Viacity (is spelled correctly)

You know what's boring? Bitchy celebrity gossip. Not because I'm above wondering if Jamie Lee Curtis will ever publicly address those things that are, admittedly, Nobody's Business, but because celebrities are so boring now. Whoever the "they" is that used to go around breaking the mold after making people, "they" need to get back to work. More cookie, less cutter.

But I did get totally sucked into a site recently. It's not really a gossip site, but it's plenty bitchy. And I seem to be the last person to know about it.

It's a site that exists to take issue with perceived "discrepancies" on the websites of popular bloggers. However, I'm not going to link to it, because I think the mission of the site doesn't quite fit the posts it actually produces.

For example, recently it picked on Bossy for speaking in the third person. Okay, fine, if you want to switch over to being a general critic, but then all of the other posts, which are much more personal and cranky towards certain bloggers, don't make sense. Are you (author of said site) righting "wrongs," or are you just expressing disappointment when people are popular for reasons you can't fathom?

Look, anonymous sister, I'm not arguing with you. Madonna has been confusing me with her popularity for over twenty years. But it's because I guiltily like your site that I want some boundaries. On one side we have "popular bloggers who lie." On the other side we have "popular bloggers you just don't enjoy." But - be fair - what has Bossy done wrong other than not please your personal preferences?

One of this blogger's favourite targets in the Pioneer Woman. Me, I like PW. True, I don't like the way she possibly uses Flickr as an image hosting service (as opposed to a photo-sharing community), and yep, I'm a sad fat nerd who cares about things like that. But, I told PW how I felt (in a Flickr comment), and she, although disagreeing, responded quickly and civilly. I appreciate that.

That aside, I find PW to be a funny writer who generously shares her wealth with one megacontest after another. I'm impressed. I don't know if it's all advertising money driving these things or if some of it comes from being one of the 100 largest landowners in the United States (see #76), a fact I only know because of that naysaying critic. But who cares? Why would it matter? She doesn't have to share a penny, no matter how she gets it, yet she does. I'm very impressed.

Naysaying Critic (hereafter "NC") feels that PW hasn't been honest about her advertising revenue, her charity calendar sales cut, and what her children like to drink. I don't know what to say. Things change? (Revenue, drink preferences.) Miscommunication? I admit that I don't really care - I have fun reading her words and entering the contests. True, no one likes a liar, but the evidence for that accusation isn't, in my opinion, very compelling.

(And, when I think about it, plenty of people like liars. But that's another issue.)

(I'm really not part of her unquestioning fan-gang, I swear. I mean, I love her free Photoshop actions and all of her straightforward photography advice, but I really dislike about half of the posts from her guest P'shop blogger. As NC says, it's always just another freakin' overprocessed photo of said guest blogger's daughter. I never thought I'd start cringing over freckles. Or, in a post that we continue to regularly reference-read-mock around our house, there was the time the guest blogger showed everyone how to turn your baby into a dollish freak. Hey, if you're going to scare people, don't hold back. But! I seem to be in the minority on that one, and that's okay. We're all allowed to like different stuff. I can click the back arrow. That guest blogger seems to be a very nice person, and if some of her kindly offered advice doesn't suit me personally, well, so what? It's not all about me. Except on this site.)

It's hard, because Naysaying Critic does hit home now and again. I don't want to name names (although I've linked links on this subject in the past), but there are certain "style" bloggers whose stuff, to me, is really unremarkable or downright butt ugly. It's hard to look at their "amazing finds" without turning to Mike and saying, "Can you believe they're touting this crap?" NC is a like-minded spirit on this issue, it seems.

Again, though, style is personal. Look at me - I can't decorate the apartment until I find exactly what I want, and finding exactly what I want has not been going well. Meanwhile, other stuff keeps creeping in. The modular unit under the TV, which I remember dancing in front of in 1978 while listening to the Monkees, was sent (with the TV) from my parents when they moved. It completely violates the entire "rustic Euro-Mediterranean with technology accents" charm I was working on. But! It beats not having a TV stand.

And please do not even mention the boxes that serve as a table for Mike's monitor and keyboard. Just. Don't. Mention. It. Just don't. And don't mention the unused computer table in the other room. Just don't. And can you get me some chocolate while you're up?

So, I can boggle all I like, but at least these other people are finding things they find attractive and are  enjoying them. Someone publicly picking on what their style, making it so personal, is even more boggling. (Except for the time they were trying to sell a map for some obscene three-figure price. But even then, I was criticizing their store, like any other store, not them personally.)

Of course, any NC worth her salt is going to pick on Madame Dooce.

I've enjoyed Dooce for a long time. True, I don't think we'd be friends in real life. I rarely drink, I'm not a mommy, and the coming of winter absolutely delights me. Oh, and I wear clogs every day. Dealbreaker.

And, again, the NC does hit home. She covered the (now-famous-in-the-chickblog-world) "incident" between Dooce and Jenny the Bloggess. I'm still not really sure what happened, what with mostly not caring. I think Jenny was making an interesting sociological comment on her blog about how Heather was now so popular that she was almost mythical (like Santa or a hobbit). Then, I think Heather said something at BlogHer about how weird it feels to have someone write that. Then, I think Jenny stood up at BlogHer and, with sincerity and lightness, tried to explain that she's a fan and didn't mean to cause any hurt feelings. Then, apparently, some people said Heather acted unamused and ungracious, or something. I'm not sure. And then another SLC blogger someone (who?) took an unflattering photo of Heather's reaction during this.

(Update: scroll down - the photo is in a post by NakedJen, but the person the previous link leads to says NakedJen wasn't even there, so I apologize for the lack of attribution. This is probably why I no longer pay my MLA dues. That, and the Chocolixir habit.)

Wow. Catfight at the junior high dance, anyone?

My point being that, okay, maybe La Dooce does have a track record of being surprisingly out-of-touch with the community aspect of blogging, despite her high profile participation in events which celebrate that part of the blogging experience. (Appearing to interact with only the same small group of other "in" bloggers probably doesn't help the "clique" reputation.)

But, I admit to being sympathetic. I'm terrible about not leaving comments, not even on my own flippin' blog of, like, four readers. (SMOOCHES! Sorry for my bad habit or smiling and answering telepathically. I always forget that there isn't a plugin for that. Plus, I'm lame and don't have comment feeds, so I assume nobody ever actually checks back for a reply unless it's still the front page post.)

I understand that, since Heather/Dooce makes her living from the blog, some people are disgruntled that she doesn't give a lot of personal recognition to the people that got/keep her there. At the same time, there are bloggers like Pioneer Woman and Bossy, who do a lot to interact with their fanbases. (Keep in mind that PW gets at least as many comments per post as Heather, who rarely even makes comments available. Mind you, if I were Heather, I'd probably disable comments, too. I don't even like the one-off haters who float through here every few months.) So, there are now these other, lively writers who have also set the bar much higher in terms of acknowledging readers.

But the writing's the thing, right? Everything else is gravy, and Heather can run the Heathersphere as she pleases. She doesn't owe anyone anything. (I hope! Otherwise, I don't want to play the My Pwetty Personal Diary game anymore. I need an outlet for my selfishness. I try to abuse Mike, but he's got that stupid good-natured thing going.)

Sure, I (and a lot of other Bossy fans) wish Heather had said something about Bossy's video. It looks uppity that Heather ignored a fun "love letter" video made by a person who is herself no slouch in the blog popularity department. And I wish Heather had - since it became a big, twisted deal - publicly defused Hobbitgate with a light, brief post on her own blog. That she chose not to breezily sort out the Blogher drama makes it look like she really was pissed, and if so - wow - maybe she is out of touch with her readers. (Which would cause FATAL NEW MEDIA ERROR to start flashing in amber on banks of underground CRTs, with an blocky cursor keeping time at the end.) 

When you enjoy someone's writing, you (or maybe it's just me) hope for them to live up to your ideals in other ways. It's nice when that happens.

But, to get back to the preteen inanity of it all, we're probably talking miscommunication upon miscommunication. I don't think there's enough there to justify NC's passion for taking Heather and her husband down a peg and expressing righteous concern for the well-being of their daughter. (Yeah, even I - who just had ravioli and chocolate for breakfast - am regularly surprised by that child's eating habits. But hey, I only know one tiny bit of the story, the part Heather shares for humorous effect. Also? I really don't care.)

If you're going to pick on someone popular, pick on the bloggers who are actually cruel. (Alas, I won't name names, because I don't need their grief. Remember: when we're here, it's all about me and my comfort. Here, have some chocolate. It helps.)

Meanwhile, I SURE HAVE USED A BUNCH OF WORDS WHEN I ONLY WANTED TO SAY THE FOLLOWING:

• This post from Dooce justifies her decision to write in a bubble, should she choose to. ("You'll never know, man!" I actually printed this one out at lunch for a few students to read. The original question was quite interesting.)
• There's a blog out there that picks on blog celebrities. I don't agree with 85% of it, but the other 15% makes me laugh. I don't know how to feel about that. I also don't worry about it, except for the sake of this post.
• Blog celebrities are, despite whatever (real or imagined) faults, still more interesting than the current crop of non-internet celebrities. I'm such an apologist for people who use their noggins, what can I say?
• You know what got me started writing this whole thing? I just wanted to steal Jenny-the-Bloggess' video from her latest post and share it. So, everything I've written is really just one big VIA. ("Oh, the viacity!")
• So, yeah, here it is:

And - it's a little early, unless you work in retail - but that video led to discovering another video by the same people. My favourite Christmas carol, as performed by robots:

Comments

[gwendomama]

Feel free to remove the link to my website that you used without permission.

That other SLC blogger did NOT take the pic of dooce, btw - she wasn't even there.

This was the longest, most awesome via-inspired-by-an-a-Ha-video I have ever read. Also, I recently had chocolate ravioli's that were made that way by chefs ON PURPOSE. So technically your kids breakfast was kind of totally gourmet.

[Jenny, Bloggess]

That person who just wrote that ridiculous comment about chocolate raviolis? That was me. Apparently I don't know how to fill in basic information about myself before I hit enter.

*sigh*

[Shari]

Ha! Jenny-the-Bloggess (I have to keep hypenating you because I'm going through a Winnie-the-Pooh phase this morning), maybe you can't fill in all of your info, but at least *you* made sense.

As for me, what I *meant* to convey is that the choc and the ravioli were separate, and it was _my_ breakfast... so, I am really not at all hip or edgy - mostly just pathetic. But! Sated and happy, so maybe there's a spot for me on Saveur's editorial board yet.

Gwendomama: I think there are whole court cases out there about what people are allowed to link to without permission. (Verdict? Pretty much anything that can be Googled, but one shouldn't be an ass and *directly* link to media/steal bandwidth, etc.) But, if I choose to remove it, thank you for giving me permission not to stress. :) I wish more people would do that.

As for the photo credit, I made one of those dangerous assumptions based on how the photo was framed (so to speak) in Naked Jen's post. I'm fixing it - thank you. (Really.)

Hey Shari

I am not trying to be snarky - I am just not sure I agree with your take on it - and I am certainly not going to pull a Jon Armstrong and threaten to SUE YOU!

I just prefer the facts straight, and yours weren't. As far as CL goes, I appreciate your aversion - really! Was not real happy to be linked by her.

Be well.

[gwendomama]

ooops -so sorry - that was me!

[gwendomama]

OHYEAH! I wanted to say...if someone is going to PICK on a blogger, they should make sure it is for something valid, like BOSSY giving back business cards at blogher because she only smiles pretty for the corporate sponsors.

now THAT is true. Who gives a FF if she refers to herself in 3rd person OR has an inappropriate crush on the craziest blogger of all?

[Shari]

LOL! Wait, I don't know why I'm laughing - I guess it's not funny. Sigh. Putting on my serious PBS discussion panel face. (But any bizarre drama is a *little* funny, right? Like Benny Hill? Which also used to be on PBS? Hmmm!)

Thanks for letting me know you weren't being snarky, just frustrated. I enjoyed your coverage of the "event," even if perhaps we're not eye-to-eye on some of the (other) "blogebrity issues." :)

(Slipping back under the radar now... mmmm milquetoasty!)

thanks for checking back in - and that story? bout jon armstrong?

TOTALLY TRUE.
the bossy one is too.

[BOSSY]

Bossy is way confused. Luckily, she can blame the wine!