It's the principle. And my own cheapness. But mostly the principle

In my head, I imagine this blog to be a really positive thing. I'm coming to realize that that simply isn't the case. I mean, I'm not some bile-spewing attack-blogger (which is, let's be honest, a patently silly phrase) but I'm...peevish by nature so, amidst high-fives to Wonder Woman and Friday-improving playlists, things tend to get a bit peevish here.

I just wanted to acknowledge that now, before I dive into this.

I don't understand paying for autographs. I know that for some people, especially when meeting someone they really idolize, it's totally worth it, but to me paying for an autograph kind of seems to defeat the purpose.

Appearance fees make more sense to me (though the fact that Snooki can probably make more in a few nights of club appearances than I can in a year of working full time does chafe a bit). Sure, the still seem crazy high to me, but you charge what the venues will pay, and then they recoup that increased ticket and door prices, which people are willing to pay because you're there. It's a how market analysis - /supply and demand - /other words I learned in Senior Econ and immediately forgot - thing. Plus, it's not like you really want your free time priced to move. Otherwise you end up contractually obligated to karaoke "Endless Love" at some wedding in Minnetonka.

Charging for autographs, though, seems less like getting a cut of the profits you're helping to bring in and more like actually charging people money for liking you. And it's not like I'm anti-autograph, or like there aren't autographs that I want; for example, Sir Patrick Stewart the king of all things awesome, but for forty plus dollars I'm going to need more than his name on a piece of paper, ten seconds of eye contact and some innocuously charming banter. For forty dollars I need an actual story. We need to split some cheese fries, or talk about who we like on Top Chef this season, or something. Because if that forty dollars gets me no interaction, and a souvenir of the moment where a famous person asked my name and then wrote it down, wouldn't it be just as good to take a quick picture of them signing other people's stuff, and drop the forty bucks some Star Trek:TNG DVDs? Because then, I still get to tell a story about sort-of meeting Patrick Stewart, but I get to do it while watching the episode where the girl had the creepy-ass imaginary friend who was actually a totally non-imaginary Borg.

And, I'm sorry Patrick, but that episode is pretty hard to compete with.