I lurrrrrrrrrve my new shirt, made just for me by Raygun Robyn. I wore it to the club last night and it was so fun having a completely unique shirt. She’s getting my official endorsement as the fashion choice of robots everywhere. Humans, you need to wear this chick’s gear.

How lucky that I stumbled across her work. Thank you, Internets. One unforseen side effect of the Web was that it saved small business and independent artists. Cottage industries couldn’t compete with Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target in terms of brand recognition, distribution, or pricing, and they were really starting to die out. But then eBay came to the rescue. Then individual websites for artists and crafstpeople. Then Etsy. All of a sudden prices on handmade items became more reasonable than they were at craft fairs because nobody had to pay for booths or charge high prices just to stay in business. People could find them, and while they didn’t have the distribution of a big box store, they had far more personality. I mean, did you look at that shirt?? Try finding that at The Gap!

This week’s fashion win coincided with a big music win — I got the chance to speak with DJ Earworm. My kid sister turned me onto his music a while back, which is no shock. You want to know what’s hot on the web right this second? Ask a teenager. Sure, I may work in software, but I have nothing on those kids. I’ve learned to stop forwarding funnies on YouTube if they’re more than thirty seconds old. When she introduced me to the DJ’s work it was like, “Oh man, you haven’t heard of this guy? Have you been living under a rock?” I swallowed my pride and put the music on my iPod. And I haven’t stopped listening since.

Music is much the same as crafting — independent, underground, and one-of-a-kind artists have adapted beautifully to the Web, taking advantage of the fact that for little or no dough, you can put your work out there. And if your stuff is good and you do a halfway decent job presenting it, people will come find you. (For those of you with sagging sales, take a look at your sad-sack website as cause #1!) And the really fun part is the viral nature of the Web. Sites and data can be used over and over, but they never wear out. The more visits you get, the less effort you have to spend on getting people to come on in.

So now it’s time to share the love. I’m thrilled with what I’ve found online and now so can you too. Go find Raygun Robyn on Etsy and tell her to make you look cool. And then groove in your car to some wild mashups by DJ Earworm. Then you’ll be unique . . . just like me.