This entire post a) has nothing to do with the title, and b) is going to come off sounding pouty and smacks of “I’m taking my ball and going home”, but it really isn’t – you’re just going to have to take my word for it that my motives here are not ulterior, posterior, interior, exterior, anterior, or otherwise; they’re coming from a good place made of rainbows and puppies and logic (which can totally be cute if you dress it up right).

I’m not going to be bugging people to vote for me in the West Coast Social Media Awards any more. I appreciate all of you who nominated me, voted for me, and asked others to vote for me – you are awesome, and I thank you from the bottom of my mighty bosom. However ..

I have multiple issues with the way the nominations and voting have been set up, and it bugs me to the point of considering everything a lost cause. For starters, the nomination process: it was complicated, required information that shouldn’t have been necessary (I may be an open book, but most of my readers do not have my phone number handy), and was LONG – two pages of essay-style questions, asking why you were nominating someone. A couple of questions, fine. Even one page of them, sure. Two pages? A lot of people contacted me and said “I wanted to nominate you, but I didn’t have time to write a thesis on why you’re great” – I feel terrible asking people to take that much time out of their day to do me a favour, and if I had put more thought into it past “ooh, blog awards!” I’d never have asked.

Then there’s the voting. If you ask people to wax up some poetry as to why they’re nominating a site, don’t you think it would be helpful to actually share that information with the public? Without listing WHY each site has been nominated in the category they’re in, the entire thing becomes a contest to see who can spam the links the most. You’re not necessarily voting for me because you truly think I deserve to win an award for Best Personal Blog; you’re doing it because I shared the link here and on Twitter and Facebook. I can’t say that for certain – maybe you DO think I deserve to win – but by asking others to vote for me because you asked them to makes the whole thing a popularity contest; one I don’t want to win. If I were to get an award for blogging, I’d want it to be because I’ve been blogging daily for 11+ years, or because someone thought I’m funny, or because I inspired someone to never go A2M – not because I’m good at getting people to click on links.

Lastly, and I fully admit this one really IS a bug up my ass but I think it’s a bigger problem than that and deserves to be mentioned, is the categorization of the nominees. Out of the 8 sites nominated for “Best Personal Blog”, you have:

• one food review site
• three entertainment sites
• one academic/literary site that I can’t properly categorize
• three actual, factual, personal blogs

Maybe I’m putting too much weight in the dictionary definition of “personal”, but when I claim Delicious Juice Dot Com is a Personal Blog, I mean it. I don’t review things for others, or let you know what’s happening in the city, or tell you about upcoming events; I write about my personal life. I’m not selling things, or telling you how to make millions, or shilling for companies that give me things. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying those types of blogs are bad in any way – they’re just not personal blogs, and I don’t think they belong in the Best Personal Blog category. Entertainment Blogs, sure. Foodie Blogs, of course. Weird Academic Blogs that actually have more words than my own, why not. But personal? Not by a long shot.

Personal blogs are a dying breed; replaced by micro-blogs or Twitter (if by anything at all). I like that my blog is so personal, though, and that I have a dumping ground for every half-baked thought that runs through my head. Does that mean I deserve some kind of award? No; that isn’t up to me. Sure, I’d love for my efforts to be acknowledged in some way – who doesn’t – but if that happens, I want it to be because someone truly thought I deserved it .. not because I was the best at spamming the link to the voting page.

I’m crazy melancholy today, and this post was likely caused by said melancholy. I’m just feeling really “what’s the point” about everything today, which is very much unlike me. I do know what’s behind these wicked blues though, so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel – but until I get there, I am cold and tired and sad all over.

hi.