I’ve noticed that wishlists are popular among bloggers. Here is my evidence for that statement:
- Most of the blogs I read have a link to a wishlist, generally hosted at Amazon.com.
- Daypop is tracking more than 800 wishlists and more than 20,000 items.
- Noah Grey, creator of , lists someone as having donated if they contribute at least $10 by PayPal – or send him something from his wishlist.
- A Google returns nearly 30,000 results.
And so on. This strikes me as peculiar, because because of their wishlists. What makes a blogger more deserving of gifts, or less deserving of stigma?
Some years ago, I made my way into Yahoo’s directory (in the , a dubious honor) with what I called the . (Yahoo has since cleared the dead link from their database, a rare occurrence.) This was essentially just a homemade wishlist, but it somehow got minor attention; I received lots of “what are you, insane?” and “you greedy bitch” e-mails. I turned it into a wishlist at , and things quieted down; somebody eventually bought me something from the list.
Because I am an incurable listmaker, today I keep not one but several wishlists. Having gone round the track and returned, I’ve resurrected the gimme page as a meta-list of wishlists.
nice
H.G. Wells put it best, though he wasn’t talking about camgirls: “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” People hassle camgirls because they wish, deep down, that they could do it themselves. Granted, some of these really young kids marketing their bods is disturbing, but there are laws to keep that from getting out of hand.
Anyway, being one of those bloggers that has a wish list that I link to periodically, I can only say that I do it because I like getting gifts. I frequently buy gifts for other people for no reason (ask Jen), so there’s no reason it couldn’t happen to me.
Also, my blog is read by members of my family, and by my friends, some of whom buy me gifts on occasions like birthdays, major holidays, and so forth, so having the list serves a genuine purpose.
Those who get up in arms about posted wish lists are of the same mindset Wells referred to in his above quotation: they can’t stand the idea that someone else might get something, while they get nothing. That’s jealousy in disguise, and nothing more.
Well.. there is no harm in letting others know what you want. What if you get lucky and someone drops you a birthday present!