If you are like me, surfing the Internet for useful stuff, you may have stumbled across articles like "How to be a rock star in your own niche", "10 things to do to become a rockstar blogger", "How to be a rock star WordPress designer" or, my personal favourite, "What journalists can learn from rock stars".
Most of the time these articles are accompanied by a picture of Kurt Cobain or some DJ and the occasional grunge effects in the design.
I don't know about you, but something about these articles piss me off.
Why?
Well, let me start off with that last one: "What journalists can learn from rock stars". So, what is it that journalists can learn from rock stars? Is it sleeping late? Retiring at 27? Show up at work hungover? Signing autographs at the entrance when you show up at work.
I've actually read the article and found out the advise is that newspapers should put a spotlight on their editors so the editors get more credit for the work they do and they can share the resources they use. That's pretty rock 'n roll right? Right?
OK, so not really, admit it, bloggers or journalists are no rock stars, just like WordPress templatedesigners or webdevelopers building the ultimate CSS reset aren't. As much as I like to think of myself as a rock star, I'm working on my computer right now, handtyping CSS and debugging in multiple Internet Explorers using Virtual Machines, that's no rock and roll, that's my job.
The rock star of plumbing
So why do programmers, bloggers and social media experts (whatever that may be) try to present themselves as rock stars. I don't see any plumbers advertising themselves as the rock stars of plumbing, we would probably laugh in their faces. I mean, I get it, the logic is probably something like this:
I want people to look up to me -> People look up to rock stars -> I want to be a rock star.
But really, why do some rock stars stand out? Why do some bloggers stand out? Why are some webdevelopers better than others? Is it because of their rock 'n roll image? Maybe for some, but people don't stand out by just their skinny jeans for long, they stand out because they do a ground-breaking job and they probably work their asses off.
Get your ass to work
So now, developers, bloggers, social media gurus, it's time to realize that this rock star image is really a joke. All this time you are spending crafting your perfect image and the perfect grunge effect on your website is time you could also spend trying to improve your skills and knowledge.
Why should the newspaper you work for put a spotlight on you? Is it so you get your chance to shine? I guess they pay you for the work you do, so maybe it's time for you to just do a good job. If your work is good enough, people will notice and you will get your time to shine.
Also, developers, expecially webdevelopers, coding your PHP, ColdFusion, HTML or CSS is no rock and roll. Actually, I think any rock star will be bored to death just thinking about your job, let alone do it.
YOU. ARE. NO. ROCK. STAR.
Let's try, from now on, to actually improve ourselves and contribute to the rest of the world by sharing your knowledge. In the end everybody will profit from that.
I will take you a lot more serious than when you are pretending to be the rock star superhero ninja.
Good point.