Wednesday, May 14, 2014

A quantum of umbrage: "I got nothing" and 550 comments

A transformational moment in my own internet reading came when I realized I could crowdsource the business of following a lot of bigfoot sites I found to have become increasingly high noise/low signal. Here was one of the first.

Methodological note: For several weeks I simply attended to which posts interested me, and which of those posts, in turn, ended up getting linked to on other blogs or news sites I also followed. It became apparent that I was very unlikely to miss much by let other sites do the sifting for me.

For example, I always liked his annual "top ten wankers" review, so it was no trouble getting tipped to his decennial wanker review. (Spoiler: If you were dead-ass wrong about Iraq at the time and have taken your sweet time about publicly coming to terms with that, You May Be A Wanker.)


And here's another site I've crowdsourced for quite a while, letting others sort out the wheat from the pictures-of-animals chaff. It's been working fine for well over a year.

The result is that my blog- and news site-reading time has gravitated productively in the direction of sites that publish things that are less expected, and more engaging. Case in point. And another case in point. I recommend them both.


Heads up, Louis C.K. – you may be next.

2 comments:

Yastreblyansky said...

Hey, thank you for the shoutout, squire.

Nothstine said...

Totally welcome. Thanks for running a good blog.