The Spirit of The Best Stuff in the World (TBSITW)
Posted by Adrian
TBSITW guys and girls are passionate about a lot of things (stuff). We are lovers of life. We love the people around us. We love our relationships. We love intimacy. We love our food. And we love our drink. We go out to find nice restaurants. We love to stay at home and explore food in the kitchen. We love smells. We love our senses. We love ice-cream. We love our music, we have eclectic tastes. We love our film. We love the environment. We love technology. We love the internet. We love knowledge. We love cheese. We love to laugh. We love to create. We love our past, because it makes us the people we are. We love a good read. We love when things come together. We love when things work out. We love personality and character. We love honesty and passion. We love learning. We love people who have the balls to do something positive for this world. We love the little things in life. We love to do things differently. We love good design. We love quality. We love cleverness. We love cool t-shirts and clothes. We love video games. We love sex and the naked body. We love to share. We love to be informed. We love good service. We love to feel. And we love to find new stuff.
If you have ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you may understand what I am getting at. Passion and Quality are intrinsic to human nature. It is how we perceive the world. As a producer when we seek to create great things and as a consumer we desire quality and craftsmanship, we are being true to ourselves.
A lot of people get that, and a lot of people don’t. I guess that is good. As Kathy Sierra said in this post, “Unless you’re willing to risk passionate hate, you may never feel the love.” The people that come to TBSITW and say “these people voted for this or that and that’s stupid”. Shit, many things on the site are not representative of what we think is the best, TBSITW is a platform. It is a platform for you to wax lyrical about the things you are passionate about. It’s a place to find the best things in any category. If you don’t like what people are voting for, find a group that likes what you like and point them to the alternative that you have created.
It’s great to have a wide cross section of visitors, voting on things in which they believe. Adding the things they love. Or making jokes. Sometimes they come in large groups and push the votes up. But we’re all adults here, we know what is going on, and it is all in the name of fun.
When you create a platform like this, with voting and that great big collage on the front page, we are bound to create a snapshot of popular culture, good or bad. Even though we want to bring the gems from the long tail to the front, the question is implementation. Maybe it is not a problem. You can explore the site and find those nuggets. It is satisfying anyway.
