Malcolm Gladwell yesterday:

Question: Angus Johnston in the Huff. Post says you don’t understand social networks. If you had a chance to read the article, what is your take on his perspective?

Answer: I think what he means is that I don’t agree with him. Incomprehension is simply what a narcissist calls disagreement.

Malcolm Gladwell in the essay in question:

Donating bone marrow isn’t a trivial matter. But it doesn’t involve financial or personal risk; it doesn’t mean spending a summer being chased by armed men in pickup trucks. It doesn’t require that you confront socially entrenched norms and practices. In fact, it’s the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledgment and praise.

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.

Emphases added. Hat tip to Evan Ratliff of Cazart.