things that happened 3 hours ago as wildly ancient.

2. You have to sneak into the other room to check your social media outlets because your significant other thinks you’re obsessed. Because you are. And you know it. But doesn’t everyone check Twitter in the dark of a closet behind several old bridesmaids dresses?

3. You discover that you won’t brush your hair to leave the house, but you will do it for Skype.

4. Something funny/scary/thrilling happens to you and you immediately start crafting it into a Facebook status line.

5. You get into flame wars at least once a week. See a complete definition of “flame wars” or “flaming” here. See also: Dealing with rage issues.

6. Scrolling through the wedding pictures of a friend of a friend has replaced spending an evening with your own significant other. Also, your human connections can’t remember the last time they spoke to you face to face.

7. And finally, do you really need to know the weekend plans of someone you knew 20 years ago? Do you?

Want to read more about withdrawing from social media? Take a gander at our recent look at social media: No If or Buts About It: Why We Have to Disconnect.

Image: John Maddin

The fact that Twitter changed the food cart movement is no news; foodies consume deals and specials from dining entrepreneurs like they’re candy. But the micro-blogging site hasn’t just become a guerrilla marketing tool to get the word out about tacos and tempeh, it’s becoming a source of foodie inspiration.

I’ll admit that nothing beats sitting down to peruse a well crafted cookbook with decadent photos and well worded recipes – the kind of book that makes you recommit yourself to becoming a better cook – but there’s also time for the short and sweet.

Look at the success of Eat Tweet, probably the world’s first cookbook to be inspired by 140 characters or less. Eat Tweet‘s author, Maureen Evans, maintains her Twitter page where she posts condensed recipes. What can you do in the kitchen that you can’t do on Twitter? Nothing it turns out; with recipes for macaroons, fennel pie, pomegranate sashimi and beyond, Evans proves that you don’t need a culinary encyclopedia to keep things fresh.

As I write this, I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head, “but why would people want to get their recipes from Twitter?” You’re right mom, there really isn’t a replacement for traditional food inspiration – I used to spend hours going through our bookshelf of cookbooks that featured food from around the world and I credit those moments to why I’m currently a food lover – and I still believe there’s no better tool for determining what you’re going to make for dinner than a trip to farmers’ market, but there’s something to be said for the online community of foodies that are using Twitter to not only get the word out about their own food blogs, but also find creative inspiration for new concoctions.

Just take a moment to look all of the tweets tagged with #foodie. Within three minutes of opening the search in a new browser tab, there were 10 new tweets.

There are the instructional tweets:

exceptionalfood: A smooth shiny egg shell is a sign of old age. Fresh eggs have a chalky rough shell. #chef #recipe #kitchen #foodie

The quirky:

TheAmateurChef: Is it wrong that I like peanut butter on bacon sandwiches…?#foodie

The insightful:

tarla80: After eating #chocolate you feel godlike, as though you can conquer enemies, lead armies, entice lovers. -Emily Luchetti #foodie #quote

And the humorous:

WarrenCaterson: ”the perfect wine glass is one that has wine in…” quote from @whopaysthepiper #wine #foodie

Or if you’re dependent on visual stimulation, there’s always the #foodporn hashtag. Here’s to socially networked food inspiration.

Have any recipes that you’ve gotten via Twitter, or any foodies you follow who are particularly in the know? Share them in the comments below!

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: NineteenFortyOne

Free speech is one thing: Inflamed free speech aimed at unleashing rage on blogs is often disturbing and disruptive and contributes to a much harsher environment on the web.

Anger management experts liken keyboard rage to road rage. The irresistible urge to vent instantly and anonymously empowers those in our society who feel the most powerless. The screen is the enemy, the keyboard the weapon for launching attacks free of eye-to-eye confrontation or personal consequences.

This maliciousness is what prompted the Washington Post blog to turn off reader comments, explaining the comment area had decayed into a bottomless pit of vicious name-calling attacks on anyone from Post reporters to public figures or other contributors.

“In short, online reader comments have become home for the kind of claptrap that those same media wouldn’t dare print in their op/ed sections,” says communications consultant Steven Silvers, who ads that most local newspaper sites have not followed the Post’s lead.  “It’s because comments are a cheap way to make money,” he figures. “Lots of comments generate lots of space for online ads without paying reporters.”

Instead, sites are urging readers to stick to appropriate comments and to use their real names when registering to identify themselves with others and lend credibility to their contributions. It is believed site visitors are more likely to trust insights shared from “real” people – and your contributions could also boost your profile since they can be traced by search engines.

That said, many are divided on whether or not requiring real user names for visitors to sites would tame comments or simply make us more vulnerable to being exposed via Google by schools and employers who might not like what we spewed about climate change, cosmetic poisons or drug-fed cattle. While the green blogitat isn’t the only turf witnessing trolling, it appears to lure more than its share of alarmist soothsayers and obstreperous disbelievers.

Ending Web Anonymity

Rather than hiding behind protective pseudonyms like Kazooguy, Dogtown and Doctorpsycho1960, those who comment would have to come out of the laptop closet and reveal themselves as John Jones, Mary Worth and Alan Stein.

According to Sue on the Web, an alternative site that has written about the hardships of keyboard rage, ranters are “hiding behind the pixels on the screen and safe in a viral world where no one knows their names.” The founder also observes the rage is no longer limited to the comment section reserved for readers.

“I’ve lost count of the amount of complaints I’ve received over the years from members who have been sent inappropriate and insulting personal messages because someone did not agree with a comment he or she posted on the forum,” she says. “On occasion, even after polite warnings to stop, I have resorted to banning such members from our community.”

Reasons to Use Real Names

While appreciating the voices of those out of the mainstream, some readers and writers would rather go the route of the daily newspaper where letters to the editor are voiced with reason and using authentic names. Forcing individuals to stand behind their real handles doesn’t interfere with free speech, but could make great strides in keeping websites from deteriorating into hostile underground infernos for venting frustration. It has emerged a fun social media sport for many who can strike hard and then distance themselves from what they say.

That fun isn’t restricted to the average troll up all day using the WiFi at the nearby coffee house. Corporate plants engaging in digital marketing are usually the first in line to comment on controversial content, using deceitful public relations tactics to defend an industry’s turf. Typically, the approach is to come off as an everyday Joe user and challenge the methods of reporting (i.e. lazy, shoddy, not well researched, biased) or to provide links to glowing marketing pieces written about the same subject.

Reasons to Maintain Pseudonyms

The idea of being exposed via Google can cause problems for readers who would rather an employer not know how they really feel about petroleum exports, water shortages or the misguided politics in the Middle East. It also could chill the heated debate now raging on the web following controversial content – and on occasion – interesting ideas are voiced by enraged readers.

“It’s all a sideshow,” shares one avid follower of independent news sites, who says he occasionally uses his real name but feels it should be people’s option to use their names or not. “If someone uses the name Dieselsnowman it tells you something about him. I try to ignore the freaks, and I find other commentators often dog pile on them anyway.”

Reporters seem to be learning to ignore it, as well, after years of scathing criticism. Steven Silvers finds some reporters have stopped looking at feedback to their stories, no longer interested in what their most vocal readers are saying. “I see that there are a hundred comments posted to a story and won’t even look,” one reporter told him. “I know what kind of stuff is in there and it is just disgusting.”

Coping with the Crazed Elements

It really is up to web editors to discourage inappropriate comments and to resist forcing blog writers into the position of defending their opinions or reporting, as with any credible media outlet. Meanwhile, banning repeat offenders from sites is a good tactic until a time when the process might change. Some of the more incensed contributors should be urged to take time out before reacting – the usual method recommended in anger management therapy. Read that blog, then walk away, count to 10, take a few breaths, and relax before reacting. Most people will find staying contained when making that important comment will greatly contribute to the legitimacy of their words.

Image: CarbonNYC

Despite a general consumer slump, the eco marketplace is sizzling as stylish shoppers continue seeking earth friendly products. In fact, when it comes to green, demand is up.

That’s why stylish home eco retailer, VivaTerra, has announced a fresh new website design, complete with the latest social-media friendly tools and helpful shopping features. The new site design is bigger for easy reading and selecting, and better, with more ways to view and share products via the most accessible and popular social-media channels. Click to view an attractive, user-friendly flash interface updated frequently with new products and specials.

A noticeable enhancement is also in the ways you can browse and shop: by category, product, style (modern, zen, colorful, rustic) or materials (stone, silk, reclaimed wood, bamboo). Also in the shop for section: the newest items, seasonal featured products and great specials.

The re-design also gives us shoppers access to VivaTerra’s Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as links to email and bookmarks – making it easier than ever to share favorites or wishlists. It’s a clever and creative update that only enhances VivaTerra’s continued focus on eco living with style. Check it out!

Note: VivaTerra is a corporate sponsor.

For so long you’ve had your favorite fashion magazines delivered to your mailbox.

Freshly sealed in their virgin plastic covering, the perfumed pages not yet opened to release their synthetic lotus blossom scent, when it occurs to you something’s wrong, and it’s not just that lotus blossoms totally don’t smell like alcohol.

And on this particular day you think to yourself that driving a hybrid, eating less red meat and drinking from your reusable bottle isn’t enough, that maybe getting a monthly subscription, though indulgent and fun, isn’t very, well – to overuse the term – eco.

You’re not alone, lady friend. And by the looks of magazine sales, you’re getting more options to turn to the computer and flip.

Anna Griffin founded high-brow eco-magazine Coco Eco in September 2008; the website says “this is the modern girl’s style guide on the road to being gorgeous, glamorous and green, and your new source of everything eco-chic, that’s good for our planet, and good for you too.”

I agree.

Though original in her initial approach, other publications like Lucky and Women’s Wear Daily have invaded the once tacky idea of making high fashion internet-friendly.

According to an article in Econsultancy, September 2007 had fashion behemoth Vogue at its height of ad pages. Weighing in at almost five pounds, the magazine had 840 pages. 727 of those were ads. But ad pages have been in decline ever since. This month, the magazine came in at 429 pages, with a 36% decline in ad revenue from last year.

No surprise to any of us that the magazines are failing for lack of advertising and a paucity of creative innovation. Didn’t they see this coming?

Look for more publications from Conde and Hearst to jump on the bandwagon incorporating video and social media from fashion shows, design weeks and yes, I’m guessing advertisers.

Or just follow us – why would you want to follow anyone else?