Disclaimer: On Blogs and the Gift Economy

It isn’t something I do often, but occasionally I send things to bloggers I follow - tangible tokens of appreciation for their writing and the inspiration or plain entertainment it's brought me. I don’t expect anything back, nor even acknowledgement of receipt. The items I send may be valuable or else something I made myself at little or no cost, and in no way should be interpreted to necessarily reflect the degree of my appreciation. Frankly, it can be a bit arbitrary or whimsical on my part, and probably depends to some extent on how much money is in the beverage budget that week. It’s just a way of expressing thanks for someone’s efforts and perhaps a more lasting form of encouragement. I occasionally also do something like this in my regular life - the only difference being that the recipients are not as likely to be total strangers.

I mention this here for two reasons - one, so that if you do receive something from me unexpectedly, you should know that you’re under no obligation to reciprocate in any way. Regardless of what Marcel Mauss has to say on the matter, there is no unspoken contract of any kind that you’ve been involuntarily entered into. The other more obvious reason is that since I have to ask you for an address and you will naturally wonder why, hopefully this post will serve as a standard disclaimer I can point to without having to go into a lengthy explanation. More than this, if you prefer not to respond or to not give out personal information, that’s fine - and in some ways prudent and perfectly understandable. No offense will be taken. That is all.