December 1, 2024

Eschewing an irritatingly newsy story, I looked back into my archive to confirm that I had eschewed it the first time around.

Chew on this, from 2019:

December 8, 2019

Part of blogging is choosing what not to blog.

There's one thing in the last few days that so many people seemed to think needed to be blogged (or tweeted or Facebooked) about, and I knew not to be part of the virality. It's nothing that involved anyone dying or anything evil, just something where I could see people were accepting a cultural con and doing free PR for somebody. There's an additional development that makes it more obvious that it was that sort of thing, but many people are doing another post about that. I'm pleased with myself for passing on this story, which I won't identify because that's my point. I didn't let myself be used in someone else's promotion. Didn't do it before, and won't do it now.

ADDED: I said "I won't do it now," when "now" was 4:57 a.m., but I will do it now, at 2:58 p.m., because the post did get people guessing, and I want to recognize the winner, who posted at 8:11 a.m.  The winner is dustbunny, who said: "The duct-taped banana art scam."

12 comments:

Dave Begley said...

Not acting and doing nothing is, in itself, a decision.

reader said...

I miss Mockturtle’s comments.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I don't get that "Try not to think of a chicken" thing. Not thinking about a chicken is easy. I do it all the time, . . . well, except when I'm thinking of a chicken.

rehajm said...

It’s easier to miss out on these things now that journalism is dead and the public’s opinion of the carcass is lower than a gator’s cloaca…

Christopher B said...

This does bring up the question of "what is blogging?" Is a post quite specifically identifying a topic not blogged about, actually blogging about the topic? Is it the posting itself, or what's posted?

Leland said...

Yeah, skip.

Ann Althouse said...

"This does bring up the question of "what is blogging?" Is a post quite specifically identifying a topic not blogged about, actually blogging about the topic? Is it the posting itself, or what's posted?"

Years ago, we called that "going meta."

reader said...

Similar to the argument that choosing to abstain from voting in an election is an option of one manner of participating in an election.

Kate said...

This thing has been around for 5 years? That's one mushy banana.

Anthony said...

Anything you blog about, Ann can blog about meta.

Anthony said...

After 5 years, that banana isn't going to be very eschewy.

mikee said...

The woke Jaguar ad got an Althouse post, and it was a purposeful attempt to get publicity via an outrageously unapplicable advertisement for Jaguar. See, I mentioned the brand Jaguar three times in two sentences just noting the ad's existence and Althouse's posting about it.