/Threaded/ Curious collections
06/07/2006 | Filed under Discover > Threaded
Oliver Lindberg discovers that the Internet is really just a giant virtual showcase of collections…
My mother collects stamps and elks of any shape or form, my gran is obsessed with little crystal glass sculptured animals, and our art monkey (the guy who designed this page, no less) has a special attachment to sandwich bag ties and vintage copies of the Metro. Unfortunately, most collections have only a sad existence in albums, glass cabinets or on desks, so it’s hard to show the world what a sad, er... eager collector you are. Of course, you could always hit the road with your collection, like the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things (www.worldslargestthings.com). But what if you want as many people as possible to share your OCD? And what if you collect belches or facts on the number 37? How do you showcase these? Log on, tune in and drop out: twenty-first century collecting all takes place on the internet.
Everybody collects something, and if it’s only some belly button fluff (www.feargod.net/fluff.html). It gives our lives a purpose. And where else but on the internet can you find the most obsessive-compulsive of collectors?! There’s a certain art to it, of course. You can’t just pick up any old piece of clothing (or a prosthetic leg) found by the road and post its picture on the web (www.pavementgear.com). That’s simply hoarding, not collecting, and nobody wants to end up as the internet’s equivalent of a bag lady.
However, you can also collect other multi-media files, such as sounds. Belch.com, for instance, has been collecting more than 550 downloadable belches since 1997, and the Unh! Project compiles utterances like ‘Woop!’ or ‘Unnghh!’ from comics (www.members.shaw.ca/tom.t/unh).
People also collect things they hate. It’s like a kind of group therapy: you share your hatred and get instant gratification in return. The Bin (www.the-bin.co.uk) even goes as far as collecting ‘the worst things in the world from every part of life’ and calls sprouts ‘the devil’s testicles’. And if you’ve ever received an email with an annoying signature, you’ll appreciate the Gallery of Annoying Email Signatures (www.orsi.net/Gallery), inspired by the Gallery of “Misused” Quotation Marks (www.juvalamu.com/qmarks). The system works miracles: rather than punching your screen, whenever your computer crashes, for instance, you simply take a photo and submit it to WindowsCrash.com. We can now collectively mock the misfortune that is the unreliability of Windows. The same applies to odd road signs (www.swanksigns.org), hideous sweaters from the Eighties (www.gemsweater.com) and the Zeigerpointers (www.monochrom.at/zeigerpointer) – poor souls who are forced to point at things by photographers.
It’s as strangely fascinating to see a collection of money drawn on, written on, stamped, stapled and burned (www.johnnyburrito.com/uglymoney.htm), as it is to flick through photos ‘that transcend their objectivity to reveal our humanity’ (www.signsoflife.goose24.org). Nothing sums up our humanity – and our blind focus on collecting things – better, however, than the words of wisdom found in a fortune cookie (www.weirdfortunecookies.com): ‘The greatest danger could be your stupidity.’
Bookmark with:
Comments
Mathew Browne / 07/07/2007 / 18:41 / http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk
When you said 'hideous sweaters from the Eighties' you really weren't kidding! Straight out of Ugly Betty.
