What follows is the final results of a two-week long study, up to a delay in publication date and time. Numbers and data have been obscured to protect their identity.

Thanks to our millions of loyal fans ready to throw themselves upon the spikes of post-engagement, we noticed a very amazing trend: Content Delays has been our most popular post!

In fact, our views went up 132% when we posted content delays and our post engagement saw a 600% increase!

As you can clearly see, Content Delays was a hit!

By not posting the Thing of the Week on Wednesday at Noon, it appears we made readers desperately want the Thing of the Week! Or maybe the Millennials that we are both hip and hop with just like when a Thing is simple (more research needs to be done).

Thing of The Week #3/4

SUBJECT: Content Delays

Millennials allergic to reading who would rather Skateboard on a Snapchat with their Pokeman-Goes are advised to tune in next week! For the rest of you…

You know what they say: It’s like that old tale about the man who learns to fish to feed himself.

Except this time the man doesn’t learn to fish, he just takes a nap until his mom calls him and reminds him it’s dinner time and he really needs to come home because he’s been missing for 3 weeks. He then shows up at home and is greeted by everyone he ever knew and they offer him gifts to welcome him back before he gets really drunk and realizes all he ever wanted to do was catch a fish but now he has the Fish-o-Tron 9000 courtesy of one of his friends and decides to use that instead.

Such a vicious cycle for that poor content creator in the Creative Economy 2.0!

While we ultimately enjoyed limiting our Thing of the Week supply to up reader demand, in practice we noticed it had some benefits and drawbacks.

SOMETHING TESTING PROCESS

With all the time we saved from content delays we:

Went to Citi-Field .
Saw Bartolo Colon.
Saw Bartolo Colon pitch.
Saw Bartolo Colon hit and carry his bat towards first before giving up and going back to the dugout .
Got accosted by 3 very complimentary and friendly young men who received a business card.
Slept Soundly for the First Time In Years.
Saw Get Out at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn.
Went to Battery Park
Watched Resident Evil Retribution with Jeff .
Ate Pizza.
Ate Halal .
Showered.
Eloped to Romania .
Went our separate ways at a Romanian train station after disagreeing over color of ties.
Raised a family of 4.
Lost a family in a tragic ski lift incident.
Retired and traveled around the world.
Had our ashes scattered in space.
Were resurrected by a very confused Class-IV civilization who was making space-tea.
Accidentally broke the space-time continuum.
Got exiled back to Earth.
Ordered pizza and beer. It has not arrived yet.

However, we also had to deal with:

Constant reminders on the hour that the Thing of the Week was not posted .
Dealing with the crushing shame of being bad at our life-long profession.
Smash Mouth’s All Star did not apply to us .
Had to eat M&M’s, but not the brown ones (Thanks, Iron Fist!).*
The rain. Oh god, the rain… It cuts into your soul and pools deep in the filth and muck of The Late-Night New York City Vibration of an Underground Cold-Cut Washing Machine, you dig?

*For the record, Chmaj would like to attribute this Intellectual Property to Van Halen, the original genius behind M&M separation.

We also put up a post on a Not-Wednesday, and it was more popular than everything else on our site combined. Let us hit you with some stats:

This image is barely related, but it is from our website metrics, and has numbers!

With all that happened during Content Delays, all that’s left is to document the results.

FINDINGS

The following is our conclusions regarding the potential Thingularity of Content Delays (For more information on our analysis process, please reference Thingology 101)

Hardness: 2

While you would think Content Delays would crumble under the pressure of constant worry from our mothers, Content Delays actually put up a fight and even managed to make itself a constant presence for over 2 weeks in a row!

Reality: 10

Content delays happen. Man, woman, child- ALL shall bow before the all-seeing and all-mighty Content Delay. RESPECT THE CONTENT DELAY. If you don’t believe us, check out this pie chart:

Stats +0.23%, Numbers: 23-2-0. We traditionally post on Wednesdays.

COLOR: 0

While content delays had the effect of increasing our confidence, vigor, and stamina, it did not have any visible colors. Consult with to your doctor about whether or not Content Delays is right for you.

EDIBILITY: 5

While you would be hard-pressed to put Content Delays in your mouth, Content Delays contained an awful lot of pizza. While most pizza is a 10 on the edibility scale (bias +/-3 Papas), this was primarily Little Caesar’s.

VERTICAL REACH: 10

Before we embarked on Content Delays, Chmaj and Lyle turned to each other and asked “Content Delays?” in unison. They then procceded to nod heads in unison and high-five each other. 10/10

AVERAGE: 5.6

Given the average NTI of 5.6, Content Delays swing very slightly towards being a Thing than not. In the interest of science, we go to Chmaj & Lyle to determine if Content Delays are a thing. 

RESULTS

QUESTION: IS CONTENT DELAYS A THING?

Lyle: [passed out in bed after attending a friend’s going away party]

Chmaj: [Woke up at 5pm because narcolepsy]

ANSWER: CONTENT DELAYS, THEY’RE A THING

CONCLUSION:

CONTENT DELAYS ARE A THING

STAY TUNED ON

[TBD, COMING SOON, RELEASE DATE FOURTHCOMING, DON’T ASK]

FOR MORE THINGS!

Any additional comments?

Chmaj: “[Insert Better Excuse for Content Delays Here]”

Lyle: “What day is it?”

“If YOU Have Dream Say it! Tell us!! Seardr:HuGTaiwan Your Sharing will Encourage more Dreamer!! It OK to Dream BiG!”

We here at CALMAT believe that until every something in the universe has been clearly defined, our work will not be complete. This week we aim to prove the truly robust power inherent in the philosophy of Thingology by determining the Thingularity of an abstract concept.

While catching up with a friend in the wilds of Brooklyn, Lyle came across a message in the restaurant bathroom:

File_000(2)

After extensive research, we deduced that HugTaiwan is some sort of… facebook page(?) about sharing dream journals with the goal of…something. [link]

Suffice to say, we were moved for several reasons:

1. Despite the language barrier, we can see that HuGTaiwan had a message they wanted to share with the whole wide world via Facebook. As two people who barely speak proper American English, we have great respect for those who can speak not just one – but TWO languages in order to spread their message.

(note for later: learn all languages==double profit???)

2. HuGTaiwan has a dream, a vision, and wants others to dream big. So powerful is this drive that they needed to not only create a Facebook page but – like the mighty Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church in 1517 – lovingly inscribe their core message for all time on the wall of a unisex bathroom at the back of a Brooklyn taco restaurant.

3. Like HuGTaiwan, we too have a dream – and while currently our dreams are really only tangentially related to food, art, stories, et.al. indigenous to the nation of Taiwan, we see a kindred spirit in this bold Thing-Seeker.

After drying his eyes and collecting himself, Lyle returned to the table and told me of this great and powerful message. Not requiring use of the facilities at the time, I instead opted to be profoundly moved by this message through the miracle of a high-resolution .jpeg from his smartphone.

After drying my eyes and collecting myself, further investigation of this tableaux revealed the age-old tale of the tortured genius. According to the bathroom wall’s comment section:

“That only works if you’re using ‘Dream’ as a proper noun.”

”grammar’s off/proofread”

”Maybe they are not native english speaker?”

”And steal peoples idea more like TAKENEWYORK”

This is a living example of why we can’t have nice things. Or comment sections.

These bathroom cyberbullies fail to see the work of a true master: who care’s what punctuation. spellings Is used? Where ghrammar -This is a kindred spirit who took great pains to share their deepest inner thoughts with the entire brotherhood of humankind.

If HuGTaiwan can have a dream, then by golly we can too!

In the spirit of this noble endeavor, we decided our Thing of the week could only be the concept of Sharing.

Thing of The Week #2

SUBJECT: Sharing

Millennials scared of words are advised to click this hyperlink and/or scroll to the bottom, where we share a .gif of a cat.

Many people have discussed the concept of sharing throughout the ages.

Once upon a time fire was a closely guarded secret, only dry weather and wind could share fire! But then the Earth shared fire with man and man shared it with the forest and all of the creatures in it. Then, at some point we ended up with airplanes .

So sharing must be important!

All the creatures of the earth share space with each other all the time.

For free nonetheless!*

Attila the Hun was so good at sharing, that when he died, his three sons ruined one of the largest empires in history; all because they couldn’t share!

Talk about a sharemaster!

In our modern era, Children go through several years of rigorous training in order to develop this skill, and even then many wash out of basic.

Sharing is a tough skill, and many people can and do refuse to share all sorts of things – basic necessities, money, healthcare, religion, geographic borders – you name it, people have fought and died in many catastrophic ways – just because they couldn’t share!

Which raises a natural question to the intrepid Thingologist: with so much blood spilled over the ages, is Sharing actually a thing?

In investigating this concept, we initially considered phoning a friend or perhaps setting up a lab study. However due to time and financial constraints we instead opted to roll up our sleeves, and get our hands dirty with some serious fieldwork.

*It is important to note that if two multi-cellular organisms share the exact same space at the same time the results tend to be horrifying, messy, and end in swift death.

SOMETHING TESTING PROCESS

First attempts at “sharing” were mixed.

File_002(2)
I tried to share my coffee with Lyle while waiting for a train, but Lyle had already finished his, and I had finished half of mine already. Lyle refused the share on principle.

So far, not so good for Sharing…

Later, while on our way to [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted]

[redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted]

[redacted]

We decided [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted]

[redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted]

[redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted] bought a Scratch Ticket.

Eyes brimming with child-like wonder, Lyle eagerly patted his pockets for a metal coin to scratch away his potential fortune. As he was doing so I handed him a quarter from my pocket, and as he took it we realized that we were in fact in the middle of a successful “sharing.”

Could this moment be the smoking gun that proves Sharing is a Thing?

Unfortunately, two factors prevented this from definitively proving our hypotheses.

First, I needed the quarter back with no guarantee of future returns, making this only a temporary “sharing.”

Second, the scratch ticket was garbage, ergo sharing has great potential to lead to nothing but the bottomless pit of disappointment; which while disappointing, is an emotion requiring more study and only possibly tangentially related to Thingularity.

Exhibit 7.4: Sharing can lead to disappointment.

It was at this point we assumed that perhaps we were taking this whole “Sharing” thing the wrong way.

So far, results had demonstrated sharing was nothing more than a sophisticated version of “Giving,” wherein you give somebody something and then expect that they give it back in a never-ending cycle of uncertainty and fear (especially when a lack of return-give risks transforming the act into “taking”). We were beginning to think this sort of quantum physics was beyond not only us, but potentially all of known humankind.

Further attempts to redefine “sharing,” such as “shares,” only made things more confusing – apparently people trade these shares on the stock market, and at some point money is extracted by only one of the parties, and even then the results are temporary and involve lots of yelling.

We attempted to ask Wall Street, but they had no direct email address and most of the doors were locked at 6pm. The only answers we got were variations of “sir, you need to leave or I will call the police.”

“Sharon,” while sharing the same audible pattern as “Sharin’” unfortunately lacks enough similarities to apply to the study.

Similarly ‘Charon’ is some sort of moon, or it could be a ferryman on the river Styx (which is also a band(?))?. Sharing was getting confusing!

Things were made worse at a movie theater, where we didn’t share seats, drinks, or popcorn! Sharing was looking on the ropes!

Heads low and hearts heavy, we trudged home – prepared to write sharing off for good. It was as we returned to our apartment that – like HuGTaiwan – we had a sudden, brilliant, golden flash of divine inspiration. What follows is a recreated transcript of the events:

As we got up to the door Lyle asked whether Chmaj had keys on him, because Lyle had forgotten his. Thankfully, the crisis was averted when Chmaj pulled out his keys and got them into the apartment!

And that’s when it hit us – we share an apartment!*

Granted this act is necessitated by the pressure of various socioeconomic factors such as rising rent and a collapsing job market, but in disregarding those outliers it appeared that we had been successfully sharing for quite some time!

Huzzah!

Like all good Things once we discovered this Rosetta Stone, it was easy to decipher the greater work all around us: We shared a refrigerator! We share the milk! We share links to stupid internet content with our respective families, friends, and loved ones every waking moment of every. Single. Day!

While it had not been a good day for sharing it was the journey, not the destination, that led us to realize that we had already achieved “sharing” and you can too.

*And we haven’t gone to war!

FINDINGS

The following is our conclusions regarding the potential Thingularity of the Sharing (For more information on our analysis process, please reference Thingology 101).

Hardness: 0

As an abstract concept, the emotional flexibility of Sharing is tough to gauge. However, given its historical and practical track record, we have to admit that Sharing is not healthily adjusted to society.

Reality: 10

We share things every day, and you should too!

COLOR: 10

Let’s share a color:

R: 255 B: 0 G: 255

Checkmate Atheists.

EDIBILITY: 5

While you can theoretically share edible products with each other, it is inadvisable to share a product you have either partially or fully consumed yourself. In addition it is possible to share things that have no business being in ones’ mouth (such as glue or razor blades). Thus it’s a 50/50 split on this one.

VERTICAL REACH: 10

Sharing gets a high-five all the time every time, because whenever you high-five, your hands share contact. This isn’t rocket science people!

Cat .gif For Millennials (with bonus DIY instruction!):

1: go to giphy.com
2: type in “Cat”
3: Find .gif of your choosing
4: press ‘share’ button of your choosing
5: BAM!

via GIPHY

See how we just shared that?! THE SYSTEM WORKS!

AVERAGE: 7

Given the average NTI of 7, it is highly probable that Sharing is a thing. However in the interest of the Scientific Process, Chmaj and Lyle then asked each other for a personal opinion…