Kate Wagner (most well known for McMansion Hell) is assigned to attend and write about an F1 Grand Prix race:
She writes ~5,500 words and they're wonderful. Evocative, funny, insightful. She manages to capture something true (sometimes flattering, sometimes not) about Formula 1. Some samples:
I think if you wanted to turn someone into a socialist you could do it in about an hour by taking them for a spin around the paddock of a Formula 1 race. No need for corny art singing tribute to the worker or even for the Manifesto. Never before had I seen so many wealthy people gathered all in one place. If a tornado came through and wiped the whole thing out, the stock market would plummet and the net worth of a country the size of Slovenia would vanish from the ledgers in a day.
Formula 1, again like sword fighting, is about an economy of motion. Noise is a hallmark of mechanical inefficiency. When mechanical systems work well, they work quietly. Noise at its core is excess energy.
Hamilton distinguished himself by the lines he cut along the corner and the loudness of his engine, that pushing. We heard over a loudspeaker that he had finished third, a remarkable improvement above the last two sprints, where he lagged behind in the midfield. This made everyone in our camp happy. They always called him by his first name. It reminded me of how I used to talk about cyclists after I started interviewing them, with the swagger of knowing them. An SUV passed by us with a cavalcade of cars in front.
"That's Prince Harry," someone said.
I experienced firsthand the intended effect of allowing riffraff like me, those who distinguish themselves by way of words alone, to mingle with the giants of capitalism and their cultural attachés. It is to give this anointed everyman a taste of the good life, to make them feel like a prince for a day, and that if they do this with enough scribblers they will write nice words and somehow ameliorate the divide between the classes.
Sadly, I suffer from an unprofitable disease that makes me only ever capable of writing about the experience I'm having. The doctors say it's terminal.
After 10 hours the article is taken down and it blows up. Thanks to the Internet Archive (one of the great wonders of the Internet, next to Wikipedia), a snapshot of the article is passed around. The quality of the writing becomes overshadowed by the symbolism of some writing being censored because it says "mean" things about people with power. The act backfires, instead of suppressing an idea, the act of censorship causes it to spread.
This is commonly known as The Streisand Effect, after an incident where lawyers representing Barbra Streisand (praise be) tried to suppress a picture of her home published on the internet:
This is commonly known as The Streisand Effect, after an incident where lawyers representing Barbra Streisand (praise be) tried to suppress a picture of her home published on the internet:
"Image 3850" had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand's lawsuit, two of those being by Streisand's attorneys. Public awareness of the case led to more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the following month.
I'm a big fan of Kate Wagner and I'm almost certain I would not have found or read this article. But I'm glad I did. It's wonderful. Worth every second of your time.
Needless to say, the nothingness of the response from the editor and chief of Road & Track magazine only creates another round of attention. Saying "it's totally mundane" means people are primed to think the exact opposite (it's a big deal!).
I don't remember where I read this (I think it was Jason Fried), but it applies to this situation and many others.
You have two choices:
- It's not a big deal.
- It's a huge deal.
Whichever choice you pick, others will pick the opposite.