Dear Bar Desk: A Reader Advice Column About a Website That Does Nothing
Readers write in with relationship, workplace, and personal-finance problems involving boring.now. The columnist answers as best she can. The column does not take responsibility for outcomes.
We are getting married next month. He has been bumping the bar at boring.now for three weeks. He says it is not gambling. He has spent two hundred forty dollars. Should I be worried?
Worried, you should not be worried. He is correct that it is not gambling, in the technical sense that there is no payout and no chance of winning. He is, however, paying for a gesture, and you are right to ask what the gesture is for.
The honest answer is that we do not know. The dishonest answer is also that we do not know. Two hundred forty over three weeks is approximately eleven dollars a week, which is, for the kind of person who is going to bump a website, materially less than a streaming service and arguably more honest. Marry him. Bring it up at the rehearsal dinner.
My manager walked past my desk and saw the bar in a tab. She did not say anything. I have not been bumping at work, only checking. I work in compliance. Am I in trouble?
You are probably not in trouble. You are, however, on the list. There is a list. There has always been a list. The list is, broadly, of people whose managers have walked past and seen something. The list is not actionable. It is, in the manager's mind, a vibe. The vibe is now slightly off. You can repair the vibe by closing the tab when you hear footsteps. You will, anyway. Everyone does.
I have been reading about the saboteur. He twists. I have not twisted. Is twisting cheating? Is it disrespectful to the spenders? Is there an ethical objection to twisting?
Twisting is not cheating. Twisting is, mechanically, the inverse of bumping at one twentieth the price. It is part of the same economy. The economy permits it. We even have a press article about it (which, in fairness, the saboteur will tell you only encouraged him). Twist if you wish to twist. The bar will not hold it against you. Other bumpers may. They will get over it. The cycle resets every four days now. Most things do not survive the reset.
I predicted ferrari_owner_btw would close cycle 3 and he did. My friends do not know about the bar. How do I tell them I won? They will not understand the context. They will think I have lost it.
Do not tell them. The pleasure of the prediction is, in part, that it cannot be communicated to anyone outside the cycle. That is, in fact, how the cycle works. You will carry this with you privately. Years from now, in a quiet moment, you will remember that you called ferrari_owner_btw on cycle 3 and you will smile to yourself, and your spouse will ask what you are smiling about, and you will say “nothing,” because there is no other answer.
I have visited boring.now eighty seven times. The site told me, in the footer. It said “visit #87” and I felt seen. Is this a healthy relationship to have with a website? Or am I being measured against my will?
Both. Yes to both. The site is, in fact, measuring you, but only against the dim outline you have left in your own browser's storage. Nobody else knows your number. The number is yours. If you are concerned about being measured, you can clear your localStorage and the count will reset to zero. Most readers, when faced with this option, do not take it. They like the number. The number, after all, is theirs.
Submit your question to advice at boring dot now. We will answer some of them. We will print fewer.