The Daily Dot team is scattered around the country right now. Of course, that’s not much different from most days when our virtual newsroom is scattered around the country, from Syracuse to San Francisco, from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia. But we’ve managed to bring everyone together to wish you, dear reader, our very best. And we couldn’t have done it without some random acts of journalism.
After Daily Dot staff writer Kevin Morris wrote about college freshman Ashley Hallenbeck’s efforts to buy her mom a new stove for Christmas by selling sketches on Reddit, news editor Austin Powell had an idea: Why not have the Dot chip in to have Hallenbeck do our holiday card? And then Fernando Alfonso III led the charge on making it happen.
One absurdly long Yammer thread later, Hallenbeck had us all on one page—yes, even Ramona the Love Terrier. (Editorial operations specialist Jordan Valinsky insisted.)
But the story gets even better. Thanks to our commission and other redditors’ orders, Hallenbeck was able to get her mom “the flat top [stove] of her dreams,” she told Alfonso. Oh, and get this: After an employee at Lowe’s—not the Internet’s favorite home-improvement store at the moment—told her the stove wouldn’t arrive until the 26th, she went online, saved $185, and got a delivery date of Christmas Eve.
In other words, the Internet came through for Hallenbeck many times over this season.
It’s just one of many stories of how we do more than connect when we go online. We pull through for each other. We make magic happen. We add to the world’s collective supply of joy.
That happens for me every time I log on and I see Morris post an animated GIF in our chat room. When Valinsky spots a new Ryan Gosling Tumblr. When one of Logan Youree’s quips on our Facebook page makes me chuckle. When Fruzsina Eördögh effuses over a new viral video she just found—a passion which has turned into our YouTube Right Now! series. When I learn some new geeky passion of Lauren Rae Orsini via Twitter—like her 2012 resolution to build an aquarium. When I rediscover how Alfonso is as expressive in his Polaroid photography as he is in his prose.
Oh, and I really love it when editors Austin Powell and Janet Kornblum crack the whip and get them all back to work. That’s my favorite.
I could go on, but I won’t bore you with my bosscrush on my team any longer. Happy holidays!
