Thank you, but, argh, chain mail!
Kudos to Grandma Chris for her excellent blog entry on the subject! I'd had a bad day that gradually got a little better and better by the time it wound down. Work went very well all things considered, so coming home to my email, I found a Google alert that included Chris's post. Reading it had me jumping for joy!
Blog awards! They are one of the most annoying blog trends because they are chain letters that bloggers simply can't resist, so they junk up their blogs and spread the "award" on by "tagging" other blogs with it.
Blog awards are ego-centric. They play on the desire to feel like one has a lot of power and has achieved some kind of award for something, anything at all, it could be a "best art blog award" or "Honesty blog award" or " "Beautiful person award" anything at all. They also play on people's desire to be popular and get more and more hits. This blogger said as much.
But these so-called "awards aren't real awards, and they come with a big string attached. The obligation to pass the award on to other bloggers, often a specific number of bloggers one must pay it forward to, is stated.
Yes, just a chain letter after all, and pretty boring from a reader's standpoint.
Who wants to read blogs cluttered with these useless fake ego-puffing pieces of fluff?
It's as bad on the blogosphere as those silly fanfiction pages and their ridiculous made-up awards for anything from art to the best page layout/design and on and on.
Any blog meme is a chain letter, and while most require you to answer questions, or post your favourite links or recipes and then tag friends with the instruction in the chain to do the same, blog award chains may or may not come with questions.
Sure, they do give the bloggers an opportunity to write stuff about themselves, but the whole pay it forward thing really wrecks blogging for me, for the most part. It's one of the reasons I don't blog much, don't read blogs regularly, stop reading some blogs I started out being interested in, and don't tell too many people about my blogs.
But here on this page, mangling blog chains is the way to go.
😏Meme: BEAUTIFUL PERSON AWARD!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* That's typically sure to con some people into sending the assembly-line flattery around.
😏Meme: Once you are given this award,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: which is really a chain letter, not an award…
I wasn't given it, thank goodness! I saw it posted on a blog.
😏Meme: you are supposed to paste it in the ask of 8 people who deserve it.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I value my friends a lot more and am not about to give them copies of some annoying impersonal chain award.
😏Meme: If you break the chain nothing will happen,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: other than your having prevented a bit more fake flattery spam from being loosed into cyberspace. At least you won't have added to it, and that is a good thing.
😏Meme: but it’s sweet to know someone thinks you’re beautiful inside and out.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Where is that barf bucket?
*Cough*
You don't need a lousy fake award chain letter to know you are beautiful, and seeing this junk replicated on the net really doesn't make me feel beautiful inside. Actually getting it would really make me get ugly inside and the sender would never know it because I just wouldn't be able to respond in a nice beautiful way.
If you want to compliment me, don't ever tag me with these phoney awards! It's bad enough seeing them replicated all over other people's blogs.
The Versatile Blogger Award
Chain2: 1. Display the award logo on your blog.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: forget that. The whole idea is to get every blog looking the same with the spreading of the same irritating logos and icons whatever. Big, big chain letter racket!
Chain2: 2.
Chains: Thank
Chain2: and link back to
Chains: the
Chain1: blogger
Chain2: person
Chains: who nominated you.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I wouldn't even if some blogger did 'nominate' AKa pester me to participate in this blog meme.
Chain2: 3. State
Chain1: Tell the blogging world
Chain1: seven
Chain2: 7
Chains: things about yourself.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: 1. I detest so-called blog awards.
2. I see so many of them cluttering up the blogosphere, making blogs borgish, ego-centric and uninteresting.
3. I see them cluttering up the net making blogs dull, boring and repetitive.
4. I see them cluttering up blogs with people's various stats about themselves that are forgotten as soon as they are skimmed.
5. I fail to see the value in a fake award especially when in reality it's a chain letter scheme.
6. I refuse to replicate them.
7. I can't express how annoyed I am with the lame excuses people make for continuing to replicate these pieces of blog spam.
I only number things occasionally when I want to make a few points about something in particular. Besides, whatever people learn about me won't come in a faux blog award meme.
Chain2: 4.
Chains: Nominate
Chain1: seven
Chain2: 15
Chains: other
Chain1: blogs that you think are amazing.
Chain2: bloggers for this award.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Forget it. I only communicate when I have something to actually say, I don't seek attention, gratitude and ego-swelling by or from chain letters. Whether seven or 15 or any number of blogs and bloggers, digitized or spelled out, all become significantly less amazing when faux blog awards darken their little slice of the web.
Chain2: 5. Notify these bloggers of the nominations by linking back to one of their specific blog posts so they get notified back.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Not only is thanking and linking back to their main blog page enough, you want me to pick out some random post, - oh, wait, I get it, the specific post would be the one where they spread this chain, of course! Well, nothing doing! Get lost!
The "Stylish Blogger Award" meme chain.
😏Meme: Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: How do you "think to" somebody? And those nominations are a joke. They are not nominations at all, but merely the act of passing this silly faux award on to other bloggers. The linkage is of course something most people want done with their blogs so more people will happen on them. If the nonsensical fake pats on the back in the form of these so-called "awards" won't get them spreading it, the promise of getting linkage back to one's blog just might do it. These blog meme chain awards are so popular because they are designed to seriously hit people right in the "I want to be praised" part of their psyches.
😏Meme: Share seven random facts about yourself.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You asked for it.
1. The best way to stop people from reading your blogs is to participate in blog memes.
2. Blog awards are fake and pointless.
3. All blog memes are boring.
4. No one'll care or remember what random crap you input to fill out a blog meme award forwarding con.
5. So many people don't seem to realize how phoney and boring they are.
6. Their so-called rules and the pass-it-on string attached are all annoying and stupid and they crop up everywhere.
7. Circulating blog awards and other memes waste tons of bandwidth.
😏Meme: Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No. I wouldn't even bother old friends with this viral scheme, let alone impose it on new-found bloggy friends. Not that any of them would mind, it seems I'm the only one immune to fake ego-strokes via manipulative blog award meme, and outspoken enough to tell it as I see it.
😏Meme: Contact the winners to congratulate them.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Congratulate them for receiving some stupid blog chain? Not.
😏Meme: My 7 Links
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, um, why do people go nuts for these blog memes?
😏Meme: 1) My Most Beautiful Post:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Huh? It wouldn't be a written one, my softer, more beautiful side if you will, comes out in music so probably some music post, and - beauty if in the eye of the beholder, so one piece of music might be beautiful to somebody, another to somebody else. No real comparison and it doesn't matter anyway.
😏Meme: 2) My Most Popular Post:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Are you kidding me? Other than my "Best answers" on Yahoo answers I have no idea.
😏Meme: 3) My Most Controversial Post:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh, you seriously just asked me that? Let me put it this way, I don't get on well with groupthink which is why I'm too controversial to fit into most communities and am happy just to make my own, and if people discover and actually understand and like where I'm coming from, cool. But - I don't have a most controversial post.
😏Meme: 4) My Most Helpful Post:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I have no idea.
😏Meme: 5) A Post Whose Success Surprised Me:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Again, that would be all my "Best Answers"
😏Meme: 6) A Post I Feel didn’t get the Attention it Deserved:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: It's not just one post. It's trying to send a message and people just refuse to listen.
😏Meme: 7) The Post that I am Most Proud of:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: It's not about pride for me, it's about expressing myself and trying to make the internet a better place.
😏Meme: Now comes the fun part.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I smell a "Repost/reblog/tag everybody/make it go viral, pass it on!" coming up. That's what is considered "fun" in these memes. Call it "fun" and people are less likely to realize it's just a big "make this thing replicate all over the net!" pitch.
😏Meme: I’m nominating the following bloggers to share their wisdom by publishing their 7 links on their blogs:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, right, the "nominations" thing again, it's really just using the "tag" function to get other bloggers' attention so they'll do the meme - so it's just forwarding, really.
I "nominate" no one, and if they do get this meme, it won't have come from me, and of that, I can be proud.
Another 7 questions blog award chain
😏Meme: 1. Describe yourself in seven words…
🧝♀️Ocean Elf:Christian and musician who mangles memes.
😏Meme: 2. What keeps you up at night?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: What makes you think anything keeps me up at night?
😏Meme: 3. Whom do you aspire to be like?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Um I sorta outgrew that whole thing ages ago.
😏Meme: 4. What scares you?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Chain letters can go on asking that into eternity, and the answer is still none of your dang business.
😏Meme: 5. What are the best and worst things about blogging?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Best? Good question. Worst? Spam - and that comes in two flavours: flamy or the usual spam comments, and stupid blog chain letters!
😏Meme: 6. What was the last website you looked at?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: The one I found this blog chain on.
😏Meme: 7. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: It might, or might not, be any number of things, but really, none of your business.
The Sunshine Blog Award
Sheesh, talk about lame.
😏Meme: Thank the person who gave this award and write a post about it.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Thank bloggers for junking up the net with this stuff, I don't think so.
😏Meme: Answer the questions below. Pass on the award to 10 bloggers you like, link their blogs, and let them know you awarded them.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, don't expect to get much in the way of info out of me, and I'm not passing on this "award" to any bloggers.
😏Meme: Favorite Color –
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Asked a zillion times in various meme chain letters already…
😏Meme: Favorite Animal
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Besides my own pets, well, I have quite a few favourites.
😏Meme: Favorite Number
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Meh.
😏Meme: Favorite Drink
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: All depends…
😏Meme: Facebook or Twitter
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Who cares? I'm not adding or following you.
😏Meme: Your Passion
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: mangling chain letters. Let's leave it at that.
😏Meme: Giving or getting presents
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Depends.
😏Meme: Favorite Day
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: None. Why should I have a favourite day? Some are great, some not so great, and all can fall on any day of the week.
😏Meme: Favorite Flowers
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: The ones that smell nice and look nice and last long.
😏Meme: Blogs we nominate:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: that would be none… Seriously, what a sham. "Nominate" only means "Spread this pile of random load of questions to other blogs and obligate them to fill them out and pass them on to other blogs!"
Creative Blogger Award and its Origin
There are two, one a rip-off of the other. That's right, the original design that came from scrap sheets, by Hulda design, May 2008, was not a chain letter. The pink version, is.
So, we're not going after Hulda or her design here, since she didn't use her original design to start a chain letter. Whoever's responsible for the second logo thing and all these "rules" though, you asked for it.
😏Meme: The Kreativ Blogger award comes with the following rules:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Ack.
😏Meme: 1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I wouldn't. They probably wouldn't find out I was screaming inside my head at them unless they happened to read this meme-mangling. As yet, no one had actually paid the supposed blog award to me yet, and I'm thanking the whole internet for that. But I come across these things in my internet wanderings.
😏Meme: 2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And make sure you have at least one blog entry that looks like those of everybody else who fell for this chain? No thanks. Notice, I didn't even put it here.
😏Meme: 3. Link the person who has nominated you for the award.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Since that was thankfully nobody, I won't, and wouldn't do it anyway, even if someone had "nominated" AKA paid this blog chain forward to me.
😏Meme: 4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nothing doing. But really, what exactly, is 'interesting'? What if I rattled off 7 things that turned out to not be interesting to anyone?
😏Meme: 5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: In other words, pass it on! No thanks…
😏Meme: 6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Besides that being too much bother for something so phoney and unimportant, what makes anyone think the linkage will cause others who come across all any reposts of these so-called "awards" would read all the blogs that were linked?
😏Meme: 7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, sure… hey guys! I just wanted to let y'all know that I just fell for and spammed you with a phoney blog award which is actually a chain letter and I'm too afraid to break it for hurting my ego and those further up the chain, and I also think you'll take this spam for an ego stroke! isn't that precious?" No thanks, nothing doing.
What the heck is a liebster?
Apparently it's a blogger with less than 200 followers, or so I read on some blog that got saddled with this so-called award, even though the blogger thought it was the most awesome of awesome. *Rolling eyes*
Liebster is evil. It's been going around the blogosphere for years! It still hasn't died! It is like some sort of vortex that sucks bloggers in, and before they know it, (worse, some know and just don't care,) they have been duped into perpetuating a chain letter.
Liebster promises sweet nothings, and delivers sweet nothings. Just ask Sammy, one of its many, many victims.
😏Meme: 1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Than some blogger for reposting a chain letter and using the "tag" function to rope me in? Oh, brother, well, I guess that's just another motivation to get the bloggers spreading this annoying phoney card-board cut-out blog meme. "if I send it, all the bloggers I send it to will thank me!"
Well since nobody actually sent the stupid to me, I found it on the web, I don't have to thank anybody, except of course for not sending me this chain letter. I will thank everybody on the blogosphere to kindly make their blogs worth something and stop with these blog memes. Yeah, I know, that's probably asking far too much from people.
😏Meme: 2. Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There again, I don't have to, and wouldn't even if somebody did pass this ridiculous chain award on to me.
😏Meme: 3. Copy and paste the award onto your blog.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And make your blog look just like all other blogs with respect to having gotten sucker-punched with this faux award? No thanks.
😏Meme: 4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: In other words, pay it forward! Nothing doing. Besides, I have no idea how many followers anybody has and quite frankly I don't give a flying hot dart.
😏Meme: 5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving them a comment.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh sure, "Um, hello my blogger buddy, I haven't actually stopped in to read your blog in ages let alone leave a comment, but I need to pass on this chain letter and hopefully get lots and lots of links back and thank-yous, so I just thought of you and how awesomely awesome you are, and therefore, it is my blogging duty to bestow on you this fake award which is in actuality nothing at all but a chain letter with a silly sort of award picture thing that everybody's passing around, so guess what, you and I are among the in crowd now!"
Yeah, no, when I leave comments on blogs, I always have my own reason, and never to pass on any stupid blog "award" of any kind.
The Liebster award has mutated to include questionnaire memes. Especially the dreaded 11 things meme.
😏Meme: The Rules
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Which I won't follow...
Chains: 1.
Chain1: Post
Chain2: Share
Chains: 11
Chain1: random things
Chain2: facts
Chains: about yourself.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You might be sorry for making this request.
Chains: 2. Answer the
Chain2: awarder’s
Chains: 11 questions
Chain1: your nominator asked you.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: thank goodness I wasn't nominated for one of these dingbat chain awards. Even if I was, I wouldn't play… So don't be too disappointed if you don't get the sort of answers you want.
Chains: 3.
Chain1: Create
Chain2: Ask
Chains: 11 questions
Chain2: of your own
Chain1: for your own nominees.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nope, Not wasting time trying to come up with questions, and there will be no "nominees".
Chains: 4. Nominate 11
Chain1: different
Chains: bloggers
Chain1: with fewer than 200 followers.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: That actually translates to: "spam 11 bloggers with this obligation-filled chain letter disguising itself as a fun bunch of "Talk all about yourself!" and "You've just won an award!"
bleck! No thanks, no nominations/questions and I don't care who has how few or how many followers, this liebsters and the whole blog award craze needs to die.
Chain1: 5. Notify them and hope they play along.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nope, no notifies from me, no reblogging this stupid award, no hoping they'll play along, rather, I wish people would cut it out once and for all.
Chains: Facts about you:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You won't like them.
1. I mangle memes.
2. I don't encourage anyone to participate in viral schemes.
3. I don't consider "blog awards" to be real awards, only chain letters. To get an award, you have to actually do something other than write blogs.
4. I have been abandoned too many times by people who were supposed to be my friends because they'd rather go on spreading chain letters than listen to me when I discourage it - and yes, I do try to be as nice about it as I can.
5. I'm sick of being abandoned by people in favour of their wish to keep letting themselves get pushed around by chain letters.
6. I wish the blog meme craze, especially these awards would die out.
7. I will never pass on to - er, excuse me, "nominate" anyone for a so-called blog award.
8. I have seen more than 11 of the same questions repeated more than 11 times in various survey meme chain letters over the years.
9. If anyone ever inflicts a "blog award" or any sort of blog meme on me and "tags"/"nominates" me on one of my blogs, I won't kudo them or even acknowledge having received the meme on that blog. I will mangle it on MTM instead.
10. One of the quickest ways to make me lose interest in a blog is to post memes and too many quotes from movies, TV shows, celebrities and other famous people, or song lyrics.
11. If you replicate memes on your blog and I come across them, I will be annoyed, but you'll never know it unless you happen across it in one of my meme-manglings, and even then you won't know if it was you or somebody else who inflicted the chain on my computer screen, because I won't name names as a rule, unless it is to point out where a meme originates from. I'll give that info if possible.
The "Lovely" Blog Award
*Cough, cough!*
😏Meme: The rules:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Which are about to be broken…
😏Meme: Thank the blogger who nominated you with a link to the site.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: This sort of thing would make me do anything but.
😏Meme: Write seven things about yourself that other bloggers don’t know.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I have a lot more than 7 meme-manglings that the whole blogging world knows nothing about.
😏Meme: Nominate fifteen other deserving blogs.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: In other words, hit up 15 bloggers you think deserve to get splotched with another obnoxious, obligation-laiden chain letter passing itself off as a stupid award, no thanks!
😏Meme:The seven things:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: 1. n/a. 2. n/a. 3. n/a. 4. n/a. 5. n/a. 6. n/a. 7. n/a and NOYB.
My rant on otakuism, written up years ago, contained annoyance at their stupid fake web page awards for this and that, awards for fanfiction, awards for best art, awards for most popular, whatever, you name it. I hated that trend then and I detest it now. It's an absolute blog chain letter infestation.
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