BloggingOn x.3 - Busting My Own Spot

(I really hope that means what Brett thinks it means)

In my meeting with Colin last week he suggested that I find an analog equivalent that might help me discuss linking in my final paper. Then, rather fortuitously, I happened upon this.

How many tags do you have up? Probably close to a
thousand, and it's not just me. There's a bunch of people that do it. There has
been a bunch of people, but it's down to about five different people actively
writing it now. There's people in Bangor doing it. It's in Canada, it's in
Mexico, it's from California to Maine. Every stop on the Greyhound from
California to Maine has it.

The link is many things to many people in many different contexts and situations with many purposes both useful and otherwise, but it occurred to me that one analog for the link is "tagging" or "the whole-car".

Three Bulls' flavor crystals meme is a perfect example (3Bulls, btw, are not unlike a graffiti crew of yore). I posted this yesterday. Later in the day this showed up in my comments (another interesting link-event, fouroboros appears to be responsible for this).

BloggerA throws-up a meme (perhaps the more inane the better) and then, thanks to BloggerB + friends, it gets plastered all over the internet.

At the outset, a top-to-bottom or whole-car was graffiti that covered an entire subway or train car. Your tag (not unlike a screen-name, both semi-personal and semi-anonymous) travelled the five boroughs, or it screamed your "name" across the continental US. I know the link and the meme are collapsing on one another in this discussion... the link is the conduit by which the meme travels.