ArdentEnthusiast.com

In the depths of my personal bout with Klout status anxiety, I installed a browser plug-in that allows me to see the Klout scores of everyone in my Twitter feed. At first, I marveled at the folks with scores soaring up into the seventies and eighties. These were the “important” people—big media personalities and pundits with trillions of followers. But after a while I noticed that they seemed stuck in an echo chamber that was swirling with comments about the few headline topics of the social media moment, be it the best zinger at the recent GOP debate or that nutty New York Times story everybody read over the weekend.

Over time, I found my eyes drifting to tweets from folks with the lowest Klout scores. They talked about things nobody else was talking about. Sitcoms in Haiti. Quirky museum exhibits. Strange movie-theater lobby cards from the 1970s. The un-Kloutiest’s thoughts, jokes, and bubbles of honest emotion felt rawer, more authentic, and blissfully oblivious to the herd. Like unloved TV shows, these people had low Nielsen ratings—no brand would ever bother to advertise on their channels. And yet, these were the people I paid the most attention to. They were unique and genuine. That may not matter to marketers, and it may not win them much Klout. But it makes them a lot more interesting.