Publicity - Less Is Better

Originally written in 2005.

One of the things I love most about letterboxing is the underground aspect of the hobby. I love to think of it as a secret and wonderful grotto behind an old, crumbling garden wall that people stumble into by accident and grow to love, then want to return to again and again. I welcome and encourage those who happen by but I don't feel that anyone should go out and advertise the fact that the grotto is there behind the wall. Don't go out and look for people. I don't believe in giving interviews of any kind to the print media, and certainly not to radio or television.

Someone once asked me how I found out about letterboxing. Well, it was by accident. I was on Google searching for something and the LBNA site popped up. It looked interesting and I clicked on it. I thought it was just about the coolest thing I had seen in a very long time. I told one other person about it and now we are both hooked. But I didn't send out a mass mailing to everyone in my address book. I told the one person I knew would also love it. People have said to me, "But I wouldn't have known about letterboxing if I hadn't heard that interview on the radio". Or the article in the local newspaper. So? That may be the case, but it doesn't change my opinion about publicity.

People have been finding out about this unique and special hobby by word of mouth or by accident for years and would have continued to do so without all the publicity. It would mean less people boxing, but sometimes less is better.You either do or you don't find out about it. It should be the luck of the draw. I'm sure lots of people would like many things they may never know about for one reason or another. Once again it comes down to the luck of the draw.

Publicity is the reason park officials are starting to notice letterboxing and are either requiring some kind of rule and/or registration in order to plant in their jurisdiction or else forbiding boxes totally. I don't want to cooperate with officials. I don't want officials to know about the boxes. If the boxes are hidden properly, they don't effect the surrounding area and their presence doesn't have to be known about by anyone except the planter and the finder, which is as it should be. Publicity is the reason more and more people find out about us, start boxing, then get bored a few months later, leaving unattended boxes listed on web sites when they move on to the next hobby. Publicity means more missing boxes and more people who don't re-hide boxes properly because they just don't care or just don't get it. Publicity means more vandalism. Americans seem to want everything bigger and better, including their hobbies. Even the events, t-shirts, and patches, which yes, I attend and yes, I buy, may be contributing to letterboxing becoming a middle of the road, white bread, totally ordinary hobby no one thinks of as special. No, that's not true. Many of us will always think letterboxing is very special,but publicity means more people who do not think it is special. Or who just do not get it. And that is not the road we should be on.

May 13,2006

Recently someone posted on the Mid-Atlantic talk list that they would like to make a video blog of their hunt for and discovery of a letterbox, posting it online for all the world to see. This would include the clues, the hunt for, and the eventual discovery of the hiding place of the box, and of course the stamp and logbook inside the box. Where are these people coming from? Do they not get it? This is contrary to everything letterboxing is about. There was no mention of asking the permission of the owner of the box. One doesn't know if that was considered and just never mentioned or never considered at all. I tend to think it was never considered at all.

At least this amateur Steven Spielberg had the consideration to post and ask other boxers what they thought of the idea. But I have a sinking feeling that the video may get made anyway. I hope I'm wrong.

The aspect of this that just blows my mind is that anyone would even consider doing this!