Dear CNN,
Okay really now. It’s time for an intervention.
I know you’re trying to get into this whole Web 2.0 thing. Even though you may not grasp what it is (and who does really? Web 2.0 is a contrived construct… a catchphrase. In itself, it means nothing), you’re trying really, really hard to wrap yourself up in this candy sheen veneer of The New Web Hawtness.
And it just isn’t working.
First there was that whole CNN Video thing. You got all caught up in the need to be all You Tubey, and decided to pepper your site with annoying, commercial ridden video clips (though only after your first attempt, a subscription based pay-for-video model, failed miserably). And then you kinda forgot that a lot of the Web 2.0 faddists are Mac users and even Linux geeks, and made your video incompatible with their computers. Whoops.
But that brain fart doesn’t quite compare to what I began noticing lately on your website. Namely, these teeny tiny little icons that looked like t-shirts. After sitting there and scratching my head, wondering what they could be, I finally clicked on one. And then I saw this monstrosity:
Oh, Joy. Apparently you thought we’d feel all Hip & Cool if we put random headlines on T-Shirts, with the CNN logo. And bought them… and presumably you think we should wear them. Oh Ho! You should be so lucky.
So let me get this straight. You think it would be teh hawtness if someone like me bought such a shirt and felt Scene++ as I pick up chicks with suave lines like “Hey baby, did you know that Ethopian Children are Dying Daily From Starvation? Yeah. I saw it on CNN. My t-shirt says so!”
Yeah, I’m so gonna score that way.
Seriously CNN, who in your moronic marketing department came up with this crap? And why weren’t they laughed out of the building, carrying their box o’ office trinkets en route to the unemployment office?
And if you REALLY think people will want this waste of fabric, then… why do you still exist?
Oh, one more thing. You really should consider checking what headlines are allowed for t-shirt creation. Or else you can find yourself stuck with lots of shirts like these.
