Tweet Revenge: The Tale of Gary Vaynerchuk and the Mondrian
Travel Blog • Alexander Basek • 02.27.09 | 12:26 PM ET
South Beach at Night by Is there no quadrant of the web untouched by internet impresario Gary Vaynerchuk? In a video posted to his site on Wednesday, Vaynerchuk (host of Wine Library TV and a new media keynote guru, for those of you who haven’t heard of him) told a cautionary tale about the Mondrian in South Beach. In short: Gary Vee went to the hotel’s bar expecting to party—because the Mondrian has a party rep—and the house turned on the lights around 1:30 a.m., booting Gary (and friends) upstairs to their rooms. Normally, the tale would end there, but Gary’s pal tweeted the event, and someone immediately responded that they were not going to stay at the Mondrian after hearing the tale of woe. The power of Web 2.0! Right?
It’s impossible to know the full context of the situation, but allow me to get all Spider-Man on you guys for a second anyway. With great power, comes great responsibility. I don’t know if the Mondrian is worried about losing the Vaynerchuk contingent from future events or not, but if you’re going to broadcast a gripe about a business, it should be a serious one. Obviously, the Mondrian should have handled the situation better, but I wonder if getting booted a half-hour before last call is the kind of thing that should be broadcast in what is essentially a professional sphere.
Gary Vee has 40,000 followers on Twitter! That’s a lot of clout, and he should act accordingly. If you allow me to drop a message of peace and harmony on y’all: our gripes on Twitter and Facebook about airlines and hotels are more powerful than you think, so take a step back and think before you tweet. I’ll do the same. Unless Delta loses my luggage next month, in which case there will be hell to pay.
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Alex Hillman 02.27.09 | 3:00 PM ET
I was one of Vaynerchuk’s friends that got the boot from the Mondrian! They kept shuffling us around, it was really pretty awful experience. The bartender who booted us was pretty rude about it, and while the hotel staff that kept moving us from one part of the hotel to the next were pleasant, it was “off brand” for them, for sure. Besides. It was South Beach. Parties do NOT end at 2am there.
Bouncin’ in the club where the heat is on
All night on the beach til the break of dawn.
I’m going to miami, welcome to miami
Will Smith, did you lie to me?
Gary talks about the whole twitter exchange (and some of it’s repercussions) in this video post:
http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/81529474/how-your-brand-can-be-effected-in-2009-and-its-impact
Sophia Dembling 02.27.09 | 5:36 PM ET
Very interesting question. I think the issue is not just what should be disseminated but also about how quickly we can information to a lot of people these days—you can just zap out half-baked thoughts while you’re still all pissed off. It ties into the dilemma of the ever-quickening news cycle and is a distant cousin to the premature announcement of Al Gore’s presidency. The pace of information these days gives us little time to think things through.
I think anyone with a large audience does need to stop, breath and think.
Chris 02.27.09 | 5:40 PM ET
I have a very small audience and wish I had stopped, taken a breath and thought a few times! :-)
Another facet of the problem is that nothing on the Internet ever disappears, ever. Even if you try to erase something there will be somebody somewhere in the collective that has recorded and cached it for all eternity.
Kelly 02.28.09 | 7:38 PM ET
Not on this topic but related, another recent Gary video had him experimenting with a new series concept: spontaneous test tasting wines in hotel minibars:
http://tv.winelibrary.com/2009/02/17/chardonnay-from-a-hotel-in-los-angeles-episode-625/