Risking life and limb, PZN's own sexy chief Photogzilla went under cover this past Sunday to a secret meeting that was called the night before Escalate Live was to begin. After he managed to leave undetected, he was kidnapped by two assailants and driven all night to an unknown location.
After bribing his captives, he managed to escape and hitch a ride from a chicken farmer. His camera was lost amongst some hen cages, however, the farmer was kind enough to come back and returned it to Photogzilla.
Without further ado, PZN is proud to take you behind the closed doors of Escalate Live to show you everything the organizers don't want you to see:
Branding. You work your ass off creating one for yourself and your business. You want to have an appealing image that tells people your ass is successful, reliable, trustworthy, and just the whole kitchen caboodle of the century. All this is what makes people volunteer over their checkbooks to you...You're a freakin' rockstar and everyone wants a piece of your ass.
Public Relations. This is the hand that wipes that hard working ass when it gets dirty or when you need someone to get you more ass. Funny enough, it also requires to kiss a lot of ass. Yes, there's certainly a lot of ass involved in public relations. Networking is also a part of this, so there's multiple asses available in one room at one time.
Google Search Results. Your branding and public relation butt cheeks both come together to form a nice ass that can be seen by the world. You want great search results if anyone Google's your ass. You want your hard working ass to look fiiiiiine.
The Photogzilla Effect. When your egotesticle ass gets a well deserved reality check spanking and no furious, amazing SEO bullshitter, or PR can save your ass from the natural algorithms of the beast known as Google.
PZN is proud to share with our readers the result of what happens when your ego gets bigger then your ability to think logically, rationally, and most importantly, with good old common sense. We hope this lesson on The Photogzilla Effect helps save your ass in the future.
Chris "The" Becker Search Result on Page 1:
Dane Sanders Search Result on Page 1:
David Jay Search Result on Page 1:
Scarlett Lillian Search Result on Page 1, Just For Ol' Shits & Giggles:
PZN Staff Pleading: For your own good, our entire PZN staff agrees that you just not mess with our sexy chief Photogzilla. Your ass will be grass if you step out of line. Just sayin.
PZN is growing! (kinda) We want to unoffically extend an offer to David Jay to become the newest member of our staff (we're offering minimum wage). After years of being a sappy man on the verge of tears and secretly being a person who reportedly detests gay people (strangely), he has decided to take a turn in his approach to life. For this reason, he is now being considered by our staff to be an official PZN DOUBLE AGENT INTERN.
For a couple years, David tried his hand at wedding photography, but after reading a few Tony Robbins' books and regurgitating it for a couple of people, he realized he could fool more by simply quoting other authors verbatim to sound more intelligent & knowledgeable. A light bulb went off in his head and he put away his 20D away forever to pursue a career in being a full time cross-promoter and speaker. However, there were only so many sheepish followers & bored housewives he could fool. After a couple of adolescent years of doing this, he is now bored. Very bored.
Lately, for every waking hour, DJ has been secretly watching our commander in chief Photogzilla in action with envious eyes. DJ could not resist staying away. At first, he fought his desire to participate in the act of healing the industry, because he knows he himself is a part of the problem. He continued quoting authors, as usual, with inspirational messages. He was preaching for others to ignore critics, they don't matter, ignore legitimate questions, turn the other butt cheek, hide your head in the sand like your other friends, let us pray people throw their money at us for doing much of nothing, and reportedly don't-associate-with-anyone-who's-sexual-orientation-your-friends-don't-agree-with-because-gay-people-are-not-human-and-are-going-to-burn-in-hell-but-you-give-the-impression-you-kinda-are-curious-yourself-ehem, and more. We're sure you get the idea.
PZN knew David Jay was contradicting himself up to now and probably has been most of his life, but the latest came just a few days ago. First some much needed background.
As everyone knows and is probably sick of, are the endless quotes he Twitters to inspire others. These fall quite short of being remotely of any original thought, but whatever. Here are some Tweet examples from David Jay himself. (Hint: Let's play a game and find the patterns):
Did you see any patterns? If not, look closely. Note the times and the spacing between post times. Yes, there is exactly two hour spacing in between these tweets and occur in the middle of the night.
Notice where most of the tweets originate from though: "via SocialOomph." If you don't know what SocialOomph is, worry not citizens; PZN won't leave you in the dark. SocialOomph is a free online service that allows you to admin your Twitter account to control who can follow you, set it up to automatically follow anyone that follows you, and even schedule tweets...Hang on, hang on. What was the last one you ask? If the light bulb has gone off, it's for good reason.
Is it a horrendous crime to use SocialOomph? Not at all. Even our sexy Photogzilla uses it to send lame automatic DMs thanking folks for following him. Is it questionable to program hundreds of quotes like a robot and time their delivery to make it appear you're inspiring or truly interacting. Kinda yes and no, sir. We at PZN simply can't find any evidence to ANY original thought David Pees-Still-in-His-Jays has to share. But we digress (it's a habit, get used to it). It's the next set of particular premeditated SocialOomph Twitter updates that caught our attention that made PZN sit back and think, "DJ would make a great PZN intern to fetch our coffee and walk our dogs & bitches:"
After his normally programmed Tweets at 2:35 AM, 4:35 AM, and 6:35 AM, again spaced apart by 2 hours to not look like spam (which we think it qualifies for). This time he's made sure to preprogram a fun tweet to be announced at 7:52 AM. He calls out a photographer and accuses Asim Soofi as being our sexy chief Photogzilla. Mr. Jay of course is also too afraid to use Mr. Soofi's twitter name @asimsoofi, but he proceeds to mock this photographer for a private workshop he offers. This premeditated tweet also shows us Mr. Jay was planning an attack, which is again very out of character for him.
PZN did some digging and could not find the workshop page on Mr. Soofi's website. However, we did manage to Google like crazy and came across the form through an independent search. So we knew DJ had to do some serious work to find Mr. Soofi's workshop page. But we weren't concerned about his so called 'outing' of Mr. Soofi, as we have received numerous accusations of who Photogzilla Rockstar is and no one has been able to reveal his true identity yet. This list includes even Gary Fong.
The irony is the tweet quote at 6:35 AM from DJ right before his attempt at wrongly throwing Mr. Soofi under the bus: "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." PZN is amazed how these egomaniac kids do such a great job at learning lessons the hard way but don't follow their own advice. Great quote PJ. Please ponder it with your other friends.
All in all, this auto-tweet tells us a few things:
David Jay never responds to Photogzilla, but now planned strategically to play dirty.
After Photogzilla's criticism didn't sit well with DJ, his message to his followers was 'let's not stoop to their level' but this example demonstrates perfectly he's changed his tune.
DJ displays true hypocrisy and knows how to mock people, contradicting his universal message of love & understanding.
DJ isn't concerned about answering legitimate questions, but focused on eliminating anyone that threatens to criticize his perversion of the industry.
Lastly, we thought it was Photogzilla's job to call out people about workshops but there's definitely enough room.
Of course, PZN isn't done just yet. Knowing DJ had planned this pre-medidated tweet, we came across another anonymous Twitter account that was being used to throw a random photographer under the bus. We believe this to be DJ himself or someone working in partnership with DJ (one of our staff members made a joke it's DJ's partner in life, the PC way of saying it). If it's DJ, we're truly impressed of him finally getting creative and having some balls, but if it's someone else, we know the other person is someone who wants to cradle DJ's ballz really badly or vice versa (more then likely, already has).
In this dynamically lame duo's desperate attempt to distract from the real issues that Photogzilla has been advocating to address, DJ/@youtwitface tried to blackmail & coerce our super sexy rockstar Photogzilla via DM:
So DJ and his 'friend' want Photogzilla to "back off" from "attacking" his friends. If we didn't know any better, this was the best display of cowardice we have ever seen. They're saying 'let's ignore the issues plaguing our industry and the legitimate questions regarding farces like Escalate Live.' Instead, let's shut those people up that ask the hard questions. Of course, this person has never hung out with Photogzilla but may have with this Mr. Soofi they are jointly accusing of being our rockstar Zilla. Our theory is that this anonymous person must have a personal vendetta against Mr. Soofi and attempted to drag his name through the mud. Here's Photogzilla:
"Hey! If you're accused of being me, be proud you son's of women! I'm a freakin' rockstar! Have some ballz and blush like flattered tweenieboppers! It's not easy being me."
Well, Mr. Soofi seemed to have a good sense of humor about all this finger pointing & dirty tactics by DJ & company. Initially when we had seen the link, the workshop was pretty standard stuff. However, one of our staffers DM'd us to tell us about a funny change that happened the day after DJ linked to Mr. Soofi. We went back to the workshop link DJ/@youtwitface shared with the world in a failed attempt to disgrace a bystander photographer.
Mr. Soofi's response to Mr. Jay's smear attempt:
It appeared DJ's attempt to mock someone else sorta failed as Mr. Soofi had personalized the form to be more fitting. DJ/YouTwit had apparently spit into the wind. We really loved the inclusion of Photogzilla-like stars as well, but the DJ endorsement had us laughing our asses off to be honest. Well played, sir, well played.
PZN's true concern comes from the fact that with only 2 days left until Escalate Live, David Jay has been wasting his time playing games online and not focusing on his presentation. With the self-produced theatrical of fooling 200-some photographers in person starting on Monday, the program guide still has the following:
May 14, 2010, Pathetically, David Jay's presentation details are still absent:
PZN feels that DJ & company needs to stop dicking around and get serious. It's bad enough 95% of the material is lackluster and will not truly help any professional photographer. The organizers fooled themselves and others with the following statement:
April 29th, first official announcement of a free seminar streaming:
Yes, they said "small location" and "difficulty of getting all the photographers in the world" into this seminar. Don't worry; we really appreciated the egotistical and condescending remark ourselves. Again, with 600 seats available and only 200-odd seats sold, it's not such a small location when 70% of the seats are still empty. Again, sad.
While David Jay is out there more worried about the witch hunt McCarthyism campaign he is trying to run instead of focusing on FINALLY submitting a topic to talk about (Dane Sanders should think about putting DJ on a leash, or is having playing fetch as we speak, hmm), people are really confused about being conned to pay for a ticket when they could have just wasted time watching this sad production online. This commenter left a question on April 26th related to this moronic PR strategy, and still two weeks later, no one from the Escalate party wagon even cared enough to respond. They not only avoid PZN's legitimate questions, but also ignore people on their own website.
Question left on Escalate Live website by a concerned photographer on April 26th, ignored even up to this day:
Maybe ticket goers will get a surprise at the seminar when David Jay simply talks about how wonderful Showit sites are and runs a slide show of his top 10 favorite examples. That's the only thing we can think of. If he does give some inspiring speech, please be sure to compare any presentations Tony Robbins gave in the last couple of years. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
In the end, the PZN was impressed wth David Jay's display of having the ability try to be a funny man and super rockstar hero just like Photogzilla. We believe with a little house training, David Jay could finally be a positive contributor to Photogzilla's movement for change in our industry. PZN would love to hear your opinion. Should we hire DJ as our next intern?
Who knew Photogzilla was so popular? He's so famous, it hurts. Now that he's ranked so high, you have to acknowledge his awesome sex appeal and rockstar popularity. The numbers don't lie. Of course not. (flame on!)
Don't believe everything someone tells you. PZN doesn't buy the above numbers either because its not based on the whole truth because you're only shown a part of the story. If you're not privy to internet statistics and such, it's no different then being a newbie to the photography industry. The whole truth is that the above numbers are actually reflective of the blogspot.com main site. Not necessarily Photogzilla's blog per say, which is a sub-domain. The numbers are skewed, just like self-proclaimed leaders who try to skew reality and their own image to gain your trust, only to profit themselves. If you believe anyone who blogs how amazing your life will be by buying their workshop on a DVD, how your life will be 'transformed' after you give them your mortgage payment for attending their workshop, uses Twitter to do nothing but spam-promote and not truly interact, constantly tells you are worthy of being fabulous, or any other cheap marketing techniques,.....THEN, feel free to believe the above numbers as true: Photogzilla is the #7 most visited site in the world.
Now some people want to believe that Escalate Live was supposed to offer free online streaming from the beginning. Well, PZN always likes to let you know; the spin stops here. We have yet to see any proof of this, except evidence to the contrary.
April 21st Tweet by Chris Becker:
We have a lot of hearsay from witnesses saying they heard Dane Sanders or someone else or someone's mom saying that the stream would be for free. If that is the case, how does it make any sense to sell $250 tickets? That's like releasing a movie into the theaters, but then telling everyone they can see the movie for free from the comfort of their homes. Certainly doesn't make business sense, but more importantly, it doesn't make common sense for the average person who may have booked travel thinking it's only an in-person event. Ask the person who's booked their airline ticket to attend this seminar and they will have some choice words to share with you at this point.
The most humorous part is that most of the documented 'free' online streaming announcements began after PZN revealed the unethical tactics by the Escalate Live organizers. This was just part of the PR spin. Here's Photogzilla:
"If you wanted to allow a free show online from the beginning, why not put the option to sign up from the very beginning as soon as you started selling tickets. Why HIDE it?? It doesn't do much good if its in your head as the organizer, told to 3-4 people in person...Put it where ACTUAL attendees can see COMPLETE information. That tells me these greedy folks wanted to milk whatever they could from naive ticket buyers. It's only recently they officially posted an option for the online streaming AND it was only a week ago did they FINALLY put a program description on the site.
April 23rd Tweet by Dane Sanders of program details, finally weeks after tickets went on sale:
It gets even more retarded; the program description is STILL incomplete even NOW. The blind continue leading the blind. And the blind keep falling for these unethical tactics. Just look here....As of TODAY, May 5, 2010, David Jay STILL has no clue what he's going to be talking about...'Topic Coming Soon??' You call this an organized event?"
With so many people trying to get rid of their tickets now, the number of tickets sold from last time PZN reported the total of 220 tickets sold to over 15 days later now is..........228 222 tickets sold. This tells us only 8 additional people have bought a ticket to attend in person. PZN believes these people probably missed the free streaming option or they really believe that they will be cooler people by meeting these speakers in person. Of course, the return in investment will still be nil and will be realized after attendees walk out. They will be inspired to take on the world, but a week later they will simply be ordering plugged products like a Showit site, a Shootsac bag, buying Dane's book. Ironically enough, their photography skills will still, for lack of a better word, suck.
Does anyone else realize these speakers don't even make majority of their income from...wedding photography?
The fact is, there is no truth in advertising with Escalate Live and its organizers, along with similar seminar workshops promoting themselves through spams on forums, Twitter, and other social networks. They have demonstrated irresponsibility in not only marketing the event unethically & incompletely, hiding important purchase options from attendees visiting the Escalate site, but also how desperate their attempts are to create a perceived value of something that simply will mostly benefit the ones collecting money from ticket sales & DVD sales.
People will have to choose if they want to be a sheep and follow this train wreck.
Posts
