OK, Andrew Keen wins a round. Atlanta blogger, The Shelbinator, went live on Internet TV during and after the CNN YouTube debate from the Citadel in Charleston last night. Our intrepid blogger took us afterwards, live of course, to the infamous post-debate spin room where he:
a.) wandered around in search of a water fountain
b.) snagged a few minutes with CNN's John King
c.) failed to shove enough people aside to get to Joe Biden
d.) shut down all production to chase after women
Talk about not quite ready for primetime. But Shelby looked very nice in his suit and tie, and we at home got to yell along at him in the live chatroom that uStream.tv provides for the blogger's homies. Don't know if he ever got laid though.
Overall: The cult of the amateur is moreorless as it should be: inmates running the asylum. And having a roaring good time doing so.
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Well, considering your apparent history in "primetime" production still hasn't taught you how to cut a dull Youtube video without constantly popping the mic throughout the voiceover, this is high praise, indeed. I'm sorry I couldn't enjoy what I'm sure was your thoughtful analysis in the chat room whle I was disappointing your expectations. I suppose you could have done the really hard investigative blog-reading to scroll down and find my phone number to text me pointers, but why be productive when you can just kvetch between chapters of Harry Potter?
For the record, I "shut down all production" -- by which I imagine you mean quit streaming -- because CNN's WiFi cloud didn't extend to the SCDP post-party, where I had to go to shoot more tape. Project your sexual frustration elsewhere.
May I suggest a much thicker skin for your wardrobe should you try this again? This was a case, or post-mort rather, of laughing WITH you, not AT you, since I have to spell it out for such a bratty, juvenile attitude.
False dopey platitudes and smiley giggly faces, in yours, have little to no room in this biz. When it gets down to it, you really don't want that anyways, now do you?
Gawd, the male ego never ceases to astonish me with its spoiled-brat, momma's boy, defensive hot flash points, and humorless depth and scope.
Oh, Shelby. Calm down, okay? It was great that you got to go to the debate; we all thought it was awesome, Grayson too, if you'll read what she's actually saying. But a little criticism is a good thing, I mean shit, what do you expect?
Wait, who's projecting sexual frustration? Ha!
Andrew Keen, on the other hand, wins nothing. What a motherfucker that guy is.
Really, you ATL bloggers/writer guys are so fucking quick to tear into the very people who have championed you all along from humble beginnings. The first sign of the slightest, and I mean slightest, bit of hard road, and longtime supporters, and friends, get jettisoned in a bratty fury. Like some cutesy blond cheerleaders are going to come and save you all?? Venus on the barstool syndrome they call it. Rusty of course is the great exception to this rule. And funny, he's the one having the least sexual frustrations in his life, or so I hear.
You're right, it must just be my silly Y chromosome. Amber, I did read what she actually said; you wanna point out the "awesome" for me? And I'm not projecting sexual frustration, I'm taking issue with her specific speculative comment as to why I quit streaming before she had her fill. Grayson, if that's your idea of support, I'd hate to see your criticism. Oh wait, I already did, and then some. Like Steve Garfield said after you crapped on his cellphone video of the Counting Crows for no reason, do you have anything good to say about it? Oh, right, I looked nice in my coat & tie. Swell. Thanks, pal.
I thought Shelby did a great job.
"Really, you ATL bloggers/writer guys are so fucking quick to tear into the very people"
Now just one damned minute
Apparently Rusty is the only one of you boys who is getting laid. Heh.
Here's the "awesome":
The cult of the amateur is moreorless as it should be: inmates running the asylum. And having a roaring good time doing so.
...and really the tone of the entire post.
Really, Shelby, nobody's picking on you personally or anything. YOu did something monumental and everyone was excited; but that doesn't mean we all have to just sit around and suck your cokc. This is a learning process for all of us; you were a front-runner in being the first Georgia blogger to go to such an event and do such a thing, and it's a learning experience for the community.
Sara said you did a great job. I said you did a great job. Grayson did, countless others did. Now don't go playing the reverse sexism card; that's so exhaustingly lame. That's what Republicans do. "Help help I'm being oppressed!"
Now look, I can understand being sensitive. I'm about as sensitive as they come. But just own it, if that's what it is. Everyone's supporting you; try not to shit on the people who're rallying for your cause.
I understood the tone of the review as well but I could see how it could be misunderstood. And I'm not sure I would have gone plastering it over at Peach Pundit. I certainly had some good fun with Shelby last night. But it was in the moment and starts to lose context as the moment leaves. But whatever.
But really. Was this necessary?
"Really, you ATL bloggers/writer guys are so fucking quick to tear into the very people who have championed you all along from humble beginnings."
You can call it reverse sexism or whatever you want Amber, but that line is a load of horseshit and not the first time I've seen it either.
If I had a dime for all the folk who have tried to shove that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" polite society shit off on me, I'd be one fat cat. In fact, many folks, mostly women relatives, have tried, and failed miserably I might add, to do just that since I first started talking, and yes, it was early and often.
Sadly, plenty of women have taken it for gospel. It's one of the most subtly oppressive, and effective, statements of pure dogma cluttering up women's psyches since "hysteria."
Steve's video was pointless and dopey. My audio sucks. So call the freakin' Thought Police.
Goddamn you all for continuing this stupid fight so that I have to wade into it.
My first reaction when I got up this morning, saw the tweets, and read the PP post was "ouch." If such a post had been written about my fledgling efforts on Friday instead of Shelby's yesterday, I'd have been hurt and/or pissed about that criticism being splashed across such a widely read blog too. And I'm a girl, and I've gotten laid in the last 6 months, so I don't think those factors have anything to do with anything.
I posted earlier that Shelby did a great job, with no other commentary, because he did. And I really think that's all that needed to be said. He got press credentials, he rigged up the Ustream not only from his laptop but while walking around, and he brought us all a bird's eye view of his experience. What more do we have a right to ask for or expect of someone doing this for the first time? Sure, sometimes it was funny to see him wandering around for a drink of water or fixating on a woman's boots, but that's part of what makes it authentic and from a real person as opposed to a slick production house, too.
None of us do any of this stuff expecting glory or praise, but we certainly don't do it hoping for criticism from within "the club." I've bitten my tongue a time or 17 when someone else within the Atlanta political blogosphere who I'm friendly with said or did something ill-advised or dumb, because sniping at each other is pointless and counter-productive. Why don't we focus on all the cool things that everyone is doing and stop worrying about whether they did it 100% perfectly on their first try?
Now everyone kiss and make up, dammit.
Sara, I belive I already said most of just that very thing in my original post. It's just too bad that ustream.tv doesn't show some kinda appreciation meter. No one laughed harder at the whole concept of just laying down a camera and chatting up somebody than me, nor appreciates the inherent and groudbreaking, rather subversive value of such wacky media antics in the first place. Why do you think I bothered to even put hand to keyboard to write about it all in the first place?
One thing I will never do though is dumb down a post so that everyone can feel good about themselves and just "get it" with some quickie glance about.
That's for another blogger to do. Or Caren West maybe. Anyone who doesn't like my backhanded style can kiss my fat white ass when it comes down to it. I'm not out to prove jack shit, except for that fact that by posting to PP I am able to drive an awful lot of traffic to friends' blogs that otherwise wouldn't get there.
And now, I'm off to eat lunch, something I KNOW I do better than the rest!
This is all just a complete misunderstanding. It's easy to do in text and has happened to all of us. Let's not make it worse.
PS. Grayson, there's something on your site that keeps crashing my browser. I think it's the voicemail widget, but I'm not sure.
Just took that widget off, so I hope all works now. Lemme know if it keeps crashing browsers though.
Oh my God this thread is out of control; where do I even begin?
First, Amber, get out of my face with the sex. Why did I bring up my "silly Y chromosome?" Because GRAYSON started in right off the bat, when I expressed a beef with what read like a real piss post, with "the male ego," "momma's boy," and the "ATL blogger/writer guys" who just want Venus on a barstool. I didn't ask to make this about gender, and I'm not playing the reverse-discrimination card, I'm just mocking Grayson's fascination with my gender in her counterattack. Wake up and smell the hystrionics. Sorry if I didn't see "roaring time doing so" as a compliment; after her remark that I bagged the project to go chase women, I figured she might just be referring to that roaring good time. And saying I had a good time isn't saying shit about the quality of the project itself; I'm not asking you to suck my cock (what am I, an iPhone?), but if you want me to interpret a post as constructive criticism, it could be a helluva lot clearer than it was. If you and Sara said I did a great job, fine, but I still didn't see in this post where Grayson did -- just that I was "intrepid" and looked nice in a tie, before I "wandered," "failed," and "shut down" for tail -- and it was the first thing I read when I woke up with a hangover and turned on CNN at 6:45am only to see James Kotecki grinning back at me. And just because she had been a supporter the day before didn't mean I should assume she actually liked the outcome (since she didn't actually say so); some half of America still thinks the Iraq War was originally a good idea, just poorly executed. You can back a project one day and call it crap the next, I just didn't know that was her way of giving props.
But I've learned my lesson. Grayson compliments people in very obtuse and even unwritten ways, so I'll look harder next time, if she ever deigns to set hand to keyboard for me again.
Shelby, I would write about your goddamn hangovers even, you're simply that interesting and that talented. I'm sorry that my rampant and yes, often bitter-tinged obtuseness (sp?) upset you. I too get angry easily when I'm hungover, and very impatient.
Honestly? I thought, as we bloggers often do, that I was being oh-so terrible clever with the post. The title just popped in my head, and that set the whole tone, as it sometimes goes with posts, and it cracked me up so darn good that I thought surely it would all just crack the fuck up outta the rest of the world too. But as James said, it may have been one of those had-to-have-been-there kinda thing. And also, as Amber says, I just don't feel compelled to go around, uh, "sucking" I believe was the word, guy's egos when they are talented enough, and know it, to take care of that kinda garden-variety inner self stuff themselves.
That one's own cleverness isn't all that immediately, uh, appreciated is a lesson I never learned very well, and honestly, just don't really care to when it comes down to it, because if we can't crack our own selves up, then we really are in deep shit as human beings.
So anyways, the post just kinda came out like that, and I'm not going to apologize for it 'cause I still think it's funny, even complimentary if you read betweem the lines and like a lot of tongue in yo cheek, and I simply just like myself enough by now to keep what I like around for my own amusement, but I sure didn't mean it to be something this darn ugly between previously very supportive ATL bloggers.
Anyways, I'd love to make up all the fuss to you in some really good way, and I just met with a new client who's very interested in doing some live Internets for his clients, and if that comes through, I'd love to have you on the production team too, if the budget allows. 'Cause one thing I don't need to hear too much is that my work is dull and lacks decent audio. When the truth gets tough, the tough get together a team of people who are better than they are so that they can look much better than what they really are.
I'll be in touch if that happens, or if I have a chance to buy you a beer and hash out a few things, whichever comes first, or whichever option is the least repellent to you overall.
Well, I really just think it boils down to Communication 101. Shelby, I can understand if you felt hurt. The appropriate thing to do would have been to say, "I feel hurt and a little betrayed by what you wrote here." You could even get snarky, as bloggers tend to do, and add something like, "Oh well, not everyone has a big fancy camera."
Instead you went right for the personal attacks and escalated it straight out the door. I don't even really agree w/ all of Grayson's criticisms, but that's not the point here. I know the hippy-dippy Communication 101 stuff isn't fun or exciting, but it tends to be more constructive than your typical schoolyard fight.
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