{my thoughts on blog contests}

I know not everyone is all rainbows and Hello Kitty, but my goal is to start fresh today, this year, it's my resolve. I want to be more positive in 2009 than ever before in my life. At least after this post because it gets a little dark and negative so sorry for that. I truly want to start the new year off on a clean slate though so I think writing this post is good for me. Especially now that the period of sloth and indulgence has ended, it's good to be back on schedule and in the swing of life again, waking up at normal times and all. It's nice not to eat chocolate each day and bask in the glow of too much wine. It's wise to bring self control back in to your daily routine. And it's great to be back here with all of you on haus maus. I've missed you! So onto the dark part... Did you hear about the "Homies" competition over at the Apartment Therapy blog? I could stop right here because for those of you who know about it can guess what I'm about to say.... For those who don't know, it was this contest that AT decided to have where they asked readers what blogs they were reading. Out of the hundreds of nominations AT then took the 8 most mentioned blogs and put them together for a final judging where readers selected a favorite blog. I was one of those 8 and felt really flattered initially. The judging was a little hard if you are like me and happened to like 2 or 3 of them equally -- it did not matter -- you had to vote for only one. During the voting process, comments started flying in and at first were supportive. I optimistically thought, "Oh this will be an innocent little discussion" because let's face it the topic is design blogging, how bloody could it get? I see design blogging right up there with blogs about crafts and puppies, most people reading them (I had assumed at least) were pretty supportive appreciative people who valued the blogging community for what it was and all of the free fantastic content posted online each day for their reading pleasure, completely free of charge and did I mention free? Yes I say this with a 'tude. I have crazy tone in my voice right now. Anyway, the comments were horrible. No appreciation whatsoever, most of them were way off base. This nasty bashing of the blogs turned my stomach. Those in the contest, including me, took a beating, some more than others (I was mentioned only twice I think)... but it made me upset because I have not and will not go in any public forum, blog, website, whatever, either as myself or under some anonymous handle to belittle others and their work. My philosophy has and always will be to keep the negative off of the net. We have too much crap to handle in our everyday life. Most of us come to the web for entertainment, whether it's good or not so good is up to us. I tend to gravitate towards positive websites (Cute Overload!) and blogs and though I do read Dooce and Perez Hilton from time to time and think The Onion and The New York Times can provide a measure of shock value and negative entertainment, I like them but this is why: They do not feel like they are attacking anyone to me. I think all of the celebs being raked over on Perez's blog genuinely enjoy it and the press in general because his blog is THE gossip site and if you are NOT on it (according to Hollywood anyway) then you are NOT in the spotlight and you are no one. The goal is to be on Perez Hilton for the most part, whether he features you with white dots on your chin or not, no one really cares. It's press and Hollywood knows all press is good press. Dooce is more or less the same in a way because the people she talks about and makes fun of are those in her family and given that she loves them, they love here, and she buys them a lot of pretty things from her blog income, I think they're all cool with her talking about their flatulence problems. And she rocks! (okay during the campaign she did go off a little on Mz. Palin but that's different, again it's a celebrity more-or-less). If Dooce starting going after people though, average people out there that are trying to do good work and make an honest living, I'd stop laughing and I'd avoid tuning in. So that's what I mean when I say I avoid negative stuff online and stick to either what's positive or what I view as not directly impacting someone else's life in a negative way. But when I read that whole comments thread on AT where random readers, most who registered same day to leave those comments, were taking a giant pee pee on nearly everyone nominated, I was disturbed by it. Very. Disturbed. And I really wanted to see THEIR BLOGS so I could go see what BLOG PERFECTION looked like. The perfection they all thought we apparently were not meeting. Maybe if they have the perfect recipe for the perfect design blog they should take all that wind and sail with it to building the best damn blog on earth. Tone. I know. Tone. Sorry. Like most of you, I started surfing the web years ago because it was fascinating. My first email program was Lotus cc:mail and I remember the days pre-Google, pre-blogs, heck pre-webstores and pre-eBay. I came to the web time and time again to unearth gems, to find the good because I felt like in my normal "real world" life I was seeing way to many bads things happening and I needed some kind of escape. I'm not a big television person so the internet was perfect, one big space where thoughts and images met and life happened in new ways. Back then, I needed to find a place where I could find like-minded people who were also sick of the regular mundane routine and wanted more out of life. I was raised on the beach in a resort community in South Carolina, I didn't grow up with exposure to tons of culture and new ideas. You know how nowadays if we want culture we can go to a million websites to find it and learn. Back when I was growing up (no net) culture was going to the history museum 2 hours away or over to the Chinese buffet on Saturday (haute culture). Over the years of being online and now being here as a voice, a blogger, I can't tell you how much it means to me to have the online world but also to meet people here, be inspired, and to learn. I also appreciate when kindness is shown just as in real life. I'm Holly here and I'm the same Holly in the real world. For those of you who are reading and have met me, you know this. But that whole nasty comments thread over on that contest post was not kind. I rarely get angry, but I felt my pulse race because I believe that a blog cannot be weighed by importance or content or anything else as I think blogging has to do with being authentic and true and showing up here as often as you can to show the parts of your life that you feel like sharing. No single reader has the right to say, "She talks too much about being pregnant", or "I don't like her blog because she talks about her dogs more than a design blog should". Not that these are direct quotes from that whole AT thing but more or less this is the ammunition that people brought into that heat-filled space and it was pretty ugly over there. When I woke up on January 2nd excited to map out my goals for the new year and then read that I wanted to stop blogging altogether. I honestly considered dumping this blog and decor8 and not bothering to show up here each day. Like screw it. I know how stupid this way of thinking was and I would not give up decor8 but still... I allowed myself to get that upset. You know, that "screw it all" feeling you sometimes have when people act like what you and those you work with are not doing meaningful work. Doctors feel this way when a patient dies on their table (I know, my uncle is a surgeon). You don't think of those you save, you think of those you did not save. So it's the same as a blogger. You don't focus on the thousands who love you, you tend to focus on the 10 that said hateful heated nonsense about you. WHY IS THAT? I'd like to ask you a question before I officially close my mouth because ultimately I'm hoping you will comment and let me know your thoughts on this topic. Where would you be without design blogs? If there was no place to go on the web where individuals were posting about their homes, their favorite finds, things that inspire them? You know not too many years ago none of us could go on the web and find a design blog and I want you to think about that time for a moment. We sometimes get so caught up in this whirlwind "more more more" lifestyle we've been fed but really, think about it... What would it be like if you had only eBay and shopping websites and no blogs at all talking about anything arts or crafts related. No design blogs. No crafty blogs. Nada. It would suck it, right? I think that those who posted in that "Homies" thread should step out of their own heads for a moment and think about this the next time they try to judge a blog or weigh the value of a blog based on how many posts they write daily or how many nifty design tips they can throw out there. A blog belongs to the person authoring it and that person can write whatever they want. End of discussion. Or so you'd think. But of course you always have a handful who really want to argue this and critique blogs and enter them into contests to see "Who's Best". Who CARES WHO IS BEST? That is so high school. That is so "Best Dressed" "Most Liked" "Prettiest"... It didn't work in high school for anyone except for the winner and when it comes to contests there can only be ONE winner. After the whole AT "Homies" experience I have made a personal vow. I will no longer participate in blog contests putting blog against blog. I'm done with it. It's just another way for people to walk away feeling like a loser if they do not win and I never want to support that. Ever. Yay to AT for trying though. And yes I lost the contest. I was in the final 8 so I guess that means something but yes I lost and absolutely expected to and wanted to because once it got nasty I just wanted out. But that isn't why I felt upset then or even slightly annoyed up until last night. I didn't care so much if I lose or win a blog contest because once I was in the final 8 I was so flattered that I felt I had won in a sense. I wanted people to vote though and asked my Facebook contacts to vote, but I did not say for me or anything like that, I just said to go over to AT and vote for the blog you like best. I felt upset because people got hurt in that whole contest and that's sad. Most of us blog to record our thoughts and talk to people and connect and build bridges and motivate others. The blog that everyone knew would win, did anyway so I am not sure what the point was in the end because AT obviously knew who would win as in the end they more or less admitted to that fact. I guess they wanted to just see who are currently the "it" bloggers, I don't know, but I won't assume because it's not my place. I am grateful to AT for writing about me back in 2006 and I will always respect them for that first of many blog mentions on their site because it helped me to build decor8 when other equally strong blogs refused to write about me. So AT is good people. So peeps, what do you think of blog contests? I told you what I think...