The thing I find strange about this is not that it happens but that it doesn’t happen all the time…or that we do not recognize it happening:
…John Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods Market…used a fictional identity on the Yahoo message boards for nearly eight years to assail competition and promote his supermarket chain’s stock, according to documents released last week by the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Mackey used the online handle “Rahodeb” (an anagram of his wife’s name, Deborah). In one Internet posting sure to enter the annals of chief-executive vanity, Mr. Mackey wrote as Rahodeb, “I like Mackey’s haircut. I think he looks cute!” With all a chief executive has to do, the 14-hour days spent barking orders, digesting reports, motivating employees and courting Wall Street, why would they spend their time sparring with anonymous critics online? And what makes them think they won’t be revealed?
It is hard to say that is is not more common than is thought. Is it so different compared to me running a contest over at the beer blog sponsored by a brewery that sends trinkets or a blog that speaks on a political or public topic that gains the blogger access to people and events that he would never have otherwise? How is it that this is not manipulation? And do we care (and not in the Amiel sense of “care”) whether folks as insubstantial and sub-vermin (to borrow and Amielism) as bloggers are in a pocket of one size or another?