Be Careful What You Write

Thankfully, The Academic Naturist was pulling an April Fools' joke when he announced yesterday that career considerations were putting an end to his naturist blogging and other activities.

I took the bait and ran with it, and about an hour later I realized that what he had written was probably just a prank. A careful review of his post yesterday revealed some clues that it was all in jest.

Let me just say one thing, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that I fell for it. Be careful what you write, because in the blogosphere, people tend to speed read, oftentimes only partially reading posts, or reading with only a fraction of the needed comprehension.

Announcing that you are pulling the plug on a blog is the virtual equivalent of telling friends that you're dying of cancer in the real world. Nobody laughs when that pronouncement is revealed to be nothing more than a device intended for humorous effect.

When it dawned on me that TAN was likely not serious about packing it in, I didn't laugh, but I did feel some relief.

I'm not criticizing Mr. Academic per se, he writes way too many valuable posts about naturism so he's more than earned a pass this time, but when a joke turns out to be unfunny when the punch line is revealed, it ceases to be a joke and becomes something else, something kinda dumb.

An Onion-like fake news story about the President and First Lady meeting the Queen at a nudist resort, that would have been funny. I should have thought of that.