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What’s your DBQ?

By ⋅ October 15, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
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The Douche Bag Quotient.

A while back I first started to hear my friends Justin Foster , John Hardesty (John created the logo) and Sam Swenson using DBQ as a term for those people you know who are real douche bags but don’t realize they are douche bags.

Douche bags seem to gravitate towards social media. It’s probably because of the opportunity for shameless self-aggrandizing. Kommon Kraft even has a great video explanation of the New Media Douchebag.

The other day I was thinking about what is it that causes someone to be a douche bag? The thought came to me while trying to manage my ever growing Twitter account. At times it can be seem overwhelming to even follow just 1200 1300+ people (which is nothing compared to the Twitterati). So I started thinking about being a little more picky as to who I’d follow.

And right then it struck me: who was I to judge who’s worth following and who isn’t? (By the way I am not implying that if you have filters set up for who you follow on Twitter to manage your time that this in and of itself makes you a douche bag. I just personally don’t feel comfortable saying someone isn’t worth my time.)

I look at people like Chris Brogan who follows everyone (real person that is) that follows him, Robert Scoble who has had his cell number on his blog from the very beginning (and BTW set the trend for Twitter following) and Gary Vanerchuk who in his energetic Keynote at Web 2.0 talks about how he personally responds to every email.

People have to filter their time and their accessibility. Even if it’s just a matter of prioritizing who get’s your time first and who get’s that spot one month out.

But this becomes a dangerous path, especially if you start to gain any type of popularity. This leads to feelings of superiority. This leads to judging others based on things like if they use blogger instead of self hosting their own blog.

This leads to being a douche bag. And people who start off a regular person are the worst candidates for DBQ, because they don’t realize that their filtering and judging has turned them into a douche bag.

What do you think turns normal people into douche bags? Is everyone at risk of developing DBQ?

BTW it’s important to note here that people who *know* how big of a douche bag they are actually end up with 0 net DBQ.

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About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

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  • http://www.redforddesign.com/blog @daveredford

    This is pretty amusing. I’ve actually recently decided to try and start following all of the real people who follow me (just blocked all the bots) but I’m a little scared that I won’t be able to keep up. Maybe now is a good time to look into something like TweetDeck?

    BTW- Is that a big magenta penis in John’s logo or what?

  • http://www.redforddesign.com/blog @daveredford

    This is pretty amusing. I’ve actually recently decided to try and start following all of the real people who follow me (just blocked all the bots) but I’m a little scared that I won’t be able to keep up. Maybe now is a good time to look into something like TweetDeck?

    BTW- Is that a big magenta penis in John’s logo or what?

  • http://mlsamuelson.com mlsamuelson

    “who was I to judge who’s worth following and who isn’t?”

    If you’re judging the “who” instead of the “what” then there is the issue. If you evaluate what a person is putting out, it’s simple to say: A. this output is/isn’t relevant to me, or B. this output exhibits a pattern of negativity I don’t need coming at me, or C. it isn’t of much value to me.

    Same goes for a person who follows someone and doesn’t get a follow back. If that person assumes that’s happened because of who he or she is, instead of because of the needs of the other person, then, shame on him or her.

    This is the same thing we do when we praise good behavior in our children vs. praising them no matter what they do. The latter road leads to the tyranny of brats.

    What we do and say matters. Without conditions on how we evaluate that, we have a system with no feedback, no checks and balances, and no self-regulating mechanism.

    To tie the practice of managing signal-to-noise to some imaginary, and rather off-putting term … dbq (done below quality).

  • http://mlsamuelson.com mlsamuelson

    “who was I to judge who’s worth following and who isn’t?”

    If you’re judging the “who” instead of the “what” then there is the issue. If you evaluate what a person is putting out, it’s simple to say: A. this output is/isn’t relevant to me, or B. this output exhibits a pattern of negativity I don’t need coming at me, or C. it isn’t of much value to me.

    Same goes for a person who follows someone and doesn’t get a follow back. If that person assumes that’s happened because of who he or she is, instead of because of the needs of the other person, then, shame on him or her.

    This is the same thing we do when we praise good behavior in our children vs. praising them no matter what they do. The latter road leads to the tyranny of brats.

    What we do and say matters. Without conditions on how we evaluate that, we have a system with no feedback, no checks and balances, and no self-regulating mechanism.

    To tie the practice of managing signal-to-noise to some imaginary, and rather off-putting term … dbq (done below quality).

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Great point Michael. I would just ask the question; how do you define value? The subjectiveness of it still implies that you are passing judgment. While it may not overtly be on the person, how do you differentiate the person from their content? At some level you are still saying you don’t add any value to me.

    Also there is a difference between rewarding someone for a job well done and listening to someone.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Great point Michael. I would just ask the question; how do you define value? The subjectiveness of it still implies that you are passing judgment. While it may not overtly be on the person, how do you differentiate the person from their content? At some level you are still saying you don’t add any value to me.

    Also there is a difference between rewarding someone for a job well done and listening to someone.

  • http://mlsamuelson.com mlsamuelson

    I suppose the listening occurs when one first gets the follow. You check the person’s feed, see what they’re about… Sure there is some evaluation there, and one can take it partially personally, but one shouldn’t feel too bad if they’re passed over. I’ve been passed over before and I simply wait a while… unfollow the person and refollow them again, so as to maybe get another evaluation…

    It’s more fun if everyone involved treats it like a game, right?

    Anyway, thanks for the provocative post, Tac!

  • http://mlsamuelson.com mlsamuelson

    I suppose the listening occurs when one first gets the follow. You check the person’s feed, see what they’re about… Sure there is some evaluation there, and one can take it partially personally, but one shouldn’t feel too bad if they’re passed over. I’ve been passed over before and I simply wait a while… unfollow the person and refollow them again, so as to maybe get another evaluation…

    It’s more fun if everyone involved treats it like a game, right?

    Anyway, thanks for the provocative post, Tac!

  • http://intercarve.net/ @brianjcohen

    I watched the video and laughed my ass off. What I gathered (and agree with), though, is that one’s “DBQ” results from being deep into social media and blogging, while producing very little actual work outside of that. This, in my opinion, makes it very easy to exhibit douche bag tendencies without realizing it’s happened.

  • http://intercarve.net/ @brianjcohen

    I watched the video and laughed my ass off. What I gathered (and agree with), though, is that one’s “DBQ” results from being deep into social media and blogging, while producing very little actual work outside of that. This, in my opinion, makes it very easy to exhibit douche bag tendencies without realizing it’s happened.

  • Michael Norris

    Interesting discussion. I follow several people, without as many reciprocal following. For me it’s ok, I’m Twittering to learn, not to start a discussion. As and aspiring graphic designer I’ve chosen local people that are in this field and those that are at the forefront of social media. It’s fun to follow the discussions, I’m always learning something new. At times it is frustrating if I can’t reply to someone specifically because they aren’t following me and won’t see my comments.

  • http://www.twitter.com/whateversclever Michael N.

    Interesting discussion. I follow several people, without as many reciprocal following. For me it’s ok, I’m Twittering to learn, not to start a discussion. As and aspiring graphic designer I’ve chosen local people that are in this field and those that are at the forefront of social media. It’s fun to follow the discussions, I’m always learning something new. At times it is frustrating if I can’t reply to someone specifically because they aren’t following me and won’t see my comments.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Michael N,
    I follow lots of people who don’t follow me and I don’t take it personally at all. I guess I impose a weird double standard on myself, but I value the opportunity to have a connection with someone who finds my content interesting.

    Brian,
    I love that video. every few months someone sends it to me. I wonder if they’re trying to tell me something.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Michael N,
    I follow lots of people who don’t follow me and I don’t take it personally at all. I guess I impose a weird double standard on myself, but I value the opportunity to have a connection with someone who finds my content interesting.

    Brian,
    I love that video. every few months someone sends it to me. I wonder if they’re trying to tell me something.

  • Rick

    http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/4/2/3/f_danecookfanm_fca434e.jpg

    Speaking of DBQ, I just stumbledupon this, and remembered this blog post.

  • Rick

    http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/4/2/3/f_danecookfanm_fca434e.jpg

    Speaking of DBQ, I just stumbledupon this, and remembered this blog post.

  • Anonymous
  • http://CaffeinatedMarketing.com Jen Harris
  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/time-hates-on-social-networks-but-has-no-problem-using-them/ New Comm Biz » TIME hates on social networks but has no problem using them

    [...] Now Facebook is not Digg but they are both free social networks that monetize through advertising. And most of the content shared on Digg is “content created by amateurs to be viewed by other amateurs.” Does this strike anyone else as kind of hypocritical. I don’t mind TIME being Web savvy but someone that attacks the very services they’re using for free strikes me as someone who has a rather high DBQ. [...]

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