I posted something last night about the worst haircut I’ve ever seen, complete with a cute little drawing to illustrate it. At about 6 pm, both BoingBoing and Gawker linked to it, increasing my traffic tenfold.

“Oh look,” I thought. “Everyone thinks I’m witty, brilliant and wonderful. It must be true if the Internet says so!”

Then I left work and got on the subway — and saw the owner of said haircut. I felt really, really bad. On the one hand, this guy was obviously seeking attention with his ‘do, and now he’s gotten it. But then again, taking cheap shots at strangers kind of sucks, I think, even if it does pay off in the dizzying sweet nectar of Internet attention.

When I got home, I saw this comment, which really made me think:

Style is a product of Risk Taking… & those of you who laugh @ people who take risks are simply too scared to be true inventors…

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Popularity: 2% [?]

The following review of BoingBoing TV isn’t an entirely positive one. But in the interest of full disclosure, it’s only fair to mention that

1. I’m not nuts about online news shows in the first place,
2. as a commenter below pointed out, it’s the first episode — give ‘em time to develop, and
   
3. I am probably just mad that I’m not doing something similar myself.

BoingBoing TV’s not necessarily bad. Not bad like the idea for the BoingBoing reality show, as mentioned in the LA Times article about BB’s new venture. Christ, that would have sucked. A reality show about four people who, by definition, spend a lot of time staring at a glowing screen? And an “American Idol”-style show (also mentioned in the Times article) would have sucked worse. Each round would be 30 seconds long with hundreds of people auditioning. Call it what you want, but four uber-nerds approving posts is never going to make for action-packed TV.

BoingBoing TV’s not bad at all … it’s just really not that good, either. It just doesn’t do anything special for me. At least Rocketboom’s got the pretty lady with the hot hot accent, but I’m not nuts about that show, either.

I love the Web because I don’t get my news spoonfed to me in tidy, advertiser-friendly gulps. Sure, blogs are clotted with advertising and PR spin, but by clicking and jumping around, I can get a bunch of different input and make up my own mind.

I love BoingBoing for being a resource for Web weirdness in tiny, separable chunks. I don’t mind a day where only one post works for me and the rest are crap. But a TV show — even a five-minute one — with only one good story is a lame show. Rocketboom has the same problems. It’s linear. You have to sit through the boring stuff, even if it’s only 15 seconds long.

Ever try talking to a garden shrew about something that’s not edible? That’s my attention span after a career spent online. Fifteen seconds of boring is fourteen too many.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Donkey
Originally uploaded by Victoria Reay.

I love stories where things go completely off the rails — where events just pile up and pile up and the next thing you know, the newspaper is printing a sentence like this:

McCarney was found in the room wearing a latex suit and handcuffs, the key to which the donkey is believed to have swallowed.

You can find the rest of the story (found via BoingBoing) here, and it pretty much tells itself. On the one hand it’s a sad tale of a sick and lonely man with a very, very unfortunate hangup. His donkey’s not in much better shape, either. But on the other: holy crap.

Imagine the conversations the guy had to explain himself, the look on the night manager’s face when someone told him what was happening in all seriousness. I’d like to hear Mr. McCarney’s side of the story, a plain, ordinary explanation of how one man ends up in a hotel with a donkey.

You don’t really get anywhere without taking little baby steps, and I’d love to hear how he crossed that line. One person’s black and white line is another’s broad, grey field.

And in one way or another it happen to everyone, all the time: you linger too long on the far side of the playground, over near the dark woods. Then a twig snaps and you look up to see that it’s getting dark and everyone’s gone home for dinner — and the sky is flat and heavy, the color of dark charcoal.

Popularity: 2% [?]