Are you a fan of Arrested Development? I sure am. If you aren’t familiar, Arrested Development lasted 3 seasons on Fox. It is about a super rich family that’s totally dysfunctional and becomes even more dysfunctional when the dad is arrested by the SEC for illegal doings at the family-owned company. There are a lot of delicious moments in the series that could really be used to illustrate things about the world of social media, but I’m just going to talk about one today.
The two oldest brothers, GOB (stands for George Oscar Bluth, played by Will Arnett) and Michael (played by the still cute Justin Bateman) had had a huge argument. Michael came to realize he needed his brother’s help with something. He runs into GOB and says, “Oh, I’m so sorry about our argument. You’re a really great brother and you deserve more respect.” Michael then pauses for about 5 seconds. Then he says, “I need a favor.”
GOB responds, “Well, that was subtle.”
This interaction, unfortunately, captures almost precisely (minus the “brother” stuff) some experiences I’ve had online lately.