Wear a Blue Hat For Web Standards On Monday, November 26
Don’t get panicked if you’re stuck in the elevator tomorrow with a bunch of people wearing blue ski hats; chances are they’re probably not going to jump you as soon as the doors close. No, it’s much more likely that you’re just surrounded by harmless and quite intelligent supporters of web standards, who are wearing blue beanies in a sign of solidarity. The origins of this seemingly thug-like tradition are rather simple: When a man named Jeffrey Zeldman wrote the book on this topic, he sported the blue beanie you see to your right on the cover of his book. While he calls it both silly and serious, he does agree it could help to spread the word:
If enough people do it on enough social networks, it might even raise web standards awareness in a small but positive way. (As opposed to, say, busting people for a validation error, which, surprisingly, doesn’t win you their love.)
There’s a Flickr pool where the web standards-aligned have begun uploading self-portraits, making themselves all the more recognizable to the nefarious Sloppy Code ‘N’ Tables Supporters who, incidentally, will be wearing red hats tomorrow to promote their cause. If you see any of them, run.
