Donald Douglas and the Rule 5 identity crisis

Rule 5 Sunday started out as good clean fun. As a part of his now world-famous Five Rules for Getting a Million Hits on Your Blog in Under a Year, Robert Stacy McCain postulated that "everybody likes a picture of a pretty girl". And yes, it was a way to drive hits to our blogs on what is typically a slow news day. Stacy and his trusty sidekick Smitty aggregated the posts we submitted, everybody clicked on the links, and we all started off the week with a smile on our face and a song in our heart.

The ladies sort of bemusedly tolerated our cheesecake dalliances in the spirit of "boys will be boys". Smitty would dutifully include any hunky beefcake links they posted and everyone got along swimmingly.

Then there was a disturbance in The Force.

Erin Andrews, a young and comely reporter for ESPN, was surrepticiously videotaped in the altogether via a peephole drilled into her hotel room wall. The perpetrator of this demented act remains at large and copies of the video continue to float around the net. It is, of course, a sad commentary on our society that such events take place.

And commenting about this event is blog-worthy. It made the news; it was in all the papers. Ms. Andrews is understandably irate about this blatant invasion of her privacy.

Donald Douglas, one of the founding members of the Rule 5 Sunday blogosphere community, seized on the Erin Andrews story. Like I said, it is blog-worthy. But he linked the video. One of the corollaries of the Five Rules is somewhat simplistically stated as "hits are hits". That is, anything which drives traffic to your blog is a good thing. We all crave an Instalanche; keyword optimization for Google-bait is an art form. And we love us our weekly Rule 5 Sunday action.

Professor Douglas is free to blog about whatever he wants to blog about. He's flogging this story for all it's worth and he's not apologizing for doing it. But (and this is a VERY BIG but) he trumpeted his initial post as a "Rule 5 Exclusive". Smitty, recognizing Donald as one of the initial and therefore "trusted" denizens of Rule 5, included the post in the weekly Sunday roundup. Uh oh. What was once a harmless sophomoric collection of PG-13 cheesecake photos suddenly became a distribution point for an illicit X-rated video.

The backlash was swift and ferocious. Many of the ladies who had tolerated our weekly boys club were rightfully offended. In fact the general consensus (both male and female) was that Donald has crossed over a line. It seemed like all the air had been sucked out of the Rule 5 Universe.

But the Big Kahuna is determined to pull us back from the brink. Robert Stacy McCain has reintroduced us to the origins of Rule 5 Sunday and issued a challenge to the community at large — pull Dr. Douglas out of the Erin Andrews vortex; go all-out to reclaim Rule 5 in the spirit of the good clean harmless fun it is supposed to be.

Otter: I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: And we're just the guys to do it.

He has decided to fight fire with fire and declared the week of July 27-Aug. 2 to be International Rule 5 BikiniFest Week. There will be daily roundups, and prizes too! Pics must be PG-13; no minors; no Erin Andrews. Rule 5 can, and will, be restored to its original benign role as a light-hearted weekend diversion.

Yes, I will be particpating!

Posted at 10:47 by Chris Wysocki   [/rule5]   Comments | Perm Link |
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