I never win anything. Scratch that. I won a clock once for singing a milk jingle on the radio and I won the 1977 Stanislaus County Fourth Grade Spelling Bee. I spelled pigeon with a d, but still took home the trophy. When I entered the next year all smug and presumptuous, I had my ass handed to me in the third round and haven't entered a thing since.
As a chubby tween-teen, I avoided anything that resembled a popularity contest. Student Council? Nope. School musical? Uh huh. Cheerleader? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND? I TOLD YOU I WAS FAT NOW GO AWAY. Sorry. Still sensitive.
I did that thing that fat girls do. I honed my wit and skill at the blow job. I dyed my hair bright orange and wore 14 colors of eye shadow in an attempt to get you to look up there instead of at my thighs. I pretended that I didn't care that, even in high school, a "Butter-Face" (ask the nearest guy, he'll know) could win pretty much any contest as long as her ass was hot enough.
Thank the Jesus I can fry me some chicken and certain boys only need that, plus the afore-mentioned blowing to be happy. (A size 12 12 year old is also not the same thing as a size 12 43 year-old with D-cups, so I've got that working for me.
There is a whole new generation of Butterfaces out there, flaunting their shiny templates and enticing advertisement. Lots of bells and whistles, blogrolls, and a propensity to use y-ending adjectives every other word in a way that would make Tom Robbins vomit and cringe. Especially yummy. I can't do anything with yummy except punch you in the face and call you an asshole.
Where was I during the past three years as the locusts gathered and began chomping away at our last stash of honest-to-goodness intelligence, the written word? When the world hands you Lil' Wayne and Spiderman 12, you are SUPPOSED to be able to turn to the page and find more than a recipe for corn muffins. Unless they are such spectacular corn muffins that you might blow your own grandpa to get the recipe or something, then by all means, please, share, otherwise, PIPE IT RETARD. No one cares about your quinoa if they have half a brain. Why don't you grow some quinoa, give it to a starving family and take some beautiful photos of them in their trailer eating it with a YUMMY heirloom caprese salad. That would also be spectacular.
How is it possible that recipe-copiers have taken over the world? If I want to know David Lebovitz's recipe for macaron don't you think I'd rather read HIS blog? I mean, he's famous and has published ACTUAL books. What does the world need with your adaptation? ("i added chocolate chips to this.. you know, just to make it mine") Honey, it does not make it yours. It just makes me click to David's blog to see what you may be leaving out in your effort to be original.
It's like God decided to take the two things I was good at, give them a worldwide stage, and then flooded that stage with every last brother, sister and cousin of the Jacksons and the Osmonds. Now I gotta fight through "Puppy Love" and three bullshit LaToya records to get noticed while they get panties thrown at them and all-expense paid trips to Eataly.
Hopefully, the locusts will start eating themselves soon leaving behind those of us who can FOR REAL cook and FOR REAL write so we can crush their amazingly savoury (the u is for ugh) shells and make a YUMMY soup out of them.
I'ma get my pestle ready....
somehow deleted post/comments, don't know where they're hiding now:( but thank all of you for loving my hate. xo
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing. I think I respect that you put yourself out there (depending on your true motivation) and I definitely get what you're saying about the popularity contest aspect of food blogging. Though you run into the disgusting popularity thing everywhere in life and it is what it is, this facet of blogging skeeves me out a little. I sort of hate that forming relationships with other (popular) bloggers is pretty much the primary way to make your blog successful. Attempting to brown nose the popular folks when it's only an effort to get noticed just feels gross. (And personally, so far I suck at forging relationships via Twitter and even my blog.)
ReplyDeleteSo, for the most part, I'm just being me and doing what I love and producing (what I think is) great content, and seeing what happens.
But here's the other thing. It really pisses me off when people hate on the type of work I, and a lot of others, do just because it doesn't fit their narrow definition (as in, "just like me") of what something should be. I'm a home cook, I adapt existing recipes, and especially when I first started, I used the word "yummy" all the damn time.
Blogs are about sharing. There's a place for food bloggers that write for the semi-novice home cook (who is always looking for muffin recipes, by the way) just as much as there's a place for food bloggers who review restaurants just as much as there's a place for food bloggers who are professionally trained chefs who sous vide the quinoa they grow for starving families.
I see your hatey as something that just promotes the exact same thing you're bitching about. "You think you're better than me, but me and my peeps who do it this way - and only this way - are far better than you."
Thank you. I feel like it's a travesty that there are so many great voices that are never going to be heard unless someone does something about the number of random recipe posts trying to pass for blogs. I want to read something that gets my stuff GOING, and that stuff seems to be hidden in a pile of quinoa. And there is no way to tell when you google something how much time you'll waste searching through dreck.
ReplyDeleteReal chefs are dying for stuff to read that isn't for the home cook. Do you know how hard that is to find?
I just had to post since I made cornbread this week on my blog. :P
ReplyDeleteI am on of the Food Bloggers that has been around awhile (it will be 6 years in June) and it has been interesting to see where food blogging has gone. I for one am not a fan. It's not that I don't think people have something to offer, it's just that they tend to copy other bloggers in hopes of having their success.
Some of us aren't out there for the book deals and to be on TV. Some of us just do our own little thing.
I still blog because I enjoy it. Read my blog over the years and you can more than see that I'm not in it to win popularity contest or to sugar coat it for anyone. The amount of hate mail I get a week can attest to that. Yet, my style speaks to people. If it didn't I wouldn't have the readers (community) I do now.
I think if people blog for authentic reasons they are okay in my book.