Hey guys, I did a thing! I don’t really want to brag about this thing on social media, but I actually do, so here it is. I did it. Me! I did a thing. And I’m just going to leave it here for you, because I feel that special blend of pride and awkwardness that compels me to tell the world about this thing without getting too intense. My thing is a good thing, and it makes me proud, but shyly so. This makes my thing and me both cute and awkward. The cute kind of awkward, like Taylor Swift wearing giant dark-rimmed glasses; not like Kevin asking your brother why he gained so much weight if it’s his wife that’s pregnant. Goddamnit, Kevin. But hey, I did a thing!
The best thing about my thing is that it is entirely variable in size and import. There are no constraints on the enormity or value of my thing. It might be big and significant, like receiving a review of my first novel in the New York Times or accepting an award from Lin-Manuel Miranda on behalf of my nonprofit. It could be small and unimportant, like knitting my first lopsided winter hat or finishing my picture at Paint Nite before drunk Kevin knocks the template canvas off its easel. Most importantly, it is a thing, and I am the person who has done it. I did a thing.
I have left my thing right here in my pleasantly curated square meter of internet space for your perusal. At some point, the sneaky tendrils of work boredom will steal over you and you will click on my thing. There will be something inside of you that yearns to lock it down, to bring the contours of its ambiguity into sharp relief. “What kind of thing is this thing?” you will wonder. Is it a thing that is made? Is it a thing that is written? Is it a thing that is done? But here is the thing about my thing: My thing is unknowable. My thing is just a thing. You have now clicked on my thing. I have marketed it right into your eyes.
Instead of maximizing content words, I eliminated them. I eliminated them all. This makes my thing disruptively innovative, defined by its negative space, like a donut hole. It is a brilliant thing. I did this thing, and you had no choice but to click. Click, monkey, click. Click just so you know. Click so the next time Kevin does a thing, the next time he posts a link to an artsy picture of his new girlfriend in denim, perching on a bale of hay, engagement ring glinting in the sun, you can at least know its dimensions and its weight. He did a thing. But I did a thing, too. This one.
Hi, Kevin. Hope things are good with you.