Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Directory Assistance
My high school maintains an online alumni directory that is sort of a hoot. It's somehow really fascinating to me to find out who went on to be a cat groomer and who got married three times in two and a half years. I also like it when people tell obvious lies, such as maintaining they are astronauts based out of Des Moines or that they have been knighted. And then there are always people's fascinating rhetorical choices, such as ending a biographical entry with "huggles and snuggles" or "xoxo." That's a little bit more love than I generally expect to find online without turning over my credit card number.
Of course, my own profile is incredibly simple and fact based -- essentially just the information that someone would be able to torture out of me. Naturally I carefully tested it with a number of focus groups before posting it, finally settling on a version that test audiences found "warm" and "compelling" without being "too aggressive." And this was back in the early days of the Internet, so I had to crowd it up with amusing clip art and wait twenty minutes for it to upload. I'm thinking about revising it now, though, possibly in the style of William Faulkner. I also of course want to include something about that hilarious time I fucked Abe Lincoln.
My high school maintains an online alumni directory that is sort of a hoot. It's somehow really fascinating to me to find out who went on to be a cat groomer and who got married three times in two and a half years. I also like it when people tell obvious lies, such as maintaining they are astronauts based out of Des Moines or that they have been knighted. And then there are always people's fascinating rhetorical choices, such as ending a biographical entry with "huggles and snuggles" or "xoxo." That's a little bit more love than I generally expect to find online without turning over my credit card number.
Of course, my own profile is incredibly simple and fact based -- essentially just the information that someone would be able to torture out of me. Naturally I carefully tested it with a number of focus groups before posting it, finally settling on a version that test audiences found "warm" and "compelling" without being "too aggressive." And this was back in the early days of the Internet, so I had to crowd it up with amusing clip art and wait twenty minutes for it to upload. I'm thinking about revising it now, though, possibly in the style of William Faulkner. I also of course want to include something about that hilarious time I fucked Abe Lincoln.
