It’s amazing how social media changed the power game between employees and employers. Case in point: Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who freaked out on the job.

Most of us may remember a time when this kind of behavior would have triggered personal humiliation, psychological distress and a “Man, I just screwed myself” inability to ever land a new job.

If you want to become a celebrity like Steven Slater, listen up and follow these five perhaps not too tongue- in-cheek rules of the new world media:

1. Take your frustration public - If you’re fed up and can’t take it anymore, don’t sulk, don’t get depressed … don’t kidnap or shoot. Instead shout to the rafters and make your voice heard using social media. Slater tweeted, Slater Facebooked. Give birth to your own community.
2. Don’t be afraid to tell it like it is - Be colorful, be bold. Authenticity rules! Slater said, “To the f---ing a-hole who told me to f—k off, it’s been a good 28 years. I’ve had it. That’s it.” Indirectness sucks!
3. Tie into a grassroots theme - People latched onto Slater because he personified what many feel every day in the workplace: loss of control and power. By losing his cool, he actually restored his reputation and gained new levels of power he never had. Become a modern day folk hero.
4. Go for the extra flair - Slater could have just grabbed the microphone, shouted his message and waited for the armed guards. But no, he added special touches that helped shape a more memorable persona. He grabbed two beers and maneuvered his own exit, sliding down an inflatable ramp. Do it in style!
5. Become one with the peacock - After the initial dust settles, don’t let second thoughts enter your head and never regret the action you took. After the incident, Slater didn’t look fed up, angry or berserk, he looked, well, mildly freaky, but content. So flash your colors and embrace your inner peacock!    

One of the best and worst things about social media is that anyone can make up the rules, i.e. the conventions, protocols and etiquette by which we collectively conduct ourselves. For instance, someone once made up a rule that PR people shouldn’t blog on behalf of clients. Like sheep, we all nodded and went along for a while murmuring slogans like “Must be authentic.” Someone else finally questioned “Why?” Debate ensued, logic prevailed, and blogging services (with the proper disclosure) have become a standard PR offering these days.

Social media norms tend to be self-regulating. We now all agree that censoring blog comments is bad (except for trolls and incendiary words).  Writing in upper-case sentences = SHOUTING = impolite. And our Farmville-playing Facebook friends got the hint and stopped annoying us with their barnyard updates.

Twitter, on the other hand, remains largely un-self-regulated. Despite the wealth of tools available for filtering and finding good information, Twitter’s poor noise-to-signal ratio remains the #1 obstacle to adoption cited by our clients. So in the spirit of self-regulation, I want to direct you to Mathew Inman’s witty 10 things you need to stop tweeting about from the popular The Oatmeal site, even though it may suck 80% of the oxygen out of the Twittersphere if the rules are embraced.

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