Being Good By Being So Bad

Attribution: Alamo Drafthouse.com

Have you ever seen a movie so bad that it was good? Many exist. Some of the more popular ones are The Room, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and (possibly my favorite), Troll 2, considered by many to be the worst movie ever made.

The interesting thing about all those bad movies is that they now have HUGE followings of people that love them.

There was even a documentary made about Troll 2 called The Best Worst Movie that follows the original cast going around to giant fan-sponsored parties and taking a deeper look into why people love their bad movie. Sure, a lot of the hoopla and praise are ironic, but in all seriousness, there is a big part of these people that truly love these movies.

How can that be?

It comes down to what the movies stand for. They all have a point of view and they stand behind what they make, to hell or high water, and people respond to their points and stories. Also, it’s amazingly fun to be a part of something with that much meaning.

Do you write like that? Do you take risks and stand behind your points no matter what others might think initially? Do you create situations and stories that will leave an impression?

Or do you play it safe and skirt the line and leave the scene with barely a memorable quote?

Memorable is Better Than Safe

The subhead above is the entire point of this post, but I’m going to highlight three distinct variations of that idea so you don’t feel confined by the message here.

ICanHasCheezburger?

Don’t roll your eyes. You all know about it and I’ll bet you’ve all been to the site a few times.

While the grammar sucks and the ideas are the same, Ben Huh has taken I Can Has Cheezburger? from a small silly site about cats to a group of over 50 individual sites with 40 dedicated employees and rakes in over 7 figures a year. Not too shabby for a stupid idea.

While I’m not telling you to give up on grammar and throw away your mission in lieu of meme-adaptable pictures, I am suggesting you take risks and stand behind what you do, even if other people call it silly.

Different things resonate with different people and while some may criticize your for your choice of posts, pictures, guest bloggers, etc, if your audience latches on with both hands, that’s all you need.

Gary Vaynerchuk

If I had told you 10 years ago that an angry-looking, foul-mouthed, NY Jets-loving wine shop owner would practically own the field of Internet marketing, you would have called me crazy, but here we are in 2012 and I don’t have to prattle off Gary’s accomplishments or why he’s important.

If you curse, curse in your blogs. It may turn some people off, but that never stopped Gary and he does just fine. Do you like to make silly or off-color jokes? If you’re not offending large sects of people or worried about ending up on Watch Lists, go at it.

You own the blog and the content, you may as well be as you as you know how to be. Gary did.

(Note – if you’re in Toronto, Canada on July 26, or can get there, you can see Gary speak at the Social Mix 2012 event)

The Ad Contrarian

Do you have a point of view that a lot of people probably won’t agree with? Do you have solid reasoning and arguments to back that point of view up? Then share it with the world and stand by it, throwing caution to the wind of what others will say.

The Ad Contrarian makes a living out of telling people things that are hard for them to hear and then making an argument for his rightness.

Do you think there’s no such thing as Social Media ROI? Do you feel that all white cars are build incorrectly? Whatever your point of view is, it makes you stand out and makes you unique. Share it and stand by it.

Important Note: By making a point a lot of people will disagree with, you will have a lot of opposition, so make damn sure you can back up your claims.

So, would you rather be memorable or play it safe? Think back through some of the blogs and articles that really made a difference in your thinking/acting and see if those didn’t fall into one of these categories in some way.

Do they make a strong contrarian case and justify it? Did they entertain you to no end with their creativity and uniqueness? Did they have a striking voice that you hadn’t heard anywhere else?

Playing it safe if a dangerous game, but being a little dangerous may just be the safest thing you can do.

Thoughts?

Buffer

http://www.richescorner.com/ richescorner

Sad, but true. A bad movie will stick in my mind much more than an average movie. But is this really the press that they want?
- http://www.joeystrawn.com joey_strawn
  
  richescorner Ah, you bring up a VERY good point. Is it better to be forgotten than make a bad impression? That’s a deep topic and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. For me, the reason that I bring up Troll 2 is because although it’s a bad movie, people honestly flock to it and LOVE it because of the effort and story. They pay to bring the actors out to events and even used the movie in a fundraiser to save a school library. One of the main points I wanted to make in this post wasn’t the question of whether being shitty on purpose is good so you can make an impression, but that if you stick to who you are and the story you tell and put all you have into it, your audience will find you and respond to that. Having said that, I’d love to hear your take on the question I posed at the beginning. Is bad press still press? Are you stil making an im”press”ion? I think if you set out to make an impression on someone and you succeed, that’s a success. But hear me, I’m not talking about bad press as in a huge ethical error (like GM or Kenneth Cole), those are mistakes and not the same as creating something that’s bad, but full of heart. Thoughts?
  - http://www.richescorner.com/ richescorner
    
    There’s the school of thought that any press is good press. Certainly, bad press is still press and still raises awareness. However, my personal thoughts are that I wouldn’t intentionally create bad press just to get attention.Your point is a little bit different however. Your point is that one shouldn’t fear bad press and sacrifice creativity out of that fear. I think that’s a valid point. It’s better to try and receive bad press than to hide and not get any press at all.
    - http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown
      
      richescorner joey_strawn I’d have to disagree on the “all press is good press” thought.If you get slated for a product release, and never recover, and have to let all your employees go, that can’t be viewed as a good result from bad press.
http://www.wmwebdesign.co.uk/ wmwebdes

Interesting Joey, very interestingThe Ad Contrarian makes a living out of telling people things that are hard for them to hear and then making an argument for his rightness.Sounds a bit like a popular radio show here in the UK called Defending the Indefensible.In the show contestants have to do just that… defend the indefensible.They are given a statement and have to come up with a two minute argument to defend the statement.Might try it in a post one day.Cheers Joey
- http://www.joeystrawn.com joey_strawn
  
  wmwebdes I think that’s a great idea. I’d love to read that segment.
http://www.wmwebdesign.co.uk/ wmwebdes

@Livefyre if you guys are listening in… you can’t use quotation marks in the comment box, they show as the @ symbol.Sometimes need the old quotation marks.
- http://www.joeystrawn.com joey_strawn
  
  wmwebdes That’s a good catch. Thanks for mentioning that.
http://www.joeystrawn.com joey_strawn

NjutTabiGodlove You bet, thanks for commenting. At first I thought your link said you guys were Ad Sexperts. : )
http://www.content-writing-india.com/ Arpita

Hi Joey Strawn,Thanks for this great post !This is really interesting to know that “bad is good”.Bad remains in our mind for mind for a longer time !! So its really a great idea that you shared !!Thanks againRegards
- http://www.joeystrawn.com joey_strawn
  
  Arpita Thanks!