I received an e-mail today from an acquaintence informing me that his blog had been nominated in one of the categories of The 2007 Weblog Awards and asking for my vote. I had never heard of the Weblog Awards before, but, as a fellow blogger, the notion certainly caught my interest.
I followed the link to look over the nominees and categories and couldn't believe what I found. This award, which aspires at least by name to represent weblogs as a whole, has no Film category. Their Video category pertains only to blogs that show videos. They do offer a Culture category, under which I found only two film-related nominees: Kyle Smith Online (blog of the film critic for THE NEW YORK POST -- which, as often as not, exists to link to his reviews on the NYP site) and Self-Styled Siren (10 posts since August 20, one of them entitled "The Siren is a Finalist for the 2007 Weblog Awards").
There are also ten sub-categories nominating the "Best of the Rest" culling additional nominees from the "Top 8,751+ blogs." Video WatchBlog is not among them, and I honestly don't know which implication is more sobering: that Video WatchBlog literally isn't in the "Top 8,751+" blogs or that it's not generally considered among the best of those Top 8,751 plus.
Sour grapes? I'll admit to one or two, because I take my work on this blog as seriously as I take any work that I do, but what I'm mostly feeling is bemused... by this award's concept of excellence. I speak not only on behalf of Video WatchBlog; not one of the several blogs that constitute my own daily bread, not one of the three upon which I bestowed the Thoughtful Blogger Award, are represented on these polls either.
It's kind of like the Grammys, all over again.
"To God, there is no zero. I still exist." -- Scott Carey
