WTF? Bloggers cause Wisconsin Tourism Federation to change name

Sometimes, it's hard to resist the relentless pressure of bloggers.

They make jokes about you. They spawn commenters who make even more jokes about you. Until you finally decide that your are the serf and the bloggerati and commenterati are your whip-wielding masters.

So it has proved for the dedicated and passionately committed staff of the Wisconsin Tourism Federation. Since this Web thing has spread around the world like swine flu, more and more witty folks have made japes about the WTF being, well, you know, I mean, WTF!!!!

So, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the organization sat down around a table--who knows, perhaps in the company of a psychiatrist--and decided to stop being the bloggers' straight man. At the meeting, the group decided it will henceforth be known as the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin.

"We didn't want it to detract from our mission," said Julia Hertel, a spokeswoman for the newly renamed TFW, told the Sentinel.

Who could not feel sympathy for the WTF's pain? If you, too, had been the object of the heartless barbing of, for example, Your Logo Makes Me Barf, would you be able to successfully digest your cheese? Would not your bratwurst halt somewhere near your esophagus and complain that it was being held back by a headwind of acid reflux?

These are the people who are trying to attract human life to Green Bay in January. Can we not cut them a little slack? These are the people who want you to come watch snowmobile derbies. These are the people who wonder how they can convince a person to fly there and watch the Milwaukee Bucks.

They created their name 30 years ago, when the Web was not even a thought in the mind's eye of an engineering spider. I mean it's not as if the acronym said SLUT, is it? You're not familiar with SLUT? Ah, that would be the South Lake Union Trolley in Seattle.

Now, to the creators of the SLUT, I mean, WTF?