Retro Shaming

Back in the early 1950s when we created the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Agent Program, the world was a simpler place. Black/White, Good/Bad, Kukla/Fran/Ollie. People knew where they stood, they were either against something or for something.

Today, the lines are blurred. We try to set points from which there can be no ambiguity. We Memes, operate not only from the Bare Mattress of Love, but from a rock solid foundation of what is Shameful and what is not. For instance...

Shameful: jkirlin, name changing/posting ANYTHING to be early/then we find not even posting HIMSELF all the time. (and shamed he is and he takes it relatively well. Permission of shamee granted for this ahead of time)

Not Shameful: neene, we just don't understand sometimes but always find her and her images to be lovely and sincere.

But then...

Shameful/Not Shameful: Our good friend Rich Legg is deserving of Shaming in the jkirlin vein. His images are GREAT but his captions and comments make us CRINGE sometimes. However, he is ALWAYS a complete gentleman when he SHOULD be mailing us pipe bombs from his shack in Montana (Or Utah, wherever). (As an aside, Mr Legg also runs his own something or other on his flickr site for his contacts of which there are thousands. Look for more information on that here in a future post)

See the lines blurring?

Recently we received the following transmission on the Photo Meme Hall of Shame Shortwave Radio/Teletype/Telex Machine from one of our agents in the field:

Begin Transmission

Greetings.

Agent X back from... well, doing actual work.

Now that the Money Challenge is closed for submission, but open for voting, let's take a closer look:

mooch does not know bling from tree deco:http://www.moochuk.com/index.php?showimage=621

Steve Barru found some rather half-hearted sale digging... but it's losely related to money, I guess. Not exactly Filene's on President's Day though: http://stevebarru.com/photoblog/index.php?showimage=241

neene... randomly associates a brand new shoe and an empty digestif bottle with poverty (one must assume - no explanation was required)http://imageresponse.blogspot.com/2007/06/money.html

The one-eyed man and the latentsifier both clobber us with the subtle Oil = Money. http://www.johnsimpson.ca/index.php/image/norsea.jpg/

http://www.wilsonhurst.com/irontone/?p=1046 ...whereby the latentsifier sees and raises the one-eyed man by throwing an anncillary jab at the mighty grain industry.

Bizzlepix shows us an unloved piano, and a man with new gloves...but a really cool transition animation of a Krazy Kitty between pages! Worth surfing the blog just for that, as well as his lovely photography! http://photos.bizzlepix.com/index.php?showimage=92

Daily Photo Evolution shows us that without deliveries, shoes never wear out, and everyone stays poor - a rather youthful view of globalization... http://why.aminus3.com/image/2007-01-13.html

Powerbreak shows us a popular flag and a phone company office building: http://www.flickr.com/photos/szczesny/533070338/

The Telex also included the following caveat:

You should adjust my comments to be less snippy if you want to use them and think it warrants fine-tuning.

Just consider this an effort to help out the Cause. (Note - writ large)

End transmission

We Memes stood slack jawed with the curled themal paper in our hands unsure as to how to proceed. We stood there shoving it back and forth at each other like it was a hot potato.

This Agent X is the least snippiest of the dozens of agents and the most knowledgable of the field of Money. We Memes know nothing of money, having so much of it so easily and using so little. We clicked each of the links and, to be quite honest, did not understand either the submission, or the agents report.

As such, we will accept any or all reports of shaming to be valid, but also any or all defenses to be valid.

If you are reading this because you are newly Shamed, please see the previous post for our challenge letter template.