Putting a lid on those who are known for doing things

Putting a lid on those who are known for doing things

It's time for another analogy.

Let's say you worked someplace for a while, and had managed to create a meme about something without really trying. Maybe you posted a funny image to a thread on a given topic, and it went over well, so you did it a few more times when the topic came up again.

Then one day it took on a life of its own. You were on vacation or otherwise were unavailable, and the topic came up yet another time. Then someone else stepped in and posted the same meme picture. This then inspired gales of laughter and general hilarity in the group, and so someone created an actual on call rotation. Now, any time someone needed the image posted, they could ping the on call, and that person would show up and post it.

The joke, of course, is that you could just as easily post the image yourself, but by going through the on call you act like it's serious.

Anyway, let's say all of this had happened, and you became known for this particular meme. Let's say it was the "Cake Squirrel" -- someone who's known for showing up in threads about cakes and who posts a picture of a squirrel doing something funny. It helps that you personally are someone who bakes a lot of cakes and helps other people with their cakes, and all of this stuff.

Also, you give a class that all of the new people take when they join. It's about how to bake cakes, when to bake a cake, some times that cake baking went hilariously wrong, how to learn from a failed cake baking attempt, and so on. You are basically synonymous with baking cakes.

What, then, do you suppose would happen if someone told you that you should no longer start baking cakes if they involve certain kinds of ingredients? What if you had to vet all of your baking activities with certain people before you could go forward?

What if the reason given was based on incorrect data which you had attempted to disprove, but never heard back about again? What if the directive came down from above, and was reinforced from someone on high?

It would have a chilling effect, right? Right. It definitely would.

Could you ever bake a cake again? Could you even ever talk about it again?

Think about it.