"I don't have time to read through your past blogs."

Reader-submitted question: I'd like to know what the deal is with your Hasselhoff fetish.

Geez, do I not get enough hits from Germany? Now I'm going to get Hasselhoff fetishists, too. Thanks a LOT.

This is really a more specific version of the most common complaint I get: that my sense of humour is far too dry. The people who say this are usually quick to reassure me that they personally are smart enough to get the joke; they are just concerned that OTHER people won't understand.

I do have a very dry sense of humour, I guess. This never occurred to me until I started blogging, but I'm pretty sure that it must be true: dozens of people have independently come to the same conclusion. Here's a good rule of thumb: If you think I might be joking, I'm probably joking.

Explaining a joke usually ruins the humour in it. I don't really like doing this, but you DID ask, and I feel a certain obligation to respond to questions from readers. You can look away if you want to. This feels very man-behind-the-curtain-y.

David Hasselhoff is a running joke, as I think most of you figured out long ago. It started as a one-time joke that I didn't really intend to take any further. Somehow, I had stumbled upon what is probably the world's worst and yet most AWESOME music video:



I challenge you to pick the best part. You won't be able to do it. Every time you think you've found the tackiest scene, you'll change your mind because you'll see him in front of a green screen with a video of HIMSELF or something equally ridiculous.

I started to post about David Hasselhoff as his biggest fan. Although I didn't realise it at the time, this is basically the same thing the Knight Foundation does. My readers responded in a way they hadn't responded to my boring posts about journalism ethics: I think it was just weird enough to draw strangers' attention, although I hadn't thought of that when I started. It was silly enough to make people want to contact me, and I really liked that. I got the idea for the Being David Hasselhoff Contest one afternoon when I was working on something else, and I loved the response. People send me things in the mail, or e-mail me to say they've found a new website that is so bad it's good.

I really do like David Hasselhoff, at least some things about him. I love the awfulness of campy videos like the one above. I love that he somehow ended up doing all sorts of ridiculous and tacky things, like really bad movies and terrible (but AWESOME) posters. I love that he apparently poses for photographs with full-sized cutouts of himself. I am not a fan of America's Got Talent, which is awful in an entirely different way.

Thanks for your question.