Shutdownday.org is mounting a considerable YouTube campaign to get all of the world's Pavlovian-clicking Internet monkeys to shut down their computer and go experience the sensation of the sun on their flesh for just one day. Tomorrow, in fact. March 24th.
Their webpage states:
When my boss first sent me this and suggested I post it, I was thrilled. Surely, the fact that Wired's murky and omnipresent overlord was suggesting we post about Shutdown Day could be interpreted as implicit approval to take part in Global Shutdown Day... at Wired's expense. I started doing the math: I thought I could plausibly argue that I would have hypothetically done several hundred posts of lucid genius that day. Global Shutdown Day was about to make me several thousand dollars richer.
Then I checked the calendar and my mouth tasted of ashes. The 24th's a Saturday.
Anyway, I think I can manage a day without my computer: it'll give me a chance to catch up on all those Xbox games I've got in the queue! It may also spontaneously become "How Much Booze Can Brownlee Ingest Day"... a holiday which we might subtitle "St. Patrick's Day II" in the style of 80's Hollywood Sequels. That said I have to admit I find the purpose of such a shutdown vague: it would be one thing if the organizers were citing the massive savings of power if everyone shut off their computers or some such thing. Going out to play is a laudable thing which none of us do enough, but I'm not sure it requires an organized Internet campaign.
Shutdownday.org [Official Site]
