Tuesday, July 22, 2008

David Sedaris Crashes MattDamon.com

[Breathless Celebrity Gossip!!!] Steven Blum's interview in The Stranger with storyteller (and personal idol) David Sedaris is all too brief*, but well worth reading.

In the interview, Sedaris mentions a Website about actor Matt Damon which features a "When I Met Matt" comment board. Sedaris says that he is capable of dreaming up better adjectives for Damon than "cute"--perhaps implying that he may have left a comment on the site.

Now, I'm not implying causality here. These could be completely independent events. But, the first time I noticed Blum's story rotating to the top of The Stranger's Website, I also noticed that Matt Damon's site went down. (To tell the truth, there was some causality, in that I would never have thought to visit MattDamon.com in a million years if I hadn't read about it in a Sedaris interview.)

Could hordes of bloggers have taken Sedaris' cue and started combing the site for possible quotes about Damon's rogueish charm (as I was attempting to do)? Did a sudden surge in site traffic cause an unintentional Denial-of-Service (traffic overload) situation? If so, then, by the definition of the Slashdot Effect, does this mean that TheStranger.com is a larger, more powerful site even than the mighty MattDamon.com?

It's a pleasing idea. Go indie media!

(Brandon Burt)

*Granted, the print-edition newshole must have been limited to 700 words but, I mean, come on--according to Blum, they talked for, like, an hour and a half. I'd have been over the moon had he transcribed an extra few hundred words for the online edition.

1 comment:

  1. I just heard about David Sedaris from my sister, who is an NPR junkie. I started reading "When you are Engulfed in Flames" and could not stop laughing. I chose this book for my book club this month. Hope the ladies can handle it!!!

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