so on top of getting hired last night, we also had our company holiday dinner. good times, good food, plenty of wine, and of course, a Yankee swap (also referred to yesterday as a “white elephant sale”, “elf gift exchange”, and “Chinese gift exchange”, in descending order of political correctness). I boldly went for the gift card and was pleased to find $25 to Banana Republic. By the time I realized this would get me one, possibly two pairs of socks, someone had stolen it from me. I turned down a chance to steal the G.W. Bush toilet paper and picked up a book, which turned out to be really cool. I’m pretty sure I had heard of FOUND before, but hadn’t really looked at it.
Turns out the book is hilarious, and good coffee table / bathroom reading material, which is always great. The first page I opened up to had a list a girl made about a guy that looked like this:
| Pros: | Cons: |
| a gentleman | can be pretty wussy |
| likes kids | doesn’t want kids |
Anyway, I worry that the book (mine is the sequel) suffers from the PostSecret effect, where a great idea is ruined by its own popularity and its main value, an unfiltered glimpse at raw humanity, is corrupted by a lot of people being aware of it and sending in fake entries. Some of the more recent PostSecret postcards are clearly a. professionally done and b. pandering to what the audience is already looking for. Likewise, today I heard someone actually say that they wrote down crazy stuff on their organization’s stationery and left copies everywhere, hoping someone would find it and send it in. Now that’s inefficient viral marketing.
