Amazon Chagrin

Odd. I was browsing around my Amazon Wish List, as I do sometimes, picking items off of friends' and acquaintances' wish lists, when I discovered, thanks to Chason's help, that adding someone as a "trusted friend" sends then an email alerting them to their newly-upgraded status.

This discovery left me mortified, as I've added virtual strangers, even complete strangers to my list, and sometimes bumped them up to Trusted status, either due to whim or some arbitrary justification. The same way I tend to pick people at random and buy them things off their wish lists when I get bummed out.

But now, I'm thinking that people must get these weird emails and wonder, "Who the hell is this guy?" Afraid that I've mistaken them for close friends. This mental image left me bemused and chagrined. It would have been the zenith of my embarrassment, except that I had another realization...

I've never gotten one of those notifying emails before. No one trusts me.

I'm Anil Dash, and I've been blogging here since 1999, writing about how culture is made. Contact me at anil@dashes.com, at +1 646 833 8659, or at at anildash on Twitter or IM. Find out more »

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