Since I actually enjoyed Music and Lyrics, and because this article seems to imply the only reason a blogger should say that is if he’s being paid, I figured I would set the record straight. I received no compensation for plugging Hugh Grant’s movie.
To the larger question of bloggers selling posts for a fee, here’s the only problem I have with that.
Laura Neiman, 33, a Denver mother of five whose blog is called LaLa Girl, wrote wistfully about a Caribbean yacht charter service.
“We don’t get a whole lot of opportunity to sail the open seas in landlocked Colorado, so I really can’t relate to this at all,” she began, “but I keep reading about the popularity of yacht charters as an alternative to a ‘regular’ vacation.” [Emphasis mine]
If you’re a blogger, and you would be writing about something anyway, I don’t really care if someone pays you to write about it. Just tell me that. Something along the lines of, “Hey, I actually like Rocky Mountain Oysters, and some clown is paying me to tell you that, so let me relate a funny story about the consumption of bull nuts.”
The trouble with something like PayPerPost is it clutters the internet with irrelevant thoughts on things people legitimately care about. I might actually be interested in a yacht charter vacation and want to read about the experience someone else had with it. I don’t care if he’s getting paid.
Instead, I have to sift through 10,000 Google results from some assholes who have never been on a boat but chose to plug the idea so they could make $6. If I wanted useless information, I would dig through the comment spam to find deals on prescription drugs I have never even heard of.
What are the arguments made by the pinheads who write on behalf of PPP?
Caldwell’s traffic has doubled thanks partly to PayPerPost’s fanatical users, who link often to fellow Posties. That gives her a bigger audience for her unpaid musings on topics including a recent dream about Rainn Wilson, the actor who plays Dwight in NBC’s sitcom “The Office.”
“People talk about how we’re destroying the credibility of the Internet,” Caldwell said. “Let me tell you ‚Äî there are a lot worse things happening online.”
Well, I agree with that last part. If this clown wasn’t busy selling posts about some crappy movie, she might well be advocating for net neutrality. If that’s the case, I say, “Blog on sister!”
For the rest of the people who have decided that posting about things they know nothing about simply so they can get a check for $5, here’s some unsolicited advice.
Rethink your life. Get off the couch, stop pitching online coupon sites to the poor bastard unlucky enough to stumble upon your blog, and use your unrealized potential to build houses for the poor or something that gives back to the world instead of cluttering up the Internet.
And yes, by god, I really did like Music and Lyrics. If you don’t believe me, you can check it out for yourself. It should be on video in a week or two. It was only in theaters for about 3 hours, but the showing I caught was in focus… so that was good.
