YOUR UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

presents

“Blogging and You, The Chef”

Educational Film No. 261

(A sunny, tree-lined street.)

NARRATOR: This is Pleasantville.  A happy little town with a butcher… a baker… and a fine French restaurant for anniversaries and business dinners.  But today, things are not so happy in the kitchen of Pierre, Pleasantville’s best-known chef.

(A French chef, boiling mad in his kitchen.)

PIERRE: Sacre bleu! Zees bloggers! Zey make me so angry! Who told zem zey could write about my food! I am Pierre! Who are zey!

NARRATOR: Pierre has a common problem today— let’s call it “blogger-bitis.”

PIERRE: Demanding zees, taking pictures of zat, zese bloggers, they drive me crazy!  And now some leetle crazy man living in a basement has made fun of my lobster thermidor! By Escoffier’s beard, I will never allow bloggers in my restaurant again!

NARRATOR: Now, hold on a second there, Frenchy! So you think bloggers are crazy men living in basements like beatniks or Communists?

PIERRE: But of course! Who else would write about food? It ees madness, no?

NARRATOR: Maybe you need to come on a little journey with me to meet a blogger or two.

(Pierre is whisked magically from his kitchen to… a doctor’s office.)

PIERRE: Doc Wilson?  He ees a blogger!

NARRATOR: You betcha! Check out his food photos— quite the amateur photographer, isn’t he.

(And then to a classroom.)

PIERRE: Miss Carpenter, ze schoolteacher?

NARRATOR: She has the Chocolate and Tetrazzini blog.  You see, Pierre, having opinions about food isn’t a sign of craziness any more— it’s like any other interest.  Like betting on horses, or collecting guns.

(Stock footage of scientists at work, studying bloggers.)

NARRATOR: Government scientists in your department of social media have been studying bloggers for years, and they’ve found three key points.

One, bloggers are normal, well-adjusted Americans who simply enjoy talking about and comparing the food they’ve enjoyed.

Two, they come in all colors and sizes.  Some may be sleazy ignorant vermin trying to cadge a free meal, but most are decent, law-abiding Americans who know a lot about food, pay their own way and actually have fewer ethical entanglements than professional writers and editors, with their complex relationships with powerful restaurant owners and publicists and need to curry favor with celebrity chefs to sell magazines.

Three, though I know the occasional bad review stings—

PIERRE: You are telling ze me!

NARRATOR: —Bloggers and other online food media are actually the best thing that’s happened to your business in years.

PIERRE: Bah! How can zis be?

NARRATOR: You see, Pierre, as a famous English sissy said, “The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.” Bloggers, Tweeters, even Yelpers all spread the news about your restaurant and help make it an exciting place for the people of Pleasantville to go. More voices means more chances for you to be discovered. And it means if someone says something stupid, there are plenty of other places for you to counter that opinion with a smarter, better one.

PIERRE: So… ze blogger, he is not my enemy?

NARRATOR: No, Pierre, he’s not your enemy.  He’s your customer— and he can be your friend, for just a fraction of the ass-kissing and ego-stroking that a professional food writer would require.

PIERRE: I’ll do it! I’ll be nice to ze bloggers from now on!

(Pierre is whisked back to his kitchen— and joined by Doc Wilson and Miss Carpenter, who are eager to document his cooking with camera and steno pad.)

MISS CARPENTER: Blogging. It’s as normal as baking apple pie!

DOC WILSON: Blogging. It’s democracy in action! (Except in my office. I didn’t go through medical school to argue with what you read on flippin’ Wikipedia, bub.)

PIERRE: Blogging! Eet’s… money in ze bank for me!

MISS CARPENTER: Can you make this low-fat? My readers like low-fat recipes.

(Pierre picks up a cleaver and contemplates the sharp edge for a moment.)

THE END