I had heard about getting Boing Boinged, but I didn't really know what is was like until it happened to me -- or at least to my site,
Talk to Action today. And the boinging is still going on.
Front pager Jonathan Hutson posted a piece yesterday, (made the rec list when he crossposted here on The Daily Kos), about a forthcoming video game based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels based on his interpretation of events in the End Times. The game allows the user to direct those joining-up with the pro-God militia and kill sinners, unbelievers, and the Biblically incorrect on the streets of New York -- after all the good Christians have been raptured, into the heavens, above the fray.
The Purpose Driven Life Takers (Updated)
By Jonathan Hutson
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.
The game, slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush, has been previewed at video game exhibitions, and reviewed by major newspapers and magazines. But until now, no fan or critic has pointed out the controversial game's connection to Mr. Warren or his dominionist agenda.
Well, Talk to Action, a national blog site about the religious right and what to do about it, has been inching forward since we launched last November. Traffic has built steadily and we have attracted an audience that goes far beyond the known blogosphere. In the course of building a movement to counter the religious right, clearly we would need to do that, wouldn't we? I recruited most of the front pagers, including Jonathan, from beyond the known blogosphere as well. But the bloggers got the non-bloggers oriented and trained and blogging -- and things have been going great.
And then we got Boing Boinged! A mention on boing boing is notorious for driving so much traffic to your site that your server crashes. This happened to us not once but twice today!
But the Boing Boinging came not from Boing Boingalone! Oh no. This post was discussed and linked to by hundreds of sites, large and small, including Crooks & Liars, Andrew Sullivan at Time magazine, Pandagon, The Agonist, Sam Seder (at Majority Report,Air America) -- and probably lots of cool sites that I don't even know about.
Thanks to all who did so, for recognzing the importance of Jonathan's post, and for giving Talk to Action a plug. It means a lot to the fine writers and thinkers who dedicate so much time and talent to creating this blog to help us all understand and come to grips with the religious right as a whole, in its many manifestations. And thanks too, to the many Kossacks who recommended Jonathan's diary and participated in the lively discussion thread. It caught the atttention of Raw Story, which featured that diary on its front page.
Fortunately, site crashes not withstanding, we were not killed by our sucess. But be forewarned. If you develop a site that has the potential to break out and reach a large national audience, beware the Boing Boing -- it could happen to you!
Meanwhile, I have it on excellent authority that Jonathan has a follow-up story in the works. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe sooner.