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tag me with a spoon
12/29/2005 = 06:36 PM

Many of you already know the deal with a meme: You copy the instructions into your blog, then you follow the instructions, the last one of which is usually to "tag" a given number of people to do the same.

The meme is designed to perform two tasks: tell your readers a little something about yourself, give you a little food-for-thought, and stimulate your creativity. Three tasks. Sorry, I'll come in again.

The meme is designed to perform three tasks: tell your readers a little something about yourself, give you a little food-for-thought, stimulate your creativity, and propagate itself around the internet.

As you can see, there are two things I'm not really good at: counting.

Anyway, with the meme, I tend to copy the instructions, follow them or adjust them to my own preferences, and tag no one at all.

I will admit that I used to tag, because it was part of the instructions, but I changed my tune, given how I feel about being tagged, myself. I now believe that the "tagging" bit of the meme is impolite, and the ignoring of a tag is perfectly acceptable, because I've found that some people, myself included, really don't like being told what we ought to be writing.

I do a meme if I choose to do so (usually because I'm either strapped for material or genuinely interested in the meme's premise), and for no other reason. This is also why, if I don't like the original instructions, I tweak them to suit myself.

(Kind of how I approach religion, too, but that's neither here nor there.)

Again, I tag no one. If someone chooses to do it and let me know, I'll "tag" them after the fact.

If someone tags me, I try (very gently, if they're new and don't know of my dislike of the tag) to let them know that I'm not going to do it, but thank you for thinking of me.

If I see someone say, "I'm tagging Golf Widow, even though I know she hates being tagged!" that's another story. I might or might not do the meme, but if I do, instead of linking the tagger, I put something like, "I can't remember where I got this," or "This is going around all over the place."

That ought to be, as they say, that.

But yesterday, I saw what I think had to have been the most ultimate breach in memetiquette I've ever witnessed.

Not only did this person tag people who don't really want to be tagged ... he or she didn't even actually do the meme.

I forget which one it was, five weird habits I think. Anyway, the post said something like, "I couldn't think of anything, so I'm just passing it on to the five people without doing it myself."

If we look at the (how many was it, four?) purposes behind the meme, let's see how many got covered:

1. tell your readers a little something about yourself
   "I'm lazy."
2. give you a little food-for-thought
   "I don't care enough to put any thought into this."
3. stimulate your creativity
   "I had no reason for actually copying this meme into my blog, because I'm not doing it."
4. propogate itself around the internet
   "Yay, traffic to my site without any effort on my part."

If you don't want to do the meme, don't. It should never even make a cameo in your blog.

I'm just relieved I don't work with this person. Imagine how much of his or her job you would wind up doing whilst he or she picks up the paycheck for it.

Now that you've sat patiently through my rant, I guess I ought to do a meme.

I might as well go for the five weird habits one. I've seen a number of people doing it, and one person varied it to be "Five Weird Habits as a Hobbit", which is vastly clever, and if you're not already reading TranceJen, you might just as well close this browser window and go there now, because she is one of those writers I want to be when I grow up.

I could never top the Hobbit thing, so I'm going to do:

Five Weird Habits ... as a Rabbit

1. When someone makes me angry, I stew about it.
2. When I shower, the first part I wash is my hare.
3. When I was a kid, I was very self-conscious about the size of my ears and used to keep them covered whenever possible.
4. When I order hot wings, I always ask for extra crudité. It's like I can't justify all that fried fatty hot sauce and bleu cheese unless I balance it with extra carrots and celery.
5. My favorite drinking beer from the Ommegang brewery is their main brand, but I also like the Rare Vos, especially for cooking. It's comparatively lower in alcohol (6½% alcohol) than the other Ommegang beers, and a little spicy. So not only does it make the best Welsh Rabbit (heh), but it gives me a certain amount of satisfaction to consume a beer whose name translates to "sly fox."

If you do this, and want a link back, let me know. I'll add a link to you here and pretend I tagged you beforehand. If you don't want to do it, the meme monsters will come in the night and eat your toes. Not.

RETROTAG:

Enid Here

More Language Brain Confetti

You know those data collection plotters that indicate the trends in a given set of criteria? When they slope upward sharply, like a long-necked African animal, oughtn't they to be spelled "giraphs"? Or, possibly, "graffes?"

It's official: Dave Barry's column isn't coming back next year.

I blame myself. All year, I read his blog and told him he was good at what he was doing for fun, instead of saying, "Don't quit your day job."

drinking: maudite
listening to: Twisted Sister, SMF
what's cooking: steak and baked potato soup