Yep, latchkey, I think you might want to rethink the article. As others have pointed out, you're seeing JavaScript's behaviour, not jQuery's. And this: elem.

Yep, latchkey, I think you might want to rethink the article. As others have pointed out, you're seeing JavaScript's behaviour, not jQuery's. And this: elem.data('foo', { 'a':1, 'b':2 }); elem.data('foo'); // Returns the object Is certainly more desirable than: elem.attr('foo', { 'a':1, 'b':2 }); elem.attr('foo'); // Returns "[object Object]"