Yesterday an article I wrote for the PBS Economics blog was posted online. I’m not sure how many people are simultaneously interested in silly videos, China, and economics, but for those in that butter zone perhaps the article went over well. Or is the readership different entirely? I always wonder: who is it that reads the PBS Economics blog.
Some people have probably guessed what it’s like to live the rockstar life of a sporadic blogger for a public news outlet. There’s the fame of sitting alone in my room, the perks of deciding to treat myself to larger and larger portions of chocolate, and lastly, the adoring fans.
Actually, on that front, there might yet be some hope. I awoke the morning after the article was posted to find my inbox FULL (read: of two or three) emails from admirers.
So many (again: two or three) admirers.
Okay, I admit it… even some of those admirers weren’t even for me. Consider this e-mail I got:
“Hello Mr Appell
I read your interesting piece about self censorship, appreciate the insight into Chinese humor.
As octopi do not usually live all that long ( dog years, human years: relatively ) how long have you had “C”, you indicate that you have been in China since 2010 sometime, I assume you did not pass customs with “C” under arm so to speak, do you do your own tank/habitat maintenance?”
Octopi? Oh, wait… I know one of those…
Apparently, this person was not searching for me, but in fact my pet stuffed octopus, Copernicus. Copernicus is a bit of a superstar in the Squishables world. A Wolfram Alpha analysis of my Facebook page reveals that he is friend of mine that serves as the central nexus between my various friend groups.
I was sad to have to return the e-mail with an explanation that Copernicus is, in fact, not a living, breathing octopus.
“So my octopus Copernicus is actually of the stuffed variety, and is my companion giant toy animal friend. You can see on his facebook that while he enjoys life here he does not need a tank/habitat like many of his brood: https://www.facebook.com/copernicus.octo
Glad you enjoyed my article! Thanks for reading!”
So now we know: who is it that reads PBS? Apparently, people who listen to the PBS Newshour cephalopodcast.
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