27 March 2007

Why I Love My Readers

Why I Love My Readers

The most obvious reason is because you read my site, which makes me feel that I'm not just spewing bibble into the atmosphere, some of it is being caught too. I'm guessing here but I'd put a couple of 50 pence that you are intelligent, thoughtful people who appreciate that we don't all have to be the same, that normal is as normal does and anyways who wants to be normal.

The other reason which links into the open mindedness and thoughtfulness is that I'm pretty sure that none of you indulge in threatening other bloggers with death threats or photoshop up nasty sexually lurid pictures of other bloggers. Well you might do, but as far as I am aware you don't stick em up on flickr or any forum. A lot of this happened to an American blogger Kathy Sierra, who although the BBC described her a prominent blogger I had never heard of, but I'm sure that she's never heard of me so we are even. I'm being flippant there and when I first saw the story I thought, Ack American, over sensitive, surely it can't be that bad, and then I saw her blog entry about it and the words dried up.

Sorry Ms Sierra I was wrong.


There are weirdos out there, but what Ms Sierra shows on her blog - a small part of, apparently, the hatred shown to her. It's unreasonable, it's unforgivable and it's unbalanced... It's completely and utterly wrong. No one should be subjected to that and the ones who are doing it and the ones who seem to be condoning it need to re-examine their moral compass cos right now it is fucked to shit.

Which gets me back to why I love you all, it's because you are good looking and intelligent, sophisticated and aware, but above all that, you are reasonable, sensible, humorous and reasonably sane. Because I don't think any of yous will ever confuse blogging with what is really important.

5 comments:

  1. Do not feel too bad. I never heard of the woman either.

    On CNN there was (and maybe still is, I do not watch much cable news anymore) two internet chicks that would scour blogs to see what Americans were really thinking about. One of the ultimate goals for my blog is to make that segment. Then I could have speaking engagements where I just talk about something that pisses me off and get paid a few thousand bucks for my time.

    It is hard to say what I would have done in her situation. Would I cancel my speaking engagement (letting the death threat people win) or go anyway and risk having the threats being real. That is tough.

    My gut reaction is to say "screw them" and go anyway. This is America after all - and by that I mean it is legal to pack heat. I have a permit to carry a handgun and I own several. So if you are going to come after me with a noose you better have one hell of a long rope! But I HATE HATE HATE packing heat, and so I never do. It pisses me off to feel so unsafe that I feel I need a gun.

    Who knows. It is easy to say I would have gone anyway - knowing that the threats were not made to me. Chances are I would have done the same thing - just to be safe.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's outrageous. That poor woman (I'd never heard of her either).

    It's depressing that there are people out there who feel it's acceptable to show so much...I don't know what word I want. I was going to type "disrespect" but that's so not strong enough. I hope the relevant authorities throw the book at these people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd never heard of her either.

    Do you think it's all true? She'll be getting masses of hits now.

    Not that I'm cynical or anything.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And we love you because you say things like "good looking and intelligent, sophisticated and aware, but above all that, you are reasonable, sensible, humorous and reasonably sane". Which is possibly the nicest thing anyone's said about me all week.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Robert Scoble's blog is also an interesting read on the Kathy Sierra death threats thing- 318 comments as I write this, kept me quiet for a couple of minutes...
    http://scobleizer.com/2007/03/26/taking-the-week-off/

    And this is great - pertinent, too...
    http://www.melted-dreams.net/definition/2006/05/30/the-right-to-insult/

    ReplyDelete