Passion? Baloney

Have you noticed how passionate the Internet is these days?

• Josh Klein is passionate about using the internet to redefine our world.
• Chad Fowler is passionate about programming.
• Stéphane Doutriaux is passionate about Poken.
• Merlin Mann and John Gruber think you should be obsessively passionate.
• Gary Vaynerchuck wants us to cash in on our passion.
• Joel Spolsky won't hire you if you're not passionate.

There's just one problem: nothing on the Internet is actually worth being passionate about! Likewise, nothing on the Internet is truly "interesting" or "authentic." Here, those words are baloney. Here, everything we do can only ever be tongue-in-cheek. If you claim otherwise, then I don't believe you. How can anything be more interesting or authentic than this?

Humans are the only thing worth really caring about. And I'm talking face-to-face, rich, messy, slow humans. Not pictures of them. Not videos of them. Not tweets from them. And I mean any single human, not just my kids. I mean the specific humans that are physically in front of me right now.

Are some websites worth caring about more than others? Yes, of course. Are some public spaces worth caring about more than others? Sure. But you do not have permission to refer the word "passion" to them. But look: tongue-in-cheek is ok. Websites and plazas can still be interesting, fun, and worthwhile to work on, and you should still try to design them for humans. You just can't be more passionate about them than the human in front of you right now.

P.S. Don't Forget the Aitch is a reminder for you and me, here on the Internet, of this fact.