Early last month, I wrote a post complaining about the customer service experience I had with Netflix. Well, although what I said in the post still stands, I’ve got to say that I have, since then, merrily been using Netflix. (I managed to put movies in my queue by way of the iPad since, ahem, doing it via PC doesn’t work anymore).
How they make so much money at $7.99/month for unlimited content is beyond me, but that’s not my problem. When I’m charting during the day, a big chunk of my brain is bored out of its mind, so I like to fire up a movie, documentary, or something else to play on one of my monitors in order to keep my non-charting-chunk of brain satisfied.
I recently happened upon an interesting little documentary called Heckler, which is about hecklers and critics of entertainers (mostly comedians). It was really cool to watch, because 98% of what was said in the movie is directly pertinent to…………financial blogging!
Now this is not an opportunity for me to complain about all the trolls. The troll problem on Slope is, mercifully, almost non-existent. This is all the more incredible since, let’s face it, this is a bearish blog, and the bear market ended………(checking my watch…..)……..over four years ago. So you’d expect rotten vegetables to be hurled about on a daily basis, mainly at me.
But, largely by way of the strong, positive community we’ve assembled, this is a troll-free zone. Yes, there have been a handful of psychopaths – – I could probably write a book about them all – – some of whom are so obsessed with slamming me that they put up fake negative reviews of my books on Amazon (which, most assuredly, are books they have never read). But, again, thanks to the culture we have created (and the efforts of a few valiant deputies here on the blog), I have to spend very little emotional energy on sociopathic nutjobs.
The real lesson from the movie, I think, is that if you do what you love, and if you express yourself honestly, you are doing the right thing. I am an earnest person, and I think people can tell. I may be wrong – – plenty of times, in fact – – but people sense I’m trying to do the best job I can and offer the best ideas I can find. Over the course of time, I think I’ve done a lot more good than harm, and I think Slope’s ongoing popularity, nine years running, is a testament to what we’ve built here.
Anyway, it’s a cool movie, so if you’re on Netflix, I encourage you to check it out. If nothing else, here’s the trailer:
