Why I’m Not Entering The Linky-Linky-Mac-Link-Link Awards

It’s that time of year again when the award for “Person Who Linked To The Most Cool Shit” gets handed at out at the International Linky-Linky-Mac-Link-Link Awards.

I know they’re quite prestigious and there’s a lot of buzz in the

“Wow I just found this on ffffound/digg/farq/boing-boing/stumbleupon and I’m obviously the
only person who visits those sites so I’ve got to share it lulz”

community but I just can't do it this year. I’ve trawled through my inbox for cool stuph™ but I don’t feel up to boring the living fuck out of people with shit they’ve already seen or tricking them with tinyurl links in my twitter, so they have no idea that they’re clicking on the same God damn thing your mom emailed you the day before, complete with animated .gifs and auto-play midi files.

Don't these people have enough of a superiority complex, these brave, fearless internet pioneers? I mean, isn’t there enough uber-ego building street cred in just being known locally as “Someone really in touch with link-farms”?

And don’t the

“Wow, that guy’s really cool by association, it’s almost like he was involved in the thing he’s linking to”

comments warm your cold, jaded, digital heart?

Do we really need an awards show for this?

I don’t think so. I think it’s time we all just became better linkers. Instead of rewarding one individual linky-mac-linkenstien, let’s just all lift our game a bit and ask ourselves these questions before we make people across the internet want to punch us in the throat.

1. Is it on the front fucking page of youtube.com?

Don’t link it.

2. Is it older than two years?

Unless you have a time machine, don’t fucking link it.

3. Does it already have over 1000 diggs/reddits/farqs (is that a word)?

Don’t link it.

4. Does it actually interest anyone but me?

Save it in your bookmarks and bring it up during casual dinner conversation, don’t cite your sources and pretend that you came up with your theories on your own. People will want to subscribe to your newsletter.

5. Is it a survey that will determine what type of stalagmite I am?

I will hunt you down.

Maybe if we all just raised our game, there’d be no need for the awards and we could all coexist on the internet, forever, in peace.

Style shamelessly stolen from Maddox and Bill Hicks.