Morning Thoughts the Morning After

The largely spontaneous way in which blippers from around the world responded to a call for solidarity yesterday was both uplifting and emotional. People who have never showed their faces did so yesterday. People who hate having their pictures taken stood before the camera with their arms and hearts wide open. Those who preferred anonymity found another way People told their stories. People who felt jaded, beleaguered, or uninspired suddenly realized that it was not the photos, or even necessarily the text of their journals that were important to them, it was the realization that it was the real friendships that they had made through this unique site that were priceless and irreplaceable. 

I am not wildly optimistic about what I have read regarding the prospective purchase of Blipfoto. I have only read a couple of commentaries from business journals, but the fact that we, who stood hand in hand yesterday around the globe, were being referred to as "assets" to be "leveraged" and "monitized" gives me a queasy feeling. Yes, Blipfoto is definitely an addiction, but I am just not cynical enough to believe that we have, or can be manipulated into that addiction by some corporate entity.

 Call me a naive dreamer, but that kind of response doesn't happen overnight as part of a business model. It was a bunch of human beings realizing that they might lose something they cared deeply about, something they created by "being excellent to each other" and spontaneously expressing that feeling. If that is an addiction, I am proud to call myself a Blipfoto addict.

That my friends, is power, and I can only hope that it will see us through whatever comes next. Just don't call me an "asset".

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