"All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

- William Shakespeare

The late, great Kurt Vonnegut made quite an impression when he said, “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

But what does that mean, exactly?

Intransitively, it simply means, “to waste time, or to fool about.” That is, of course, unless you take the phrase literally. Then, well, the phrase conjures up a different mental image entirely. Perhaps one of a young child (or maybe your best friend) running in circles while emitting short bursts of gas with a sharp “tooting” sound.

(Humans, by the way, are the only species that laughs at the proverbial “toot.” Monkeys may have opposable thumbs. But they’ll never experience as much pleasure as we humans when surprised by the sound of a fart.)

But enough farting around. This isn’t a message about methane. It’s about managing the impressions we make on those we seek to influence. It’s about how we behave when we are seeking rewards. It’s about show business. Because as Shakespeare’s quote above suggests, we’re all doing “an acting stretch as a way to hide the obvious.” (Thanks, Bob Seger.)

Sociologically, impression management is the means by which people attempt to control other people’s impressions of them. We all do it instinctively. And, according to the experts on social behavior, we basically employ three different strategies when we do it.

1) Be happy
2) Be aggressive
3) Be vulnerable

If you think about the three impression management strategies and put them all together, you have a hearty bit of meaning to install into the term “fart around.” Seriously, aside from the occasionally foul aroma, how much happiness, aggressiveness and vulnerability can be found in the presence of flatulence?

Projecting a brand image is, if nothing else, an exercise in impression management. But one of the biggest mistakes a brand can make is to avoid being real. And being real quite certainly entails some occasional fooling about.

When is the last time your audience saw you “farting around?”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_management

 

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