Is it wrong that, a few months ago, I started to gather people’s portraits on Flickr, like a thirteen year old boy collecting baseball cards?
The goal was a lofty one — to have at least one photo from everyone on my Google Reader list, so I could match the faces to the blogs. This is very different from those big-shot bloggers who ASK you for your photos, just so they can prove their popularity to the world. This was all for me — I never asked for permission. It was all my own private set of playing cards, stolen from Flickr in the deep darkness of the night, while you were sleeping, carefully picking and choosing only those portraits that gave me amusement or titillation.
I started my new hobby after I didn’t go to BlogHer. I saw all the fun photos of everyone eating cheeseburgers and having pajama parties. I felt lonely and left out. I saw some faces for the first time, and decided to “favorite” them. It was then that the plan was hatched. I would CONTROL ALL OF YOU! Not just those at BlogHer, but every person I had ever met online, no matter what country! But after a few days of people collecting, I immediately stopped, worried that someone would catch on, and I would seem like a mad scientist, an evil Flickr puppetmaster, and just plain stalkerish.
But I think it came from a good place.
Do I have permission to continue on with my quest of favoriting a photo of you, or is this just wrong?  Should I ask for permission first?
Now seriously — how many other blogs that you read write about stuff like this?!
