Today BoingBoing links to a promotional video for a perpetual-motion machine company. Their goal was to mock it and point it out as an example of absurdity. But as I watched it I was thinking, “Here I am paying attention to guys who I think are idiots or con-men. And with the BB link, they’re surely getting a lot more attention.”
Giving attention to folks that you disagree with is an interesting phenomena. For example, I occasionally read some creationist sites and blogs. Sometimes I listen to radio stations that play music I hate. And some years ago when a friend tried to get me into a multilevel marketing thing, I was compelled by my friendship to do a lot of research (e.g. pay a lot of attention) to stuff that was IMHO bullshit.
This is also a challenge for the Outfoxed Lijit system: I think my friends might enjoy the video–who wouldn’t enjoy seeing such an age-old scam being marketed over something as new as Google video? But if I bookmark it, digg it, or give it the ‘ol thumbs-up, could this be construed as an endorsement for the company itself? The semantics of social bookmarking are ambiguous.
The perps on “Cops” are always happy to be shown on TV, even when it’s them being stupid, drunk, high, naked, or all of the above.
If attention is the new currency, is there ever bad attention? Is there such a thing as bad publicity? If we are supposed to “vote with our wallet“, should we also be voting with our attention?