An Apology To the World
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 11.15.04 | 9:13 PM ET
University of Southern California neuroscience student James Zetlen wasn’t happy with the outcome of the U.S. election. So the 20-year-old snapped a photo of himself holding up a handwritten sign on a piece of notebook paper. It featured a crude drawing of the globe and a simple message: “Sorry world. We tried.” He signed it, “Half of America.” Then he posted the photo on a basic Web site he created: sorryeverybody.com. What happened since has been amazing, the BBC reports. The site has received more than 27 million hits—so many that the university asked him to move it to another server because it was using more than 80 percent of its server’s bandwidth. Zetlen’s site is now loaded with photos from other citizens offering their own snapshot apologies. And it has inspired a number of other sites, including several insisting the U.S. has nothing to apologize for. Whatever your politics, you have to appreciate the power of the Internet here: One student posted his thoughts and millions around the world took notice. As Zetlen says in the BBC story: “The internet was supposed to make communication between cultures, countries and peoples painless and easy. It was supposed to build bridges. But it doesn’t do this automatically; somebody has to reach out. Also, come on, it’s kind of amusing.”
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
