PayolaPerPost

The following events outlined in this week's comic actually occured. Amongst other things, I was explaining to a stone buddha how atrocious "PayPerPost" was for the internet. For those uninitiated, "PayPerPost" is an internet scheme scam whereby people will be payed to blog about a product or politician in exchange for their soul. It is the internet's payola scheme, and will inevitably end with a scandal for anyone who participates (but not before doing serious damage to blogging as a credible publishing medium) Fortunately for you guys, noone is ever likely to want to pay me to talk about the superiority of "bronze buddhas", so it's stone buddha's and poverty for me.

Hey Man, Slow down!

Anyway, Stone Buddha was very interested in this huge insurmountable problem us mere mortals have encountered. He also offered that not only would the "PayPerPost" problem pass, but so too would "News Blogs" and "Neophilia" in general. This is a society where, if alive today, a new DaVinci painting, or Shakespearian Sonnet would appear on the front page of Digg for two days of enormous traffic, only to be superceded by a torrent of Apple news. It works this way because it is a system that appeals to people's egos - people want to be the first. They want to find the information first, publish it first and comment on it first, then move on. The speed that this occurs in today's world is blistering. Even writing an article on a news event has a 1 day window at best. After the initial adrenalin rush of being "first", people tire of the idea and seek out the next shiny new thing to absorb without examining, developing, comprehending or acting upon the information they've been given. You're presented with an infinite fingerfood buffet and no toilet (for want of a better analogy) & you're left feeling full, but unfulfilled.

Payola & Neophilia is out! Stone Buddha is in!