Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

We all know that over the years, Yahoo!7 Answers has helped many people out there. From relationship advice to gardening tips to questioning scientific truths, millions of users have found the knowledge they were looking for.

In this award winning short story, The Life of Brian (or Lack Thereof), the central character’s fascination with Answers is only partly about helping other people with his intelligent and unique answers. He also uses the site as an outlet for his competitive nature, pitting himself against overseas devotees with (in his opinion) less superior brain matter.

The 18-year-old short story writer, Brisbanite Maree Spratt, used her brother as the inspiration behind her entry into the State Library of Queensland Young Writers competition. It was her sensitive portrayal of Brian and her pithy writing style that earnt her first prize.

According to Maree, Answers was an ideal choice as an internet preoccupation for many reasons:

I wanted my character to spend a lot of time on the internet … however I didn’t want him to trawl through social networking sites or chat rooms, because they can be quite anarchic and are too people-focused. Someone as hard working and productive as Brian would see them as pointless. Yahoo! Answers seemed like the perfect virtual hang out for my character because it’s all about giving and receiving knowledge, which is one of his preoccupations. I also knew that the points system would appeal to his productive, ambitious side.

When researching Answers, Maree took a look around the site and was impressed with the dedication of the Answerers. She said one particular question stood out:

‘I’m going out in three hours and want to do something different with my hair. Any suggestions?’

Maree noted:

She even listed the different brands of curling irons and hair products that she owned. People actually answered back. Since I can’t muster enough energy to care about my own hair, I thought it was amazingly altruistic of them to get involved in the hair dilemma of an online stranger.

If you’d like to read Maree’s award winning short story, click here for the pdf version. Congratulations Maree!

Caitlin
Community Manager