Two Things...

[pyat]

Sales of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged have quadrupled in the first four months of the year.

The founder of 4chan has been named the Most Influential Person in the World by Time. Cause, you know, everyone outside of the English-speaking Internet knows ALL about him!

Both these things irritate me!

Comments

If you read the subtext

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

Time has as much as said that this was _supposed_ to happen. It's a good story. The editor is quoted as saying something of the effect of "It's an online poll - this sort of shenanigans is kind of the point."

And it's not enough to say that Moot was Most Influential - they also rigged the whole top 20 to read "mARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME".

I still find the news media's fascination with 4chan somehwat ironic, given that, despite moderators' best efforts, a lot of illegal porn flies around there.

I mean, how do they rationalize "omg, 4chan is cool - they make all the memes we joke about, and they're going after Scientology!" with "omg, pedophiles!"