Cartridge Prompts Introspection

“I really can’t be bothered with writing these description anymore, it’s a printer cartridge!”

This story’s a few weeks old now but it’s worth rehashing because of the proximity of the subject to what we do.

A week or so before Christmas, a writer of copy for the online retailer inkcartridges.uk.com called Paul Richards began to write what would normally be a somewhat humdrum write-up of the HP 300 printer cartridge.

“Remanufactured HP 300. Contains 8ml of high quality pigment ink and will print 380,” the review began seemingly mundanely.

But then Richards – depressed, bored, joking, frustrated, whatever – then suddenly spasmed into an existential cris de cœur:

“Do you know what? I really can’t be bothered with writing these description anymore, it’s a printer cartridge! What am I supposed to write really??? It’s a cartridge that prints ink on to Paper…” And so on.

Richards considered deleting his frustrated monologue after completion but decided to leave it up on the site. So far, so mildly interesting.

However, a friend of Richards tweeted the review and a few days later traffic from blogs slowed www.inkcartridges.uk.com and eventually brought the site down, bringing its bosses down on Richards.

Richards has kept his job and the maxim, “All publicity is good publicity,” seems to have won out.

Boing Boing has published the tirade’s backstory according to Richards.