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Asdfjkl;
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
It’s a really cool concept. An anti-website. Its creator writes:
Web pages are funny things. They try their hardest to get whatever the creator wants to say out to as many people as possible trying every tactic to attract and hold on to visitors…Typically. But of course I just want to be different. I’m not going to give you any information. I’m not going to try to sell you anything. I’m not going to preach anything. Because I’m different. I’m also going to ask you to be different, too. You see, a website that does not deliver information is useless. But like I said, I’ve washed my hands of that job and I’m leaving it to you. I want YOU to talk to me.
So go ahead. Tell me something interesting. Tell me about how your day went. Tell me about ancient Roman trade routes. Tell me a funny joke. Anything at all. This is your website now and I am your audience.
The offer to rant about Roman trade routes to a total stranger was just too good to pass up, so I typed in a message (to my surprise, one fairly free of all things Roman). It’s an interesting feeling, writing at an unresponsive conversant behind a – literally – black screen. Something almost Big Brotherish, but even more strangely, voluntarily so. It’s also very therapeutic. You can rant all you like and know that someone will read your message, without having to worry about ever knowing their response or being judged.
Once I submitted the message, the website gave me a link to what it calls its “multiplayer version,” Two Cans and String (I’m not going to link to it: that would ruin the fun!). From the looks of it it seemed to be Asdfjkl;-meets-PostSecret, but it was unfortunately much less exciting than either one. The questions that people have submitted are petty and not interesting enough to answer, and at the time of this writing, the response to my question has yet to arrive – which is much too slow to keep my attention.
