August 05, 2004
Fine, Don’t Make Us Your
Fine, Don’t Make Us Your Homepage
As even the casual e-stroller must know by now, the fancier “web-pages”—those belonging to, say, The (London) Telegraph and Arts & Letters Daily—all boast an exhortation to e-visitors to make them their “homepage.” The idea, we suppose, is to lure the desultory viewer of the "website" into becoming a chronic viewer.Are we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” the only people who find these “Make Us Your Homepage” features irksome? We aren’t quite sure what bothers us so much; perhaps we collectively detest the notion that we can’t decide for ourselves what our “homepage” is going to be. We mean, come on: If you can’t trust us with that niggling decision, how are you going to trust us with anything?
Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have decided to spend today’s edition of our humble “weblog” browbeating readers with:
The First Official Passive-Aggressive Exhortation Not To Make Us Your “Homepage”:
Do you, dear reader, delight in the mercilessly mirthful animadversions of the crack young staff? Sure you do. We all do. Even Robert Reich. But that doesn’t mean that you should make us your “homepage,” now does it? Heck no.
Just because we spend (literally) hours of our lives slaving away at dime-store computers in order to provide you with a daily dose of humor doesn’t mean that you should reward us by making us your “homepage.” After all, there’s plenty of pornography and other salubrious “webbery” that deserves your copious free time.
Sure, we have helpfully offered a bevy of links for our readers—everything from the delightfully named Llamabutchers to the American Tarantula Society. But that doesn’t mean you owe us anything.
So, if you want to make us cry like red-headed step-children, don’t bother making us your “homepage.” We’re sure that The New York Times will really appreciate you making it your “homepage” instead: After all, it’s not as if they get lots of readers.
