Did anyone know the true value of MySpace? More pertinently, does anyone recall the MySpace hype? Current PR hot air suggests that other media darlings will crash and burn. The huge corporate guerrillas fail to see true value because they do not understand that many of the channels actually grow, flourish and survive on their own authenticity.

So often, many pay top dollar for hype and PR muscle to inflate the market, failing to comprehend the strength of the tool they are using. Just think about reality TV, or even brands like GaGa or Cheryl Cole. They are all huge money spinners, wanted and adored for a fleeting moment in time. The market demands beautiful people with compelling narratives. However, they all take for granted the most important factor; the audience.

MySpace grew organically because it delivered value for people making music. It attracted powerful muso communities naturally grown around specific genres of music. Before it hit the dizzy heights of 300m users, it allowed ‘would be’ rock and pop stars to develop their sound and community to help market and monetise the effort in a micro way.

The big record label A&R men even bought into their own hype. Countless execs sacrificed their expense accounts and stayed at home, trawling the site for the next big thing. We were lead to believe that so many artists were discovered on MySpace -Lily Allen and Katy Perry for example – but was it true? Perhaps it’s more truthful to suggest press teams used the story mechanic to excite jaded music scribblers who had all jumped on the bandwagon eager to find a new way to sell. Remember Sandi Thom? Me neither…

The social bubble is still inflating and, despite the MySpace wake up call, the hype merchants are at it again. Justin Timberlake has apparently teamed up with a US advertising agency to help MySpace regain its dominance. Hey, when in need chuck a celebrity into the mix and let the cycle begin once again.

So there you have it – digital holy grails need to be fit to survive and usually turn to a brilliant propaganda machine to help them construct a ferocious story engine. All they need to do then is pray that it will have a seductive, hypnotic and anaesthetic effect and will draw the people inexorably in.

Cheryl’s recent sacking is an opportunity to re-evaluate her identity and learn valuable lessons in creativity. We all have to learn to deal with rejection and the word ‘No’.

1. Focus on who you are and why you’ve been successful.

A strong identity and deep roots in what made you successful in the first place will help you weather the worst storm. Was the American ‘X Factor’ actually the right strategic move for you? What is your real mission in life? Is your brand in accordance with this? Remember, being a sleb is not the most important thing in life.

2. Do you have a relevant narrative?

When you move on to a new challenge is your ’story’ appropriate for the new context you are moving in to? Consider this: is an American TV focus group going to be moved or confused by “British television celebrity/Geordie singer/overcame the odds/deprived back story”? Always bet on the latter.

3. Make the most of your successes to date

Your strategy here is to ensure that your previous successes that made you are amplified as much as possible. What new things are you planning to do? What past, present and future exciting projects can you plant as memorable seeds in people’s minds?

4. Don’t piss off your enemies. Forgive. Don’t bear grudges.

You evidently landed the role in the American ‘X Factor’ thanks to your links with Simon Cowell. Encourage these links and you may open up new avenues.

5. Do you need to focus on new skills? What can you learn?

Take time to come back. Use that time to learn new skills. Don’t mention them until you’re ready. Project confidence. People with authenticity will always surprise.

6. Go back to basics – your core skill, your ‘essence’.

Don’t confuse people. Remind them why they love you. Learn the power of saying ‘No!’ to things that aren’t you. Make sure you understand what your Brand Essence is. Don’t let rejection define you. Get back to basics, and you will find new ways to move forward.

7. Bounce-back-ability

A fundamental characteristic of creative people is the ability to bounce back after a major knock. It may be a cliché, but if you get knocked down the best way to cope is to get straight back up again.

8. Make sure you trust your team.

If you can trust the people around you and you are willing to let them be honest, they can inject new insight even if it is sometimes not what you want to hear.

9. Say very little until you have something to say.

Filling the social media with endless weak messages will dilute your brand, as will staggering in and out of the tabloids. A little mystery goes a long way. When you have the platform, then it is time to seed the social world with strong positive stories.

Like a Chinese meal, it is all you can taste and think about, but when it’s finished it’s forgotten and all you want is the next fix of foodstuff. There’s news, there’s excitement, there’s hyperbole scattered all over the place like MSG – and then it’s gone.

Of course, we are at the point that everyone is most interested in – the freak parade. Never mind the machinations behind the scenes or the commercial value of the brand; this is what the people most care about; the narrative, the crazies.

Given that it’s all about BGT right now, will we ever know the truth of what caused Cheryl Cole’s American X Factor exit and non-admittance to the UK judging panel? I doubt it, as the people have spoken and what they want is the tears, the heartache, the visceral stories, whether good or bad. What use is a nation’s sweetheart without some pain? We’ve used up the divorce tears – here’s the next weepie Cole adventure.

We know that Fox had a part to play, and Cowell, and many other factors, from agents to stylists – but it barely matters so long as the newspapers and Twitter benefit.

Brian Solis says that Social Media is creating its own ego systems. To survive, brands, businesses and celebrities should ride the shift in public perception and develop market strategies to work these ego systems. They need to recognise the shifts for what they are, however – the public has taken built in obsolescence at the heart of celebrity and business and celebrates it wholeheartedly – the nation no longer cares for yesterday’s cast offs. It only cares for the now.

We are living in one giant QVC-style shopping channel trading in celebrity; not a format that creates longevity. There’s no need when the consumer gladly moves on as soon as the sleb stops living in the now and starts thinking about the future.

Consumers are setting up information networks and are happy to be governed by social media connections. They expect the information to come to them in the instant – hardly anyone seeks out information elsewhere any more. They want it all NOW!

Yet, since no one is focusing on the past, no one is contextualising what’s happening now either, so let’s try to. Only people with platforms triumph – hence we see Cheryl Cole becoming cannon fodder to the march of the platform she’s been ousted from. High profile she may be, but she’s still just cannon fodder. It’s the people who’ve been spat out of the system who can offer most context on what is happening within the machine, but the machine has programmed us to expect a retrospective in ten years time asking “where are they now?”, at which we’ll grunt with slight recognition at the participants of all the old formats who never made it and then move on. There is no room for context in that model.

Fans and followers are firing up the process so it runs ever faster. Image is as disposable as a burger container. There is no point to super injunctions; the law is a blunt stick – and anyway, it’ll all be forgotten tomorrow.

Only a few are managing to succeed; Jedward are a prime example. But then they make no references to the past and they don’t care about the future – they may have represented Ireland at Eurovision, they may have met Obama but they have skins like rhinos and they don’t care. Their career is now and we have got to the point where the audience don’t trust people who talk about a future.

Maybe you just have to be stupid to succeed. Or, as I heard Simon Cowell tell a Britney impersonator: “Never mind the negativity. Ride it!” Salient lessons for Cheryl Cole and anyone else wanting to enter the social media whirl and the giddy world of celebrity in the 21st century.

Cowell’s money machine TV show has always trodden a fine line between seeking privacy for its big announcements and demanding that everyone talk about the show around the water cooler, be it real or virtual, but that need for word of mouth has come back to bite the show on the backside with a vengeance in the last week. Depending who you listen to, that is.

On the audience’s side, there widespread disgruntlement on the social networks at Cheryl Cole’s dismissal of Gamu Nhengu in favour of less well-liked contestants (an act that has brought up ugly slurs reminiscent of the hoo-ha surrounding Cheryl’s alleged racist assault on a nightclub attendant seven years ago – a prime example of how easy it is to switch from nation’s sweetheart to bête noir in a matter of moments) but now, Twitter has been used to leak the names of four wildcard acts who are apparently to be reintroduced to the show in a new feature this weekend. This happened with the names of the 12 finalists as well.

But what the audience, and the people complaining on Twitter, forget is that the X Factor’s modus operandi is not solely about talent; it’s as much about what will generate vast swathes of PR, its about creating the captivating narratives behind the contestants and it’s about engaging public conversation and driving up TV audiences. That’s what keeps contestants on the show.

There is too much debate about the talent, but it needs to be made clear that this is a ruse, a conversational opiate that the people consume gleefully. The talent is only there to serve the commercial designs of the people behind the show – the X Factor is a hard-arsed exercise in accumulating cash. Show business with a capital BUSINESS. So few singers involved in the show go on to a serious career and any that do only keep that career as long as they march to the tune of the bosses. The only real winners are the owners of the format.

Just to emphasize the point, take a look at the X-Factor PR team, who are really playing a clever game with this series. I strongly suspect that they may be deliberately leaking info and then claiming to be upset, thus generating more stories. There is certainly a constant back and forth of “someone’s pissed of with someone else in the X Factor” stories bouncing all around the media and the Internet. All of this boosts the show, the ability to make money, and more often than not it is at the expense of the ‘talent’.

It’ll be interesting to see what impact Twitter will have when the show turns to the live format. The X Factor team are surely hoping that the live shows will stem the willy-nilly flow of information onto the Internet. They really do like to own every aspect. I personally don’t think tweeting in real time can become a major force until it’s voice generated; I don’t think it’s possible to type and respond in real-time. What’s being tweeted will already be passé by the time it’s written. You need an a speedy typist to do it for you.

I think tweeting in real time to a celebrity, watching a live TV show, will be a great PR story, possibly in conjunction with or for a client with internet enabled TV, YouView, IPTV, GoogleTV etc. But the individuals who prefer their followers to family prefer privacy in their messaging; just look how big comparatively Text and Blackberry messaging are to Twitter.

Very few of the X Factor hopefuls are likely to find themselves in this position, mind you. It would probably be seen as too dangerous for the show’s brand.

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Talking of bad for the brand, I heard the other morning that there is to be a production at the Barbican where the audience will arrive at 11.00 pm, lie in beds and fall sleep, to be woken by cast eight hours later who will serve them breakfast. Going to cost £42? The producer was quoted as saying he’s been to the theatre himself and fallen asleep, so he’s doing the show to put you to sleep.

I’m not convinced that this is the best PR stunt. Surely it just reinforces the stereotypical view that the theatre is a dull place. Theatre needs to reawaken itself and interest in it, not tell people that it’ll put you to sleep.

Add in the fact that you wouldn’t pay that much to sleep in a youth hostel, let alone an emergency shelter for the middle classes, and it amounts to a PR fail in my book.

A more entertaining, if also somewhat self-defeating, PR stunt is the news that Little Chef have produced a T-Shirt commemorating their 50th Anniversary. The slogan on the shirt is “I love Charlie”, which is allegedly the name of their mascot – who I always thought was called Fat Charlie.

PR spin says that hordes of students are buying the t-shirt with a smirk, because of the “difficult to spot Peruvian marching powder reference”. It can’t be that difficult to spot, surely? It was obvious to me and a mother who spotted her teenage son wearing the T-Shirt is up in arms. Stirring up a little PR controversy never hurt anyone, but surely it would help if it were relevant to – and unlikely to damage – the brand.

If the answer to any of these questions is “YES”, Borkowski has a couple of tasty slices of satirical goodness to ease your rage, two fine diversions from a toxic weekend of TV carnage. In a burst of pre-Christmas generosity, we present The Exterminating Factor, a neat-but-twisted X rated game that allows the player an opportunity to vent their destructive feelings. All within the bounds of legality and common sense, of course – we are in no way suggesting that the game’s scenario should be re-enacted in real life.

You see, this twisted little game allows the player to shoot virtual nails into the disembodied heads of Simon Cowell, Danni Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh – and what would there be on TV worth being ranted and fulminated about if The Exterminator Factor were taken too seriously and acted upon in real life?

Better just to play the game and feel that shiver of nervous satisfaction as the first virtual nail strikes and two smaller judges’ heads burst from Simon Cowell’s smiling face. Or gasp as the dimpled smile of a tiny Cheryl Cole disappears forever in a hail of virtual nails.

Based on the gaming classic Asteroids, The Exterminating Factor is the perfect way of letting loose all your pent up frustrations at the 21st Century’s premier talent contest cum soap opera. Click on the picture to access the game.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Borkowski also presents a sharp, satirical poem for all the pacifists and non-gamers out there who are tired of celebrity for the sake of celebrity; of popularity contests masquerading as talent contests; who cannot bear to see the world and its wife doing everything in its power to be famous.

The Sleb’s Prayer, by the remarkable poet Adam Horovitz, features music based on a sample by great 60s garage rock band, The Groupies. The track has been wrapped up in Mel Rodiq’s stunning video in the style of magazines like Heat and OK. You can see it below.

To read the Independent article, click here. To read the Telegraph article, click here.

Arcati, whose blog is the current darling of the blogoshphere and one of its best, sexiest reads, muses, with an amused raised eyebrow, on the possibility that the article – which threw light on Green’s angling for a $9 million raise for Cowell and the idea of broadcasting an American X Factor on Fox to tie Cowell to American Idol for the next two and a half years.

Arcati wryly pricks the egos at work, acknowledging that the story could either be a fabrication or an irritant to the moguls behind X Factor and American Idol. The missing Sabbagh story is either full of “unusually fearless objectivity” or “total tosh” – either could have prompted its pulling.

Regardless, the good Madame, by exposing the article’s vanishment, is gleefully and gloriously helping expose the powerful PR muscle that keeps the X Factor in the public eye.

As we know, the X Factor is the current role model for promoting celebrities, if not neccessarily the ones it is purportedly creating. I’ve been looking at the rise of Cheryl Cole; the Independent asked for my opinion on her success. It all ties in rather nicely with Madam Arcati’s timely piece.

“She is a phenomenon of the moment,” I told the Independent. “There is a time and place for opportunities driven by The X Factor. Marketing is built to capitalise on the moment. With every level of pop, it’s going to be transient. It’s about harvesting the brand at its prime, and knowing their sell by date is firmly tattooed on their arse. There’s no long-term future with Cheryl Cole. You drill your marketing through the ears listening at that moment in time to the music. They’re sinking the drill into the deep well and sucking up the crude while it’s where it is.”

You could say the same about the X Factor and, if the missing Times article is to be believed, the people behind it know this and are pushing to squeeze out every last drop of milk whilst they still can…