Words for My Enjoyment

Words For Your Enjoyment: Katrina Badgering

September 16th, 2005

I once knew a guy who would incessantly walk around the office on Fridays and everytime he’d walk past a female co-worker he’d say, “Hey! There’s my girl Friday!” and when the ladies would give him a strange look of sad desperation he would say, “You know. Friday. You’re a girl. Girl Friday is also a famous line from, uh, something?” He took all the excitement out of Friday and ruined the best day of the week as successfully and unknowingly as he could.

I try to forget about this individual on days like today. And WFYE sort of does the trick.

This week’s question comes from new WFME reader (and star of Bravo’s Situation Comedy), Mark. He asks, “At what point can I take down my Hurricane Katrina Badge off my blog without seeming like an asshole?”"

It’s good when people call themselves names, and I don’t have to.

But isn’t this the type of question people probably ask themselves on a daily basis and throughout their lives but never have the courage to vocalize to any of their friends? It’s not specific to the heart-breaking Katrina disaster but doesn’t it concern each and every potentially catastrophic or evil moment that has affected our families, friends and country over the course of our lifetime and which we support via our online sites?

Is there not a moment where it is finally OK to take that stinkin’ badge or that donation button or that list of links off our sites and allow everyone to move on without making ourselves the subject of ridicule?

I say yes.

In order to most successfully determine the EXACT PERFECT time when it is OK to take down your current badge of any kind off your website, we must instead use a metaphor for a totally unrelated subject that affects all of us in our daily life. That one subject?

Hats.

For example, many people wear hats and leave them on until their hair gets all matted and they haven’t taken a shower in days and they get oily and gross and their hair that’s sticking out from the corners of the hat appear to no longer be well-conditioned hair but the strands combine to form thicker obviously unwashed stalks of color. Often, people who leave badges up on their blogs for too long start to see the code being affected by such a thing. The blog changes and evolves around the logo that people are desperate to keep on — but suddenly there comes a point where it’s just not jiving anymore. This is, of course, one of the times in which it should be okay to remove said badge. The same goes for people who never wash their hats, which get grimy and smelly. If this happens to your badge — it’s time to take it down and give it a good wash and fold if you get my point.

People also wear hats, sometimes, in the most inopportune of places. There are social graces when it comes to NOT wearing a hat in certain situations: at funerals, at the dinner table, at somber or serious events. Out of respect. There are times when you should be required to take off your hat and this goes the same for that badge on your site. There comes a moment when everybody has joined together and shared in the support of those who are less fortunate and those who have been affected — and then, out of respect, the badging should be done. When is that moment? It’s that moment of respect — when it’s time to stop concentrating on relief and it’s time to start concentrating on recovery.

People sometimes wear hats for the logo ON the hat. People sometimes don’t wear hats to protect their heads or to keep the sun out of their face, but they wear hats because of the cool logo on the front of it. I.e., they’re wearing that hat not to wear a hat, but for the publicity and notoriety that comes with the LOGO on the hat. Same goes for badges on your site. If you’ve got one up because everyone else does or because the logo is cool — it’s time to take it down. A badge doesn’t go up because it’s a badge — it goes up because there’s a real reason for using it.

Oh, and let’s not forget that people wear hats backwards. Some people think it looks stupid. If your badge is on your blog and the graphic has been inserted into your website’s code so that it looks upside down, mis-shaped or backwards…it’s time to take down the damn thing because you are doing more harm than good by messing up the badge in the first place. Remove it. Now. Before someone else does it for you.

Hats. Badges. Two totally different things that taste great together. Wait. Er… Two totally different things that have one thing in common:

You wear it as long as it makes sense to wear it. But when it’s time has come and gone, you’re gonna know it. And that, my friends, is when you take the damn thing down.

If you follow these simple allegorical hat rules of thumb, you won’t look like an asshole.

No how, no way.

Posted under Blogging, Katrina, WFYE. |