This fortnight I participated in the Pioneer Woman’s photography challenge, like I do most fortnights and I didn’t get picked. Which honestly, doesn’t bother me. The quality of the photos chosen as the finalists was amazing, so please, don’t think that this is a sour grapes post.
Not at all.
Instead, I thought I’d ask some questions about stuff I’ve been witnessing all around the blogosphere.
Regularly, in the PW flickr group discussion boards, you see people pop up discussions on the photographers repeatedly being picked. A member questioned why this was and did we think that Ree had favourites that she went back to over and over again?
The entire conversation stayed polite, as the original poster had asked politely and I was interested to read the responses.
Eventually, Ree herself commented and explained how she chooses the finalists and that satisfied everyone.
However.
And this is where I start to wonder about readers and large bloggers with fans and such.
A lot of the comments made after the original post said something like this.
‘Ree’s competition, Ree’s rules, Ree’s choice. We don’t get to question how she chooses the winners and who cares how she picks them anyway, we should just be grateful that we get to participate.’ (note, no one person said that, but it was the general gist of some comments on this thread and in previous discussions about the same thing)
Which okay, fair enough. But, it seems to me that if you dare to disagree with a big blogger, or question how or why they do something, then prepare to be bitterly opposed – not by the blogger themself, but by a small portion of readers, the fans who think whatever said blogger does is fantabulous and us plebs don’t get to question.
Look, I’m not having a go at Ree, or the competition, because I love participating and it’s great fun. I’ve found some of my favourite photographers that way and I’m not going to stop playing. Ree is just a handy dandy example of some things I’ve witnessed elsewhere in the blogosphere too.
So, I wanted to explore the ‘don’t you dare disagree’ mentality that a very small percentage of people seem to have.
Do you think that we, as readers of large blogs like Dooce, and Pioneer Woman and other ones I can’t think of right now, deserve to know how winners of competitions are chosen? Do you think we have the right to question how and why things are done?
I’m not talking about trolling, or being nasty, but asking a simple question – ‘I’m curious as to how you pick the winners, I’ve noticed a lot of the same people being chosen, are they your friends, or do you just like their photos and keep coming back to them?’
Or ‘You’ve got a new sponsor, are they a product you endorse, or are they just paying the bills?’
It comes down to a line I read that immediately made me question who I was and how I was reading blogs. It said –
‘Who are we to question how she does something?’
And here I am, questioning how we interact as readers and writers of blogs.
Who are WE to question?
WE are the entire reason a big blogger is big. We are the readers, the page views, the sponsors, the commenters. We are every reason that someone is where they are.
Just like YOU.
YOU are the reason that I don’t feel like I’m shouting into the internet wilderness. YOU are the reason I keep writing and YOU are the reason I make book money off my blog. YOU.
So if you question me, I think you’ve got as much right to an answer from me (a small blogger by anyone’s count) as I’ve got to an answer from Ree.
I understand that bloggers like Ree and others with large readerships are a lot more time poor than I am and I honestly wouldn’t expect a personal response to one question. But if 20 people before me have brought up a subject and wondered about it, I think an answer is in order.
Which in this case, Ree provided, and it satisfied everyone (including me, who had also wondered how the photos were chosen).
But that didn’t stop people jumping on the girl who had asked the question and yelling (figuratively) How DARE you question!!
So I’m curious – do you think we as readers, have the right to question how a large blog runs a competition/picks a sponsor/chooses a winner?
Do we have the right to expect transparency from them? I know blogging is only a tiny slice of life and you can’t understand exactly how things work from a blog, but I’m talking simple transparency here.
As a reader and writer of blogs, I’m inclined to say yes. A large blog readership doesn’t exempt you from questions about how and why you do something and I honestly believe that the larger your readership gets, the more up front and transparent you need to be.
Maybe though, maybe I’m just up on my soapbox, shouting into the wilderness and poking things that don’t need poking.
What do you think?
***
As a disclaimer so that no one gets upset with me, I like Ree, she seems like a lovely person. I am not a regular reader of her blog, but I do click over every few weeks to check out what she is up to and watch for recipes I can adapt to gluten free. I also participate in the photgraphy challenges when I can and enjoy looking at the winners.
I’m also not complaining about anything here, I noticed the behaviour and thought it curious and wanted to know what you guys thought. If I was running a comp, would you question how I was choosing winners? (I would hope so, if I didn’t mention that already.) Actually, speaking of which, competition, have you entered?
So yeah, just curious.
