From the looks of things, Bob Hoffman found his inner contrarian a long time ago.
In the most recent post on his blog, Ad Contrarian, he spells out what it takes to write copy that will court an online audience.
The F Word: It’s Fucking Awesome!
On the internet, content is king. And dirty words is queen.
If you are writing a blog, you must be hard-boiled and never show weakness. You must not let on that you are from Scarsdale and went to Hofstra and worked at Grey. You must show the world that you’re an anarchistic, hard-living, hard-drinking bastard. And what better way to be a bad-ass mothafucka than to use naughty language.
Words like “fuck”, “bullshit”, “douchenozzle” and “dickhead” make your copy sing! Put a few of them together and you’ve got magic — “Fucking dickhead!”, “Fucking douchenozzle!”, “Fucking fuck!”
The ability to express complex concepts in a censorship-free environment is what makes the web great. Well, that and those super hot pictures of Brit.
What do you think about this? I seldom see cuss words accentuating your posts. I used them at first and quickly felt poorer for it. just me…just wondering.
-SRP
Not spanking, just having fun.
This guy’s kidding, right? There’s only one ad blogger who uses profanity, and it’s just part of his natural character. Has anyone not worked with characters like Parker? The truth is, the overwhelming majority of ad bloggers are quite polite with their prose. At least in terms of not using profanity.
@Steffan – I cuss more in person than I do in my writing
@Bob – spanking can be fun, no?
@wtf – yes, it’s all an elaborate inside joke
Bob is a good and very smart guy. And I know he’s just taking the piss… Which is fine, ‘cos I do it all the time. The thing is, loyal “AdScammers” expect me to swear all the time. They like the red meat approach. In fact when I published my last book… MadScam, I had hundreds of emails from people complaining that I didn’t say fuck once throughout. But when it comes to the blog… As I explain to the very few people who do complain. You don’t have to read AdScam… So why don’t you fuck off!!!
Cheers/George