tis the season to take pot shots
fa la la la la la la la la
Wow, someone got up on the wrong side of the blog today. Wouldn't have come across this rant by Cameron Barrett on Dave Winer's blogger of the year contest, but RageBoy in a rare two-EGR-send turned me on to the Contest, and later in his blog, to Cam's rant on the unfairness of it all.
My first suspicion: That Cam's relying on memic propagation to boost his OWN standings in the contest as we rush in large numbers to Winer's defense... In other words, me thinks he doth protest too much:
"I was not surprised then, to find my own site (CamWorld) nominated in the Blogger of the Year category. I have a feeling that Dave wanted to include some non-Manila weblogs in his list of nominees, so as to appear less one-sided. Well, thanks but no thanks Dave. I don't care one bit for this awards contest. My site has been around for a long time now, and I have never once asked for it to be nominated for any kind of award. Nor have I ever intentionally submitted it for any awards consideration. Even for awards that actually mean something like the yearly SXSW Interactive competition, where Web site excellence is actually celebrated by a large group of well-repected peers, and not by some overly self-important, egotistical, software programmer in Silicon Valley with a Web site."
Because if he really means what he says, then Cam needs to summon the spirit of the Blog and remember what we're in this for. It's not about democracy. It's not about uniformity. And it's certainly not about being "unbiased." The days of pretend-not-to-have-an-opinion journalism are over.
Blogging is all about what I think. What Dave thinks. What RageBoy thinks. What Doc thinks. What bloggers who've not yet blogged think. It's saying what I want. How I want. It's making up whatever fucking contest strikes my fancy. It's about the Five Fish Blog Award and the Scripting News Awards. And if Cam decides to throw up a CamWorld contest, then I'm down with that too.
And one more thing. You don't see us blog-girls taking pot shots at each other. More proof that blogs imitate life? So boys of the blog, take a deep breath, make peace, and go get your vote on.
-later
