On life in the blogosphere
On other blogs, bloggers like to blog about blogging. I'm a blogger who enjoys
reading about blogging on other blogs sometimes, but I find that I can't blog
about blogging without feeling self conscious about constantly using various
forms of the word blog, a word that I still find a little ridiculous.
This is a rare post here, because it is a blog post about blogging. So that
I don't have to type blog and repeatedly inflict the word on innocent
readers, I'm
going to use the word porkpie instead.
The winners of the 2005 EU Evangelical Porkpie Awards have been announced. The Happy Husband didn't win anything, but then it didn't really fit into any of the categories. Rey nominated this porkpie in the category for Best New Evangelical Porkpie. The nomination did not effect an award, but it did yield some interesting results nevertheless:
- It gave me the distinction of becoming the first entrant to be disqualified, since I've been porkpieing for 17 months and cannot be considered "new" by any definition—particularly not by porkpieosphere standards.
- Due to the disqualification, The Happy Husband was the only porkpie on the list of nominees to appear in a strikethrough font for a week or so. The line through this site's name brought more attention to it than it would have received under normal conditions. My traffic increased quite a bit during that week.
- The top-quality and highly competitive porkpier behind Amy's Humble Musings, another Best New Porkpie nominee, declared me to be her stiffest competition (or, as she put it, "biggest threat" because THH is "a great site, plain and simple."). I consider that quite a compliment, especially since she eventually won the award and impressed Eric the Preacher enough to interview her at length on the Evangelical Underground site. As soon as I do the redesign I've been thinking about for the past six months, her porkpie is going into my sidebar as well.
- My artist/geek friend Rey, whose The Bible Archive was a nominee for Best Evangelical Porkpie–Apologetics, borrowed a page from the Impressionists' playbook and held his own Salon du Refusé, an awards showcase so arbitrary it borders on Dadaism. Eric the Preacher liked the idea so much he even put the Salon graphic (see above) in the EU sidebar even though he wasn't included in the Salon. Coolness on all sorts of levels.
- This porkpie was included in the Salon du Refusé and given the award for Not A Runner Up. It is my first award, and I couldn't be happier about it.
Though some folks thought the Evangelical Porkpie Awards were silly, divisive, and irrelevant, I think they accomplished their purpose of bringing valuable attention to some quality work that people are doing. Even nominees who didn't win benefited from some extra traffic, and even those who weren't nominated benefited from their discovery of porkpies they might otherwise never have noticed. I commend Eric for a good idea and thank him for all the work he put in to promoting God-oriented sites.
I should note that the Salon du Refusé did not escape controversy. Apparently there have been accusations of blatantly erroneous French grammar, mistakes born of ignorance that tries to sound sophisticated and impressive. For the record, I have no problem with that and find it entirely appropriate and in keeping with the spirit of the Salon awards.
