Some of you may know that I love Reddit (and now, I guess, you all know that. And while we're in this parenthetical, is it weird that I say "you" when writing to a few million people, many of whom I'm never going to actually meet? Is it weird to be so familiar? I think saying "dear readers" or "my readers" would be even more strange. I hate the term "my ____" because it implies ownership, and that's just ... really, really not how I roll. Wow, this is a neurotic and rambling parenthetical, isn't it? I guess I'll end it now and go back to the post at hand. Let's never speak of this again.)
Recently on BoingBoing, Cory said this of Reddit, which sums up why it is the online community where I spend pretty much all of my online community time (yeah, that's a line item in the time budget):
...it's just as possible to build a society on social norms of mutual aid, compassion and whimsy as it is to build one on juvenile, meanspirited trolling and cynicism.
It's not too hard to find people who are being dicks, just like anywhere else in the world, but Reddit self-corrects better than any other online communityI've ever been part of. I have some theories on this, but I think it's because the core of Reddit users are all people who left other sites because they wanted to spend their online community time at a place where people weren't dicks, and protecting that (leading by example, usually) is important to us.
So, there. Now you know why I love Reddit so much (and here's me at Reddit, if you care about that sort of thing.)
All of this is preamble to the real purpose of this post: to point out an auction I'm doing with the Reddit admins to raise money and awareness for Fly With Dignity (or EFF, if Fly With Dignity doesn't need it).
Back in 2009, when reddit's first iPhone app launched, kn0thing made a commercial featuring the underused marketing line, "More fun than LARPing with Wil Wheaton!"
Shortly thereafter, we had the motto laser-etched onto the back of a top-of-the-line 16GB iPod Touch and asked Wil to sign it (he's a avid redditor, of course.) We figured we could pick a charity and auction it off. I mean, who wouldn't want a piece of technology signed by this guy?
As the kids say, read the whole thing (because it's funny, and contains pictures and video that 4 out of 5 Bothans found quite amusing, and saves me the hassle of copying the whole thing.)
In addition to a spiffy and nearly-obsolete iPod Touch that is actually signed by me OMG, I'm adding a signed copy of the super swanky leather-bound and slip-cased Subterranean Press edition of The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I'm also including the audio versions of Just A Geek and Happiest Days of our Lives (it is an iPod, after all) and all existing episodes of Radio Free Burrito and Memories of the Futurecast.
