Do you lust at the site of that over-priced bottle of 27-year-old bourbon that sits a top an untouchable, bolted fortress of a liquor cabinet? Do you bum smokes off random strangers outside dive bars? Have you ever bought a car?

Influence is relative.

It’s amazing to me that this is not the first thing that comes to people’s minds when they hear about The Influence Project. Social Media experts and gurus are getting really heated over the fact that Fast Company is giving the entire world a chance to be labeled as “The Most Influential Person Online”.

I think the bottom line is that these experts and gurus are irritated by fact that Fast Company – a reputable source of information (and mighty big influencers themselves), is sort of being insensitive to their “industry” (of professional social media-trons).

If you really want to talk about influencers, a real influencer isn’t someone hired to pretend to be your friend. Which, despite the load of crap these social media experts blog about (like being genuine, engaging, making friends and having meaningful conversations), when you look at the bottom line, they’re only there to exploit you and get your company to hire them.

It is great that everyone and anyone is being given the opportunity to compete, after all, we’re all tired of hearing and already KNOW about ‘influencers’ like Pete Cashmore and Arianna Huffington (who, ironically, actually have a team of people working under them, fueling their strategy). The power of the Internet and this ‘contest’ makes it so that EVERYONE matters. With this Influence Project, Fast Company is doing an amazing job at spreading awareness across the general public, not just techies and PR strategists.

And while I’m not trying to negate any of the concerns and feelings that are flying around in regards to this experiment, I do feel that an occasion such as this, sort of creates a mockery out of the social-internet-as-a-profession. You have all these people trying to express themselves and giving opinions, yet the only people listening to them are other social media people. It’s like being held captive with another person and while you both know you’re trapped, you continue to freak out about being a hostage. THEY ALREADY KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. SHUT UP AND FIND A SOLUTION.

It’s not a secret that I work in the digital marketing industry. And I’ll be honest, I do agree with a lot of the things that some people like Jeremiah Owyang and Shiv Singh have to say. But I do have to note that a majority of the things that come out of these social media expert people – tweets, blogs, ideas, whatever – is regurgitated information. They are not unique or original in their views or in any sense for that matter. So, it would be really hard for me to ever consider them influential.

Another thing about this experiment that is cracking me up is how it is being referred to as a pyramid scheme or spam, and how all the blame is being put on the experiment itself and not the entrants who are deciding to go the scam route.

In regards to the whole spamming issue (perhaps I’m the only one who feels this way), I personally have enough common sense to know that, depending on who is asking me to click a link, I’m either going to trust them (because they have influenced me in some sort of way) or I’m going to ignore the request. It’s the same as filtering junk mail. People have the option to say, “Yes, I will click this” or “No, I will not”.

For the longest time now, it seems that labeling people for their accomplishments in social media sparks a lot of drama. Referring to someone as a “Social Media Guru”, even if they are one, is taboo.

Sure, it sounds like a joke or makes you seem like an egotistical douche bag, but social media experts do exist… so why the freak out? Perhaps it is due to the fact that many of these people ARE full of crap. Perhaps they’re worried that if they lost this “Most Influential Person” contest, their credibility will be ruined, which is why they’re all teaming up against it. What’s interesting to me is that none of them seem to be providing a solution to their alleged ‘problems’ with the experiment. Tell me experts, how would you gauge “The Most Influential Person Online”, especially if influence is relative? (And you better not dare say Klout).

In regards to Mekanism, the one thing I can say about them is that they know what they’re doing and they know whom they’re targeting. I wouldn’t be surprised if after all of this is over, they published some sort of “Social Media Personnel Blacklist” that called out all the dumb things that many of these gurus and experts do and say – as if it was these people that they were targeting all along. Now, if this were to actually happen, there is no doubt that every agency, popular magazine and Fortune 500 Company would get a copy.

To be honest, when all this comes to an end, if these people are as pissed as they come off, all Fast Company has really lost is their audience of over stimulated Social Media gurus who actually don’t have any influence outside of their own “discipline”. Whatever, they can rant all they want, you and I both know that this is the only real way to determine the actual identity of the supreme ultimate master of the internet. MWAHAHAHAHA.

All in all, between offenders and defenders, it’s quite surprising that we aren’t really seeing through all of this and appreciating the greater masterpiece behind this experiment. Look at all the crazy effort and technology that is a result of this silly idea. What’s with all this tunnel vision? Doesn’t anyone care about the bigger picture?