Okay, I'm going to play the LJ novice (cuz I am) and ask, what the heck is the point of the ticky box? Is it to count how many people responded to the poll? Is it meaningless, and if that is the case, then why do it? I always leave the ticky box alone because I've never understood why it was there (hence why I am not answering the poll but instead asking the question).
As with so many things, it started as sort of a joke and got out of hand. There is a trope in online polls of the final answer being a sarcastic comment, representing "I don't actually care about anything in your poll but I like polls so I'll click that". "Your band sucks" is the variant used in polls on the Boston local rock scene boards that my best friend C frequents.
However, some people are just not that creative, and didn't want to have to make up a clever sarcastic comment for the end of their poll but they liked the idea of a useless answer for people who actually had no opinion about what kind of tea they should buy or whatever, so they started putting just "Ticky!" at the end. This served the purpose of a useless answer, while also being a meta commentary on useless answers and why people click them--for the sheer joy of clicking a box.
Then, as often happens, a joke got taken further by people who are not actually funny. (Not unlike the OMGWTFBBQyaddayadda, or ELEVENTYONE!!, both of which have taken an original joke and stretched them into pointlessness.) This is how you get "ticky" as its own separate question, sometimes with only the one answer and sometimes with several. It's stupid, it's meta about meta about meta, and as Morrissey said elsewhere, that joke isn't funny anymore. It's so far from where it started that it doesn't actually make sense.
Personally, my default for the sarcastic answer will continue to be "Your band sucks" because I like how something that is a straightforward joke of masculine rock and roll whatever on the Boston music boards becomes surreal when on a journal about general pop culture mostly read by fandom types. I am even more fond of it now that I've mostly decided to focus my graduate work on cultural history on popular music in history. I'm becoming even more music-y.
I forgot Cheese! Naked Pool Frogs is also good. Really, any superfluous ticky box that doesn't say "ticky" is awesome in my book and they really should never be their own question. But YMMV.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 04:23 pm (UTC)However, some people are just not that creative, and didn't want to have to make up a clever sarcastic comment for the end of their poll but they liked the idea of a useless answer for people who actually had no opinion about what kind of tea they should buy or whatever, so they started putting just "Ticky!" at the end. This served the purpose of a useless answer, while also being a meta commentary on useless answers and why people click them--for the sheer joy of clicking a box.
Then, as often happens, a joke got taken further by people who are not actually funny. (Not unlike the OMGWTFBBQyaddayadda, or ELEVENTYONE!!, both of which have taken an original joke and stretched them into pointlessness.) This is how you get "ticky" as its own separate question, sometimes with only the one answer and sometimes with several. It's stupid, it's meta about meta about meta, and as Morrissey said elsewhere, that joke isn't funny anymore. It's so far from where it started that it doesn't actually make sense.
Personally, my default for the sarcastic answer will continue to be "Your band sucks" because I like how something that is a straightforward joke of masculine rock and roll whatever on the Boston music boards becomes surreal when on a journal about general pop culture mostly read by fandom types. I am even more fond of it now that I've mostly decided to focus my graduate work on cultural history on popular music in history. I'm becoming even more music-y.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 04:27 pm (UTC)Write-In
Date: 2006-01-12 06:01 pm (UTC)Re: Write-In
Date: 2006-01-13 03:04 am (UTC)Okay, hello? Missed you!
Re: Write-In
Date: 2006-01-13 03:12 am (UTC):D Missed you too! *hugs mightily*