It is always strange to wander about in Internet communities with a fairly established culture. Reddit is not someplace I’ve ever spent any real time and while I still haven’t done much with it, I have been checking in on Pic Requests. It is really wild to see the diversity of requests and the speed and skill with which most of the requests are answered. These requests (and responses) run the gamut from –
to
[Request] Can you make my sister into a t-rex chasing Johnny Depp?
People offer money, services in return, Reddit Gold, or just the challenge. It is amazing how fast and how well most of these requests are answered, often by multiple people. Were I teaching a Photoshop class, this would be where I would hangout as every level of project is offered by people who actually need/want the product. They range from fairly easy functional/technical requests to wide open conceptual pieces.
I have been attempting to help some people with repair work. I find it interesting and I’ve always wanted to be better at Photoshop but have a hard time doing work for no reason.1 It is difficult at times not to get too into this but I’m trying to keep the attempts at around 30 minutes.
In some ways this is playing around with the idea of Internet karma. I’m doing little things that may improve the lives of people or make the Internet better. These are things like these photo repairs but they also extend to making tutorials, transcribing some random old cookbook pages, or just sharing things like this post. It is what the Internet is made of and it is just the way it works but it is interesting to do it with some degree of intention and thought.
Turning 94
From this request.
cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Tom Woodward
Tin Type Troubles
From this request.
cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Tom Woodward
1 I often would not do my own homework in school but would do other people’s work. I liked helping them but didn’t see any point in doing my own homework. Sometimes good things came from that. Some of my favorite books came from my roommates “Leadership in Science Fiction” course.
I’m right there with you lol…..I would check this out but knowi would end up spending too much time having fun with other peoples requests instead of doing my own work.