A few weeks ago I read an article on Mashable that I've been dying to talk about. The article, "SNL's Colin Jost destroys Time Warner Cable in Twitter rant", covers the young comedian's incredibly creative twitter-rant against the a-famed cable provider. Apparently, after 4 months without working cable, Jost hit a breaking point and turned to a public forum to express his displeasure, offering other frustrated customers cash money to drop their contracts with Time Warner, and making use of the hashtag #SpiteSpokesman.

I find this fascinating.

For the first time in history, regular people have the ability to discuss corporations in a free global space. Celebrities have been endorsing products for decades (check out these fantastic vintage ads on Huffington Post), but historically all celeb/brand interactions have been on the brand's terms. There was no room for negative commentary. The advent of twittter and other social media outlets created that room. Now a celebrity like Jost can give a reverse-endorsement....function as a "Spite Spokesman". 10 years ago a disgruntled customer's options were very limited. They could complain to people in their immediate circle, but the stories of their frustrations never travelled far. Today, anyone can take their complaints public, and when that anyone is a popular late-night comedian with over 98K twitter followers, large corporations lose control of the conversation.

Individual people now have the power to influence the way large brands are perceived - and that means that brands have more obligated than ever to keep their customers happy, or they too will suffer the wrath of the #SpiteSpokesman.