One Day Blog Silence
Posted on 17 Apr 2007 under Random
For starters, you may want to visit the site OneDayBlogSilence.com
I’m a cynic. I don’t know why someone would spend close to 10$ to register a domain that’s apparently meant to be used only for this one time. What would they get out of it (assuming it’s been registered from a good registrar)?
Secondly, what does silence do? What does it solve? What does it provide to the victims, or their families? 33 people died in Virginia when a student shot others, but I’m sure an equally high number of people (if not more) die in the Middle East every week. Why don’t we observe silence in honour of them?
My prediction is that OneDayBlogSilence.com will not have any ads on its page now. It’s probably going to be all about the cause, all about a day’s silence in honour of the 33 dead people at Virginia Technological University. But since they’ve asked you to “spread the word”, they’d be sure to get plenty of linkbanks and traffic. In fact, they’re even encouraging you to put the graphic up as your blog post on that day. Of course, anyone who doesn’t comply may face the insecurity of others thinking that he/she is heartless. If they get lucky, they might even be linked to as an external reference, on the wikipedia article about this tragic incident. Months (or maybe even weeks) later, maybe OneDayBlogSilence.com becomes the official “blog” resource and information page about the shootings, with many people linking to it, or promoting it with or without realization.
Now, the webmaster has a fantastic site, economically. Plenty of sites linking back, high traffic (likely), and good Page Ranks. Place a couple of not very obstrusive ads on the page, and now you have a site that’s slowly, but surely making money for you.
I’m undecided on whether I will observe blogging silence on April 30 for the sake of OneDayBlogSilence, but as of my mood right now, I highly doubt it. (I’m more likely not to be posting anything because final exams start April 30.)
PS: On the other hand, of course, I could be totally wrong about my idea about the intention behind the creation of that site. Maybe the author will never use it for personal/commercial gain, and I’m making much ado about nothing.
(5 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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You might be making a big deal out of the whole thing, I mean maybe this site was just created by a friend who knew his friend loved the internet and blogging, and in his honor, they made this site.
Then again, maybe your right.
Something on similar terms:
Why should we observe silence for the 33 VirginiaTech students? What about the thousands that die in Africa of starvation and malnutrition? Are their lives not worth enough to mourn? Does it somehow matter whether you are gunned down or starved to death? The media chooses to print High-school shootings on the front pages and yet as we speak thousands of people dying of starvation don’t even make it to the newspapers - let alone the headlines (but we DO have a Page 3 - of course they deserve space for all the cleavage ).
I mourn the deaths of those killed at VirginiaTech - but I don’t need to turn it into a public statement. Mourning isn’t a fashion statement.
Well written Gurdit - whether the page makes money or not is irrelevant - the very sight of “post the graphic to show respect ” itself was sickening enough.
Sahil,
I did say that it’s possible that I could be making a big deal out of nothing, but I still highly doubt it. If a friend of the page creator’s was a victim, he would probably have mentioned it.
Manas,
You know what? The way that site is being advertised, and the reason it’s being run, it begins to feel like mourning has become a fashion statement.
Well, I dont know, it might be an advertisement. You might be right (prolly are). In this case mourning is a fashion statement ( for the site) but on the whole what happened at VTech is a big thing.
I mean yes, why don’t we mourn those dying in Africa from starvation, we don’t because it’s not possible to. Additionaly, starvation is like… a natural thing. I know i sound so crude and immoral, but its a fact of life. There’s a difference between dying from poverty and dying from a crazy gunman at a college.
Can you blame the media? To a certain extent yes, but not really.
Again, my opinion.
Yes, no one can deny that the senseless killing of 33 students was NOT tragic.
The reason we don’t mourn the deaths of starvation or those dying in Iraq/Isreal/Palestine, in my opinion, is because that’s stuff that happens everyday. It’s nothing “sensational”, which is what the media is looking to report nowadays.
Can you really blame the media? I mean after all it is a business, which they have to run. If you think about it, they report such “sensational” news because we want “sensational” news. We don’t want to see the sad faces of all those people dying, and make ourselves feel guilty.
They have to run a business, with all this competition, this is bound to happen. And who supports their business, people do!
I have to agree with you. The world can not stop spinning on it’s axis because of this site said too. If I owned the site I would have a 300 X 250 Google ad, and make money, but I have always been more business oriented than compassionate. But, you have to admit it does seem like a waste of a lot of great traffic.
Not anymore… I just checked out the link, looks like it’s dead.