Entering the Microsoft TechSet Bloggers Lounge at SXSW this year was like stepping into a living tag cloud: the words “social media,” “online,” “Twitter,” “Facebook,” “blog,”"twitterati,” “social media,” “retweet,” “startup,” “hashtag,” “social media,” and – did I already say this? – “social media” hovered over the laptop-and-cable crowded tables. Energy was high as people connected online and offline, sharing ideas, information, and the occasional gossip. You got the impression something big, something cutting edge, was happening there.

Then it hit me. During a visit to the lounge, I had a Daily Show “Moment of Zen.” As one blogger raced around the room asking for retweets, the room turned into a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The pomp, urgency, self-importance, adulation bordering on idolatry…it was all farce. If the Internet made the world flat, it also created a new class stratosphere: Web-Celebrity, populated by people whose biggest claims to fame are the numbers of followers and “friends” they have in online social networking sites. As James Wolcott said of self-styled celebrity Ann Coulter, the Web-Celeb is like “the Paris Hilton of postmodern politics, an elongated zero, a white-hot sex symbol symbolizing nothing” – after all, they may be hot, but what real substance, what genuine value, do they create?

It reminded me of CinnamonPants.com‘s clever take on the “New Media Douchebag”:

This new breed of douchebag can be identified by:

1. Proclaiming oneself as an “expert” or “guru” (come on, folks, only other people can say whether you’re a guru!)
2. Hypocritical advocacy to “build community” while simultaneously being elitist towards newcomers to the interwebs (Allyn Paul shares this experience at BloggerIllustrated.net)
3. Cult-like adoration and celebration of other New Media Douchebags.

The internet is supposed to have moved us toward real democracy; but the flaw that could prove fatal to this movement seems to rest in “we, the people. ” If we don’t hold ourselves to higher standards of integrity, quality and equality (e-quality?) in our online content and interactions, then we’re just idiots telling tales that mean nothing.

… Just two cents from yet another social media expert/new media douchebag who’s passionate about building community. And P.S.: quality doesn’t have to be so serious. Seriously.