“I’m So (Not) Excited, and I Just Can’t Hide It”

This morning, Justin accused me of being a bit short on the old handle. Or more short-tempered than usual.

I find this shocking for the fact that I like to think of myself as somewhat a-motional. (I know theoretically that means I don’t move around much, and I don’t, but a-emotional is far too clumsy and has me mentally over-exerting my jaw muscles just thinking about saying it.)

I think I may be over-compensating for any excitement about moving back up Cleveland way (don’t you be getting too excited, I shall be telecommuting) and going on vacation back to England on my own for a couple of weeks.

You see, not only am I British, which means I’m genetically and culturally disposed to keep a stiff upper lip at all times unless inebriated, I also despise that certain American sensibility of telling all and sundry how excited you are about the most mundane of minutiae. Personally, I blame The Pointer Sisters and their homage to those unable to hide their over-excitedness.

While overbites can be cute, cletus teeth aren’t.

Twitter is full of these idiots. They’re so excited to be jumping on a plane, then so excited to have landed, then so excited to get in a taxi, and just generally excited. That’s a lot of excitement for one person to constantly update you on in 140 characters or less.

Of course it’s my fault for not fine tuning the noise filter.

Now what I’m wanting to tell you here is that it’s alright not to get excited about something just for the sake of it. These prozac-addled loons who bounce around from airport to airport telling you how excited they are have no bearing on normal business types like you.

As much as I’m starting to get into Twitter, Friendfeed, and the current new media fixation that is lifestreaming, I think we’re all mature enough to realize that it certainly isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, and it certainly isn’t the most pressing of online activities to those businesses just venturing out onto the Web or tentatively making their way.

But, as you guys get excited about something, us Brits ‘look forward’ to it. In and of itself ‘looking forward’ sounds positively prosaic, but it is an indicator of an optimistic future event.

‘Looking forward’ has a more measured tone, and that is how you should look at your online efforts. You don’t want to be ‘pumped’ about starting a PPC campaign, but you do want to ‘look forward’ to measuring and refining its results. You don’t want to be ‘bursting with excitement’ over a new SEO strategy, but you do want to ‘look forward’ to the day it start reaping the benefits and bringing you quality, targeted traffic.

Then again, there is the northern notion of ‘really well looking forward’ to something, but that is so off the charts it’d give even the giddiest of Twitterinas™ a nose bleed.