He's A Hustler, Baby, Just Want You To Know.
Ok, so, I'm not really sure how to put this delicately, but there's something that's been kind of in the back of my mind for a while and I need to put it to rest. It has to do with something pretty popular and well known, something that people are kind of not acknowledging and I figure, what the hell. I'm going to say it and I don't care what happens. (Kind of.)
So, let's talk about Jason Kottke. You probably know that in February he decided to blog as a job. He asked for donations from readers, justifying that Kottke.org is a lot like a magazine and maybe donate if you've been reading a while. It's a totally interesting, innovative and creative way to do things, so I had no problem giving him some money just like a lot of other people did. A lot of other people.
A little while after his fund drive - yeah, the one that *I* supported with my *cash* - Kottke went to Paris. No big deal, I thought, maybe he hasn't been on a trip in a while. Good for him! He's an innovator! Then in what seemed like a few weeks later, he went to Ireland. Ok. Soooooo maybe he needed another trip, yeah, that's all, because he's like...blogging really hard, or something. I mean, I haven't been on vacation in over a year now, but whatever, obviously linking to news articles all day takes a lot of time and effort and should be rewarded. Now, he's planning a trip to some rural area and asking for tips on internet options since he'll be there for "a few months."
HHmmmm. Ok, so, how do I say this politely... Uhm, how about, when I had a "job," going to another city and not "working" was called "vacation," and it was something you "earned" after a while "on the job." Right? Am I right with this thinking? That jetting off to Europe twice in three months is, oh gee I don't know, a little excessive?? I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN TO EUROPE!
I'm not so sure if this is ol'Kott's way of saying Gosh, this blogging for a career was waaay more exhausting than I thought it would be and, boy, do I need a vacation! Or maybe it's him saying, WOW, look at all this money I raked in, whatever will I do with all these spare thousands of dollars? I'll tell you what you can do with them: you can start by giving me my money back, with interest, and maybe a fucking progress report about what you've been doing all this time I thought you were supposed to be doing something new and different in the name of personal publishing.
This one time, I knew a lady who bought a whole new bedroom set from this ritzy furniture store that everyone had been all abuzz about. She spent a good $5K on a bed and some nightstands and a dresser, and on the day they were supposed to be delivered no one showed up. So she called the store and got a machine, and then the next day she called again and got a machine. Puzzled, she drove over to the store to find it BOARDED UP and abandoned...and they'd left with her $5,000! Apparently the place just took her money and left town and she was left there kind of saying to herself, "What. The fuck??"
The moral of this story is don't get fooled by the buzz. Sure, Kottke's probably made some kind of history by being the first dude to publicly ask for money to read The Superficial and Defamer all day, but there's a word for people who spend more time vacationing than they do working. And it's called "lazy." Personally, I think I'd much rather read more interesting content from someone I'm not paying than shell out a few bucks to pay for someones plane ticket to Europe.
For the record, I do kind of feel like Kottke scammed a bunch of people into making us pay his rent for a year, but I was a willing participant in that scamming by shelling out some cash and encouraging others to do so *before* really considering what his whole plan was about. I just read this morning that now Kottke's sick and taking the day off to watch movies, and I'm thinking Ok, so he gets sick days here too. Wasn't really expecting that! But what am I going to do about it? I mean, besides posting a weblog entry about it in the hopes that maybe it gets back to him with a biting sting.
Back when his whole little fund-drive happened, I think a lot of people donated as a means to show gratitude for a site that has been a driving force in personal web publishing for years and years. But there were some of us who took the whole blogging as a career thing more seriously, wanting to actually see where this would take him, and were committing ourselves to seeing it through until the end of the year financially and by maintaining or increasing his site traffic.
It's not like I just *gave* him some money, I donated it to his little cause under the guise of technically being - along with hundreds of others - his employer for a year. No matter how he wants to justify his routine because he never told anyone anything specific about what his plans were, yada yada yada, the point is "blogging for a living" to Kottke apparently means "having my rent paid, getting a free office space, going on vacation, going on vacation, going on vacation and then taking a sick day."
I'm not going to get into semantics here, but suffice it to say when you make certain sacrifices in life, like quitting your job to sit on your ass all day in front of your computer to recycle links from Waxy, you give up some of those things you may otherwise "earn." Furthermore, if you convince other people to pay your bills so you can read weblogs all day, you owe them a bit of an explanation of your daily goings on. But then again, this may just be a genius, genius attempt to breeze through life on someone else's dime. And to that I say, Mr. Kottke, you've done quite well for yourself. Quite well indeed.
UPDATE: Yeah, I just realized this post might rake in a few more visitors than I anticipated, so if you found this post alarming, interesting or idiotic, feel free to give me $2 via Paypal. I promise to not board up my windows and run off with your coffee money, but I might take myself to Europe for my birthday. (Good idea, Scott!)
