As an intensely struggling college student I find that the presumption of websites and blogs, especially blogs, that not only ask but expect you to “donate” money simply because you happen to stumble across their incessant whoring, frustrating. Let me say first that there are a certain number of sites that I would consider donating to, because the author puts a lot of time into the blog and because the blog is informative, reaches new heights in criticism and catalyzes thought. These blogs have the class to have their donation button demurely off to the side, humbly but respectfully suggesting a donation. However, sites that are merely the often amusing and occasionally witty diarrhea of a pseudo writer so self assured in his or her own crapping abilities that they demand money and draw attention to their glaringly obvious Amazon donate button. Their sense of entitlement is overwhelming as they sit there typing away on their PC’s or Mac’s paying for a .com or Blogger Pro, sipping coffee, buying the Matrix on DVD and expecting me to donate even a dollar for their usually overrated tripe because they claim to be "struggling”. As I so obnoxiously posted to Jimtreacher.com, “If you are so strapped for cash go back to the ghetto of the poor middle class suppression of free blogspot hosting.”
My dollar would be better served buying me a potato from the Wendy’s dollar menu or an ice cream from McDonalds, food that will inevitably clog my arteries, increase my waist span making it nearly impossible to get married, which won’t matter that much since the inability of vital fluids to get to my heart will cause a sudden and early death. All of this is better than paying for their mind numbing, neuron detaching, eye glazing tripe, riddled with expletives and sex-centered humor (truly a mark of intelligence). That is like the prom queen expecting the entire football team to pay her for the favors that inevitably won her the crown. The difference is that the prom queen at least alleviated a certain level of sexual frustration from the societally induced lethal level of testosteroned boys. These sites do nothing but increase my level of societal frustration that natural selection has not taken care of baboons who laugh hysterically at the word “boob.” If these people are so interesting in the de communization of the Internet why don’t they make their sites less bourgeois and mundane? Give me intelligence or give me death. And in a society that encourages the likes of TV shows such as Jackass and Movies like Austin Powers, hailing them as funny when the only thing they ought to be hailed with is the crap that they produce.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jim Treacher
Switching medications is always tricky, but you seem to be doing as well as can be expected. Thanks for reading!
2 - mike
I resent this. I'm a dot.anarchist committed to the revolutionary transformation of the Net into a community of self-regulating autonomous collectives, like they have in Berkeley, only the electricity works and everyone has to take baths. Also I get my own room. And I hope the chicks are hot. There's nothing skankier than a punk rock chick who doesn't bathe, although a lot of the ones I went to Evergreen State with (or was it Reed?) were pretty hot. My favorites were the ones with trust funds, especially after I slipped them the date rape drugs. Although sometimes they turned out to be guys when you got the packaging off. Yuk! Maybe it was Wesleyan I went to. Anyway, I get along with chicks better when they're drugged, but I'm definitely not gay. Maybe I should work on my tan.
3 - Phillip Winn
What's the matter, Liz? Nobody offer to donate money to you? It's a shame that people don't recognize your genius and the effort you put in, that's for sure.
You want to talk about capitalism? It works like this: you work on your site, I'll work on mine, and Jim will work on his, and people will reward those of us whom they feel have benefitted them. Capitalism is all about the free market, and if having that button on the sidebar makes people think before hitting Post, then I'm all for it.
Besides, is it that hard to ignore an Amazon button? They're not that big. :)
4 - bob
Mike, what's wrong with you? Was that supposed to be funny?
5 - Fran
I love a good rant. In this case it helps that on my blathering blog, I don't have a donation button.
6 - mike_larkin2001
Bob: I'm sorry. I just have these terrible flashbacks. Zoloft and cocaine are not a great combination, but at least they keep the vet bills down. Stop by later for a drink and we'll work things out.
7 - mike
Bob: I'm sorry. I just have these terrible flashbacks. Zoloft and cocaine are not a great combination, but at least they keep the vet bills down. Stop by later for a drink and we'll work things out.
8 - Andrea Harris
Mark Russell is still alive?!?!? I thought he was older than Bob Hope!
9 - Kevin Parrott
And the question is: If Ayn Rand had a blog, what would it be called?
10 - Marty Dodge
Anyone into blogging for the money is a fool. It is a glorified op/ed page and there are lots just like you. I would love more people to buy my books but I know that most people on the internet are cheap...like...um...me. As many commercial sites have discovered, you have to be pretty damn special to get cyber-types to pay for something.
11 - Andrea Harris
Yeah! I don't blog for money! I just do it for my love of humanity! And America! And the Children™!
12 - Lyz
1. If all I am is just another whining snob than why are you people taking it so personally does it strike a note of truth in the untuned pianos of your heart?
2. Ayn Rand's blog....
Atlas Blogged or
Kant smells like poop!
13 - Temple A. Stark
Wow, a lot of catty responses here. Ridiculous.
I say bravo to Lyz. Fuck the idiots who think they have such exorbitant "overhead" costs.
At the same time, yeah, put a little button over there but don't ever ask me to donate in some kind of pledge week. That's crap, except for the very highest echelons of the blogsom. The catty responses here speak volumes to how sad some of the blogdom is, and how the great unwashed blog masses are still undeserving.
There's a lot of good, but be humble because you should now that the vast majority of blogs are just half-finished thoughts that would never get published anywhere with as set of standards. Why should you know this? Because I know you've thought that yourself about many many blogs you've visited, perhaps including mine but you don't see me asking for money.
For instance, I bet even Eric Olsen puts a little more thought and care into his MSNBC posts than he does here (I am fully preparded to be wrong on this particular example, but the same would hold true for Instanpundit.)
Again I am amazed at the smallness of the comments above, even from Jim Treacher who I don't read but hear good things about - unless I'm missing some inside joke.
The blog subscription idea is something I could be more comfortable with, though, because then it's either on or off. You get access or you don't and you can find something else to occupy your mind.
14 - Temple A. Stark
And quit pretending that if you didn't have donations you wouldn't have your own Web site and internet hook-up anyway. And pay for it.
Tsk. Isn't that what you had before the donate button? Yeah? Really?
Rembember that.
15 - Jim Treacher
Oh, come on, it was a joke! I mean, after being the subject of a rant like that, I can't make a little joke about it?
And in the year and however many months before I put up donation buttons, I had Blogger Pro (which seemed like a good one-time $35 investment at the time) and a second-hand computer. And now I've got MT that my buddy Kevin set me up with for free (for now) and a second-hand computer. Not sure what it has to do with anything, but I appreciate the concern.
16 - Kevin Parrott
I did a one-time-only blegging a month or so back, and put up a paypal button in a post. Now that I see how much it infuriates people, I am considering making it a permanent fixture.
17 - Jim Carruthers
As Paul Calf used to say: "fucking stew-dents". Meet the Geezers, working class young people with money. Those are the people you want pushing your paypal button, not some debt-ridden arsehole who will do nothing but whine about your site.
18 - Phillip Winn
Lyz, give me a break. I don't even have a big Amazon button on my site. I only responded to you because you obviously completely misunderstand the entire point of capitalism. So you haven't pushed any button of mine at all, except the "Look, another stupid post" button.
For the record, I've been writing on the web since 1994, my current blog started in 1995, and I only ever added the possibility of donating last year (I think) after somebody asked me to. I don't expect to ever recoup anywhere close to the $150/year I pay to keep the site going, but I don't begrudge people who try.
So you're still a whining snob, and you shouldn't mistake people's efforts to help you learn something with defensiveness. :)
19 - Andrea Harris
Do it, Kevin! The fact that donation buttons are irritating to so many is the reason I keep it up there!
20 - Jim Treacher
(Note to Phillip: Did you get my e-mail? I had a technical question about Blogcritics.)
21 - Phillip Winn
No, Jim, sorry, I haven't gotten an email - unless you mean the one about your password. I got that one. I'll reset your birthplace so you can get your password back out. If it was something else, please email me again. :)
22 - Jim Treacher
Yeah, I can't remember if I was born in Atlanta or Atlantis...
23 - Brian Flemming
Great post, Lyz. I've always wondered about the people who beg so shamelessly on their blogs, Aren't they embarrassed to be doing that?
Judging by the over-the-top responses here, I'd guess many of them are. Thanks for pushing the button.
24 - Phillip Winn
Now I feel motivated to beg in my blog. I never have before, but the urge is building...
Nah. If I thought about the money, it would just remind me that I pay too darn much every year to support this habit. :)
25 - MsThink
Lyz,
You either a) need to get laid or b) get a fucking sense of humor. In your case, I think a) isn't enough. Your blog is ZZZzz...