I, Cara Thereon, will not be voting in any “Top (insert whatever) Blogger” this year.
It seems counterintuitive to the aim of reaching out and forming community, but I find it depresses the hell out of me to vote in the contests.
There’s a bit of popularity involved. You have to be popular to be voted in and the people I read are already popular by my standards or I wouldn’t read them. Maybe this stems from the fact that I don’t feel popular so these contests just reinforce that excluded feeling.
I’ve always felt this was a poor way to discover unknown (but excellent) bloggers because it is a matter of popularity. The most votes gets the most recognition. More than that, the lists are too damn long and require too much time to sift through to find a site I DON’T know.
I loved when Hy and Nlike (forgive me for not having those links handy!) did their posts on blogs they enjoyed. That brought attention to not necessarily new, but interesting blogs floating around.
Maybe spotlighting one old blog site and one new site is what I need to start doing. If I’m feeling excluded, maybe doing something inclusive will eradicate that feeling.
Regardless, I’m going to respectfully decline when asked to vote for anyone’s site to be Top (insert whatever) Blogger this year.
You already are in my eyes anyway.