What you see before you germinated from two pivotal (read “life altering”) conversations jjk, gregv and I had. The first was a discussion on the idiosyncrasies in the way in which people interface with technology. The crux of the discussion can be distilled to a single question.
If a person is capable of posting a “for sale” sign on a site such as craigslist, a feat which requires familiarity with and knowledge about many things internet, why is not this person also capable of posting pictures of the item in question?
Any one who has spent more than ten minutes browsing such classifieds sites will instantly recognize the phrase “email for pics”. It is a source of resentment and frustration for many: “Just show it to me!” For the seasoned, however, the phrase goes unseen: filtered into “look elsewhere” like cockroaches in a restaurant.
A person posting such an “email for pics” listing can be stereotyped in several, not mutually incompatible ways.
The person is lazy. There are many free photo sharing sites on the market. On most of them, an account is fantastically easy to set up and use (such as Flickr, my personal favorite). The person can’t be bothered.
The person relishes in the small amount of power he or she feels. A potential customer is forced into making some contact with the seller in order to even determine if the product is worth spending any time considering: the customer must spend time to see if time is worth being spent. The seller enjoys both the dramatic irony and the inconvenience.
The person is naive thinking he or she is part of some greater community. The contact required in buying the item (or in even finding out if the item is worth buying – see previous point), makes this person feel as though some real connection has been formed between buyer and seller. Through such shared experiences, the seller believes he or she has entered into a fulfilling community of like minded people (see next point).
The person is, in some way, savvy. “Email for pics” is a piece of modern day jargon. The phrase simply would not have made sense ten years ago (“Email what? What sort of ‘pics’? What is a ‘pic’? …email?”), but today it is instantly identifiable to so called “netizens” “everywhere”. The person may be a poser, but even affectation requires a twisted form of wisdom.
The second pivotal conversation went something along the lines of, “That’s a good name for a website.”
To that end, in that vein, toward such a purpose, beside ourselves, through the woods and behind enemy lines, this site was created. None of us knows what this site is for, exactly. Initially, at least, themes of “laziness”, “jargon”, and “community” may or may not be prevalent. Likely, we all have our own, potentially conflicting ideas. All the better.
Registration is open to all our friends, and indeed encouraged. That is, if you’re a like-minded, savvy netizen such as ourselves looking for a rich community in which to share ideas having failed to find such a forum to date due to the monumental amount of effort it requires to initiate contact with people.
No, but really. Sign up and post.