I wrote this about editing a time-wasting website for the Times. If you don’t feel like reading it, I can sum it up for you. Basically, I discuss how strange my job is and how a lot of it is based on guessing what will be popular. As much as I would like to believe the work of populating a website with content is more than a glorified guessing game, it is not. Anyone who claims to have a formula for viral success and mass Internet appeal is lying (unless part of the formula is nude women).
Also interesting (to me at least) is seeing what the editors at the Times do to make my writing palatable to an older audience. For instance, I had a parenthetical highlighting the impermanence of online trends reading, (Chuck Norris facts, anyone?) which had to be switched it to (“Chuck Norris is so tough” jokes, anyone?). I suppose an editor’s job is to act as translator between a writer and the readers and it’s always interesting to see that done to your own words.
I wrote an article
