No, I Don't Want to Be in Your Tribe.

“No, I don't want to be in your tribe. I'm not your minion, and I'm not a cow.” -@ateegarden on Twitter.

The internet popularized the concept of “finding your tribe,” and while Seth Godin's book by the same name is right on the money, the term itself has become cliché, stale, trite, boiler plate, and fucking offensive.

…As has everything else the internet's talking about in its little circle jerk.

I'm tired of seeing my Twitter feed, my blog reader, and every single “newsletter” that comes into my inbox be another vomit party of #sameshitdifferentday. I'm tired of seeing yet another call to, “live your best life!” (give me a break), or “Join the tribe!”

It's not because those things aren't valuable in and of themselves. Do I want to live my best life? Absolutely. Do I want to feel like I belong somewhere? Yeah. Yeah, I do. We all do.

The problem is that we've stopped looking for creative, fresh new ways to express the value we're bringing to the table. The problem is that people have gotten lazy. The problem is, even though they desperately want you to join their tribe (likely so they can sell you something later), they can't come up with a more interesting, respectful, useful way to describe why anyone should actually care…nor doing anything to MAKE anyone actually care…and instead, take the sloppy way out, using whatever the buzzword of the day might be.

But you know what happens when you use the same buzzwords as everybody else?

You become just like everybody else.

And if you're just like everybody else, then you don't have a tribe. You've got a tribute.

Because real tribes?

Have real leaders.