I hate it when people chime in on a conversation about an idea simply to show off that they knew about it or "it's nothing new."
Everyone has seen them. Sometimes the "Nothing Newers" have a point that fits well into a discussion, like when someone is trying to claim it as their own idea.
But the vast majority of the time it is simply "look at me, I already knew this, aren't you impressed?"
Hey Nothing Newers: If we're not allowed to talk about things that have been reported or ideas that someone had before in a new context or, heaven forbid, to help the trillions of people who haven't heard it before, then here's a short list of things we're supposedly not allowed to bring up:
Stories in the Bible, Koran, or any other old or relatively new religion
Jokes you've heard before, even if most other people haven't
Steve Jobs or Apple history
Marketing tactics based upon eons old human nature
Anything that's hot on Twitter, Facebook, or G+
Anything that happened 5 minutes ago just because you were online at the time the story broke – even though the rest of the world hasn't heard about it yet.
Just because you're geeky or lucky enough to hear about something before everyone else doesn't mean anyone cares. Or gives you any credit for your personal idea of information triumph.
Look, I hate seeing the robot solve the Rubic's Cube video – I've seen it a hundred times in my stream now. But I don't take the time to tell everyone who posts that video that there's a damned good chance anyone who cares about that content has seen it already.
Some things get beaten to death. But MOST things don't. Most things never see the light of day until someone with more than 5 followers posts it and it goes viral. And even when something goes massively viral – that doesn't necessarily mean everyone who would LIKE to see them have seen them.
You don't get points (that matter) for being "firsties." That's a cute high school age thing to be proud of. The only thing that matters in being first is if YOU broke the story and, sadly, most Nothing Newers never break anything – they just report that they've added to their pile of information (that they do nothing with) before most everyone else. Big whoop. Get a life. Realize that most people haven't seen A LOT of what you have – hence the whole social sharing thing we're doing here.
When someone makes no claim to breaking new ground when sharing an idea or content, and a Nothing Newer insults them by commenting "this is nothing new" "I saw this five minutes ago, yawn" – it's just a cry for attention. It's pathetic. Don't brag about your profound grasp of the obvious. It's embarrassing for the rest of us to watch.
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