Esquire editor at large Aj Jacobs is starting a new advice column, he announced today in a blog post. But it is not just a regular old advice column. Instead of just getting advice from Mr. Jacobs, the column will include curated advice from his “100,000 Facebook Friends*” with whom he is sharing the byline.
“You will be getting the combined experience of a brigade of Ann Landerses, a stadium full of Dan Savages,” Mr. Jacobs wrote. “As for me, I will be the Nate Silver of this experiment, curating and collating and commenting on the mass’s responses. I will print the best, funniest, and oddest answers (providing full credit, of course). And we will determine the best course together.”
And Mr. Jacobs has lofty goals for his experiment in social networking.
“My hope is that it will be the greatest advance in Advice Column History since the Friedman sisters took on WASPy surnames, got syndicated and stopped talking to each other,” wrote Mr. Jacobs.
And as the author of The Year of Living Biblically, a chronicle of his quest to spend a year following every biblical law, Mr. Jacobs should know from original Jewish names (and siblings who stop speaking to each other).
*Although Mr. Jacobs seems to have gotten “friends” confused with “followers” since technically Facebook has a 5,000 friend limit. Mr. Jacobs is followed by 117,358 people.