eebmore: I Swear That I Criticize Out of Respect

I Swear That I Criticize Out of Respect

March 02, 2005

Dooce, I’m not trying to trash you. I swear. I think that if you are not the most talented person engaged in this stupid little hobby of ours, you are most definitely one of the most talented.

With that said, I think that if you are really as tired of that whole “you got fired over your website” story as you claim to be, as tired as as I can assure you the rest of us are, you would probably stop talking about it already.

This is not the headmast of someone who wants the media to move on. I’m holding you up to a higher standard because you’re more talented than this.

And another thing, about the comments on your photo page. Well ... how should I say this?

Again, as I said above, I’m not trashing your photography in the least, as I have no right to. I enjoy your photographs quite often. Not always, but often.

Now, for argument’s sake, let’s pretend that Ansel Adams was a relative unknown AND that he had a photoblog and decided to post this photo of sand dunes in your home state of Utah:

If he was reeeaaaally lucky, may have received twenty or thirty comment of praise for his efforts.

Let’s look at an example of one of your Utah Landscapes:

Okay, it’s fine. Not brilliant, but fine. You were riding in a car, saw SLC in the distance, decided to take a snapshot and post it on your website. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. The photograph is no worse and no better than any other photograph of a city taken from a distance from the passenger seat of a car.

But this is a little ridiculous:

These people are not praising you, and saying things like “Brilliant!”, “Wonderful!” or “I wish I had your eye” because this is a particularly good photograph; they’re saying these things because they have their heads so far up your ass that they have lost all sense of objectivity.

I can only hope that you and your husband sit around and laugh at the often times ass-kissing idiocy of your fan base. I can only hope that after reading 315 people wildly singing your praises for a mediocre snapshot, that you haven’t gone back to that photograph and thought to yourself “Wow! This IS a really beautiful photograph.”

So, to reiterate, I think you have great talent. Don’t squander it. Don’t believe your own hype. Your material will suffer for it. ~~And please please please, never again refer to yourself as “an online celebrity” like you did last week. When I read that, threw up in my own mouth a little bit.~~**

** Upon request, I searched for this quote. Alas, I could not for the life of me find it. I could have sworn that I had read something along these lines, but it appears that I imagined it. Many apologies to Dooce.

But, dammit, I. Could. Have. Sworn. that I read those words.

01:43 PM | Permalink

Comments

dude, did you see the day when she had over 1,000 comments? it literally crashed the server.

yeah, agreed, she should just stop talking about *it*. and i'm so sick of *it* that i cannot even say *it*.

back in the day i used to comment on dooce fairly frequently...until it turned into some sort of weirdo sycophant's paradise. its a little scary over there now. okay, A LOT SCARY.

i did, however, comment on that photo as looking like a game of tetris dropped into a VR reality driving game. which, c'mon, it kind of does.

did she call herself an "online celebrity"? ack. must've missed that.

Posted by: sweetney at March 2, 2005 01:53 PM

No comment.

Posted by: dabrettman at March 2, 2005 01:55 PM

hey point me to the entry with the internet celebrity comment -- can't seem to find it...

Posted by: sweetney at March 2, 2005 02:02 PM

DaB: Heh. I was wondering what you were going to say.

Sweet: I'm searching, but having trouble finding it myself. I swear that I read her say something along those lines. If I can't find it, I'll strike it and publically apologize.

Also, I'm just about done that book of yours. Talk about gay. Not a criticism, it's just that Burroughs is REALLY REALLY gay. But I'm man enough to deal with gay. Hell, I sat through Bad Education in it's entirety and didn't run out screaming, even thought I wanted to. Granted, I did bathe myself in Lysol when I got home. I can handle a movie with one or two man on man smooch scenes, that that one really tested my limits. ick.

But back to the book, do you remember that thing in the book about having literally hundreds of empty bottles sitting around his apartment? I TOTALLY used to do that! About once a month, I'd sneak them out at 4 in the morning so my neighbors wouldn't see me. Pathetic, eh?

We should yap about the book sometime. And sorry you recieved a little friendly fire in this post.

Posted by: eebmore at March 2, 2005 02:46 PM

Celebrity? I never heard-a her until I read your post.

Posted by: jayinbmore at March 2, 2005 03:27 PM

You're right that her fan base is a little insane when it comes to comments. But then why are you addressing this post to Dooce herself, instead of the fans? You're imploring her not to consider herself a great photographer just because she gets a lot of comments, but has she suggested that she thinks she's amazing and that she has the comments to prove it? Seems to me like you should be directing this rant towards the obsessed fans who feel they must leave their mark on every one of her posts.

As for her calling herself an "online celebrity", I don't know whether she said it or not, but... what's wrong if she did say it? Isn't she one?

And finally, does she really say that she's tired of the media being interested in the fact that she was fired from her job over her blog? I wasn't sure if you were specifically responding to her post from today or not (see link below), but in that one she complains that often the media is interested in the story, yet doesn't go the extra step to actually look at her website. I never interpreted complaints like this to mean that she's tired of media attention in general over losing her job.

Today's post: http://www.dooce.com/archives/nubbin/03_02_2005.html

This isn't to say that I disagree with many of your gripes about the website in general (as you know, I don't have much love for the massive number of inane comments she often gets), but I guess I'm just not sure why you're targeting Dooce and not her audience. (Unless I'm totally wrong here and she has said she wishes the media would leave her alone about this whole job firing thing, in which case I'm sorry about my extended comment here and I'll go slink away quietly!)

Posted by: seadragon at March 2, 2005 03:31 PM

jay: You've never heard of her? She actually does some pretty damn good stuff about shoving A-1 steak bottles up guy's asses. I highly recommend her writing.

seadragon: look at you getting all scrappy on my ass. I'm proud of you, girl!

Posted by: eebmore at March 2, 2005 04:15 PM

i'll continue to look for the celebrity comment -- i only looked at stuff in the past weekish, but perhaps it was earlier...

anyway, if you do find it, let me know.

also: yeah, burroughs is totally GAY. not that there's anything wrong with that.

but, well, was i wrong in my suspicion that -- other than the whole gayness thing -- you'd relate?

that whole bottle thing is scary. amazing how people can live in total fucked-up-ness and yet blind themselves to it, eh?

Posted by: sweetney at March 2, 2005 04:39 PM

I'm giving up on finding dooce saying that. it's always plausable that I dreamed it. remembering dreams is sort of a whole new thing for me and it may take some time for me to differentiate between them and reality.

... or maybe she erased it? Who knows.

Posted by: eebmore at March 2, 2005 04:43 PM

Have you even read the comments that people write? I would say 75% of them are not even related to the phot of the day. and 50% of those are conversation going on between the commenters. It's like a fan forum over there.

I ain't knocking the commenting because I comment almost on a daily basis. Usually not about the photo but about about one of her posts.

eebmore, I like you. But, I love dooce.

Posted by: AyEnDeeAreEeAyAitch at March 2, 2005 06:43 PM

Weird. She changed her masthead this week. Do you think you had something to do with it?

Posted by: ianqui at March 4, 2005 10:21 AM

ianqui-no no no. she actually changed it a week ago or so. insignifigant eebmore has no effect on dooce, or i should hope. truth be told, I don't blame her one bit for discussing the annoying media coverage. but she has many times inferred that she is tired of them beating the dead horse, and then put up "that" masthead, which I thought was a little lame.

all and all, I actually have ambivalant feelings about this post. Part of me feels like I shouldn't have been such a jerk, but another part of me thinks she's big enough of an online figure and strong enough to handle a little constructive criticism.

There are many online figures that I truely despise and hate with a passion. I ignore them. Obviously, I don't feel that way Dooce. Like I said in the first sentence, she may arguably be the best there is.

And about her comment section being deleriously deranged, she is the host and leaves it open, and thus it is her responsibility. But I can see ayendeeareeeayaich's point, if it has become more of a fan forum than an ass kissing message board, than who am I to judge? But if the comments are about the postings and not the photographs, than why are the comments open in the photo section? Perhaps that filters out a lot of anonymous comment ass holes? Who knows?

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