Yup, flickr is the land of maybe more than the land of 10,000 memes, maybe it is the long tail for photographic odd-topics.
Today, I got an invite to join the “spread that love” flickr group (which explains why I had to fish it out of the junk mail folder!). So here is the meme for this group:
Take your favourite sandwich or toast spread on an excursion outdoors for a day or so. Show the world how much you love it, and take some interesting photos of it as you go, (compile them into a small set of say 5 to 10 images), by which I mean “on location” outside your house, we want to see whacky and weird places you can get away with photographing your favourite spread.
This started with some photos of Marmite and “Reggie” the Vegemite on their excursions. Is this silly? It is in the eye of the beholder, but witness that at least 30 other people have joined. This could not have happened ever before in history without the net, without flickr, and without a bunch of people who love their spreads.
I was wondering what I did to deserve the honor? Ah, it’s my own fault.
But an important lesson emerges from this silliness (or not so silly if you are a professional photographer of yeast food extracts)…. flickr as a technology enables and facilitates a social space, online community if you will, but not by itself. People and shared purpose are what make an online community thrive or die. So do not expect any technology to do the job alone.
