Howdy, Grypesters!
So… over the past several months we’ve watched the number of our Facebook “likes” slowly grow in direct conjunction with the number of weekly visits we’ve been receiving to this site. In this crazy new internet-driven world we live in, the ultimate measurement of one’s social worth can apparently be tracked in friends lists, twitter followers and number of “likes” one can rack up on the social network scene. A few days ago we hit the magic number #200— two hundred Facebook “likes,” each one of them an individual visitor who found their way into TheGrype.com and who (hopefully) enjoyed what we do here.
And what ARE we doing here, really?
Well— we’ve spent the past several months having our bi-weekly say (via snarky comic strips and poisonously-sarcastic bloggery) regarding various little barbs and business iniquities that really stick in our collective craw. And while it might be a quicker, easier path to online popularity just to hop aboard some pre-existent bandwagon and shout whatever extreme slogans or trendy buzzwords are presently in vogue among the self-righteous blogging crowd— or spend our time endlessly discussing the latest video games or manga or geek tech or superhero films or whatever— we’ve refrained from taking that well-worn path. Because we feel that much of what we discuss here is more important, because it affects the quality of people’s daily lives. And not just in a “Dude! Batman: Arkham City completely changed my life!” kind of way, either.
Granted: a well-made cinematic comic book adaptation can certainly be worth a few hours of our time, and we’re currently kicking around the idea of adding movie reviews to TheGrype (because who DOESN’T want to gripe occasionally about the vacuous vicissitude of the Hollywood dream factory?), but we’re still dedicated to keeping as our primary focus the capture and dissection of counterproductive business practices and the misguided corporate executives who love them. Most of what we’ve discussed on these pages has been aimed at revealing the often inexplicable foibles and inequities of the business world, and we intend to continue working in that direction. We purposely haven’t aimed any of our commentary at supporting some “side” or “party” or “movement” or any other jolly band of pundits; instead we’ve strived to remain neutral and call it as we see it. Because in almost every case we’ve discussed (be the issue socioeconomic, geopolitical or other) we can’t help but notice that there are usually two sides to the story. It’s easy to perpetually believe you’re right if you refuse to pay any attention to the opposite side of the argument, but that doesn’t mean you ARE right. Maybe there’s another way of looking at it… from the viewpoint of the other guy, perhaps? I mean, yeah, political extremism is a great way to stir people up and elicit their money and support… but ultimately, it is political moderation— and the ability to reach reasonable and satisfactory compromise— that forges workable solutions and solves long-term problems.
Meanwhile, we’ve now officially registered TheGrype.com as our formal corporate name. Big business, here we come! We can’t wait to start hiring and abusing our very OWN employees!
Go big orange!