In light of the drama, I felt that I needed to write this editorial because things went out of hand. People arguing each other saying that Listless Ink doesn’t deserve this victory and that Random Curiosity should have won. I have discuss this on my sideblog that I won’t go into detail (just read the post on my Sideblog if you are still interested). Still, this argument keeps going and going, which disturbs me. This editorial won’t be about Random Curiosity and Listless Ink, but other things that bother me about the whole situation.
Note: Fanart used in this post is made by 紅雪
AniBlog Tourney was a good idea on paper. When it came to Random Curiosity losing, I think things got a bit out of hand. In the Round 2, Match 17 poll, there was accusations of “elitism” on both sides. Baka-Raptor puts it quite nicely in one of his comments:
Then some bloggers have the nerve to accuse episodic blogs of cheating in the tournament and lying about their stats. It’s disgraceful.
The root of the problem, as I see it, is that people care too obsessed with comments. Bloggers comment a lot more than non-bloggers, so they end up blogging for each other. Then they cut out the blogging and skip straight to the comments by using twitter and google reader, yet they still consider themselves anime bloggers. And then they wonder why they’re losing/not even invited to the tournament.
Attention all anime bloggers: pull your heads out of your asses and get back to writing about anime. That’s what people care about. Write in a way that’s accessible to new readers. Or if you’d rather keep up the circle jerk, that’s fine, but then don’t bitch about the votes.
My reason to blog about Anime is to let out my ideas and thoughts about Anime related things and be passionate about Anime. I don’t do it for the popularity or some sort of circle jerk activity, but for my self benefit. The average reader won’t care about the circle jerking, they care about the content. If they find it interesting, they will subscribe to it.
However, there is the elitism. I think some of it comes from the episodic vs editorial blog debate and the accusations of cheating disgusts me. Its even happening right now since Random Curiosity lost and its fans accusing of Listless Ink of cheating when she won fair and square.
From the looks of it, I have been a pretty successful blog after being up for nearly one year and a few months,but the statistics don’t mean much except flexing the e-peen. People seem to worry about statistics because of the ego, but I don’t care much since it adds additional pressure that one don’t need. People will take notice of your blog if you update once in a while and write relevant and interesting content that is written well.
If RC fans cared about the votes, they should have campaigned and spread the word. However they didn’t, so they shouldn’t complain about the results since its bad sportsmanship (this goes back to Baka-Raptor’s last statement, don’t bitch about the votes).
Which is why hardcore supporters of both episodic and editorial blogs need to just relax. There’s no reason to go around flipping tables and accusing anyone of being elitist; just because I prefer something different from you doesn’t make me objectively better than you. The converse is also true. Learning to respect other people’s opinions, no matter how wrong they may seem, is an important part of creating a harmonious community.
– Akira from the blog post Elitists: A Reflection of Our Aniblog Tourney Run
This kinda reminds me of the console wars between XBox 360 vs Playstation 3 or the more famous Mac vs Windows debate. Fanboys bashing/defending each others platforms to the point that it gets very annoying. Meanwhile the average Joe don’t give a shit what console is better or whether or not Macs or PCs are better. They make a choice themselves. It’s just like my choice of using Mac as my primary OS over Windows because it works for me. Do I care what people think about the platform I choose? Absolutely not…
Episodic and editorial blogs are like this, except this debate gone a bit out of hand ever since the AniBlog Tourney and made it 10x worse. We get episodic blog bashing and people accusing those who support editorial blogs “elitists.” I agree with Akira notion that everyone needs to relax. Like the drama I’m seeing with Random Curiosity, it’s no different from the mindless fanboy battles bashing.People need to take a deep breath and stop arguing about this issue because it won’t get people anywhere. Instead, people should enjoy the tournament as it was intended and respect others opinions.
The editorial vs episodic blog bashing needs to stop now. Unless you have a legit and intelligent reason why you don’t like episodic or editorial blogs, that is okay. However, if you go on with the bashing, it won’t make anyone respect your opinions. This whole situation wouldn’t have happen if people respected their opinions and acted rationally. I participate in the Anime Blogosphere because there are intelligent people who respect each other. From what I have seen from the latest situation, I sort of lost respect towards the whole blogosphere can’t get along just because of the results from the polls.
Lastly, People have to accept the notion that everyone is not perfect. Blogs will always have flaws no matter how perfect it is. People make mistakes and they learn from them. This is what make us humans. Bloggers need to stop thinking that they are better than each other because in reality, they aren’t. Opinions of blogs are going to vary just like appearance because people have different tastes. For instance, one person may think that the blog is good and there could be another who thinks that it’s not a good blog. Perception from your blog is going to vary no matter what. You don’t let that drive you down. Just post as you normally would and listen to feedback to improve.
So my closing argument, this whole situation is pretty much a big mess and it needs to stop now. The episodic and editorial blog bashing needs to stop now. People need to kiss and make up, respect each others opinions and accept that RandomC had lost and Listless Ink won. I’m pretty sure that the author of Listless Ink doesn’t deserve the treatment of mindless accusations of cheating and unsportmanship from RC fans. In the end, is the main purpose of the AniBlog Tourney is to promote lesser known Anime Blogs? If so, don’t drift away from the goal as it intended.
le sigh…notto disu shitto agen.
It’s serious business…
A lot of times people like to argue just for the sake of the argument. I mean they don’t even hope to win, or maybe winning would be worse than endlessly arguing.
It certainly is annoying, and toxic for the aniblogging community, but it might be impossible to get some people to stop. Trying to make peace is a good thing, but don’t bang your head against a wall over it.
I won’t stress my self over it. However, I do agree that it will be harm the whole community in the end and it’s something I don’t want to see.
It will eventually cool down. I agree that everyone should stop arguing, congratulate the winner and live on. It was actually fun when the drama was excluded.
It’s more like a food fight…
RC losing is probably the biggest upset in the tournament. Not to mention, other episodic blogs like THAT, SeaSlugs and a few others were able to get a pass. It seems that most were after RC mainly because of their episodic post format they have that opponents of episodic blogs dislike the most.