Rejected and Angry!
Warning: This blog post isn’t funny and it will probably offend some of you. If it does, I’m sorry, but I said exactly what I thought:
I feel so hurt and rejected today and for me that is a strange thing. Normally I take rejection well. I let it roll off my back like rain off an umbrella.
I am certainly no stranger to rejection. After all, I have been writing (freelance)Â since the early 1980’s and for the first few years that’s about the only response I recieved.
However, I received a rejection today that almost made me cry. It made me angry and frankly it confused me a little bit.
About a week ago I submitted my blog — this blog — which is intended as a humor blog — to the blogging community known as Humorbloggers.com. On Saturday I recieved the following email:
Pardon me, but I’ve read some of the blogs that are listed in HB.com and I think mine is just as humorous. (maybe that’s just my opinion though.)
I get several comments from other bloggers. Maybe not as many as some and certainly not like The Bloggess and a few others who get comments that number somewhere in the triple digits on every post, but still…
I do have a few regular readers and I post on a regular basis and I visit several blogs each day. (I do this for my own pleasure though) and I try to leave comments on the blogs I visit. I’m also a member of several other blogging communities. What I’m wondering is what’s so special about HBDC and why so exclusive?
So? How about you bite me HUMORBLOGGERS.COM! Yes. I said that. And here it is again:
BITE ME CHELLE B, YOU AND YOUR WHOLE FRIKKIN JUDGEMENTAL PANAL!!!
***
November 8, 2009
Tags: anger, bite me, humor blog, rejection Posted in: Blog Posts Only
Hi, and welcome to my blog. My name is Leeuna Foster, pronounced "Lee-you-na". I am an author and a newspaper columnist.
26 Responses
Huh! Well, I went and looked at the humorbloggers.com site after reading this and found it rather cluttered and unattractive, so to be honest, I think you’re better off without them!
Dennis the Vizsla´s last blog ..its the sun day award and meem show!!! soon with noo theem song reely i meen it!!!
What!?! Is this a joke? I’m a member of HBDC and if they let me in, they have to let you in. I love your blog, and it’s sooooo much better written than most of the crap that’s out there. I honestly don’t get it, Leeuna. I’m floored. I have to wonder if a mistake was made…..
@ Dennis: Thanks for making me feel better. HBDC really is a great place to be included. The blogs that are listed there are some of my favorites and I was sooo disappointed because they didn’t want me. Ah well…you can’t win ‘em all, eh? Thanks again for the supporting words. Dogs really are our best friends.
@ MikeWJ:
I was floored too. I don’t understand why they didn’t want me to join but obviously they had their reasons. It’s okay though. I’m over it now…almost…sniff…sniff…
Thanks for the kind words. You’re a great friend, and your blog is one of my most favorite of all. You rock as a writer.
Heh, HBDC has pissed me off more than once too.
Here’s the deal though now – Diesel (who runs the show there) is only going to allow paying members to have their blogs listed, so maybe this has something to do with it. Or maybe they’re just knobs.
Either way, that site sucks – I was #1 there for a time about a year ago and it didn’t make my life any frikking better, it’s like work trying to get people to vote for you and even if they do, they likely don’t even read your posts, they just hope you’ll read theirs if they vote for yours.
Anyhoo, I’m glad, it’s a cliquey little world and the less people that fall into it, the better.
Like Mike WJ, I too am a member of HBDC and I also enjoy reading your blog. It is intelligent and well written. “To thine own self be true” – blog for YOU not for others. Just keep doing what you are doing, Leeuna and we’ll all keep reading faithfully, HBDC membership or not.
Deb´s last blog ..CLIPPINGS FROM THE FRIDGE: BUTT I LIKED IT
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a memember.” – Groucho Marx
Rick Rantamaki´s last blog ..Citizen At-Large (Two Disc Special Edition) (2009)
Let me guess they are published by some editor in New York. The same ones that are afraid to publish a book without garbage in it. (Did I spell that right?) They wouldn’t know a poke if you put it over their head.
Milton´s last blog ..A Painting, A Book
Puke. I just looked at their front page at Humor?bloggers and decided to never go back. Got to scrub down my computer now.
Milton´s last blog ..A Painting, A Book
@ Othersideofnormal: Actually humor-blogs.com is a different blogging community than humorbloggers.com. I have been a member at Diesel’s site for a long time and I love it. That’s where I found most of my favorite blogs, otherwise I would probably not have discovered them. HBDC was started a long time after Diesel had his site, by one of the members of humor-blogs.com. And yeah, I suppose it’s better to not join the cliques. (I still feel unwanted though…)
@ Deb: what a sweet thing to say. Thanks so much. Your comment made me feel less abandoned.
@ Rick: Groucho was a smart man too. Thanks for the laugh.
@ Milton: I’m putting a poke over my head as we speak.
Seriously? That…that doesn’t even make sense. You’re one of the best. (And for proof, you’re one of the few on my blog roll.)
Frank Lee MeiDere´s last blog ..Injustice on Trial — The Arrest
OK here is the thing. You’re not nasty enough to fit in with Chelle B. who is crude and rude. If you stoop to her level then I wouldn’t enjoy you as much as I do. You don’t need to be listed there. Most of the people on there are losers (not my brother, of course, and not…OK. Not most…but some of them.) In other words, you do NOT need them. You don’t need to be on there to be cool.
Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings´s last blog ..Don’t go to the doctors when you are sick. . .
Leeuna, any humor collective that thumbs it’s nose at you as a member, is beneath your talents and your membership. Simple as that.
I was rejected once by NetWits, before my two sponsors took to questioning the antecedence of the judging panel. I wound up eventually leaving the place, as it morphed from being funny, to being political (and in a direction I was opposed to, anyway).
And you know what? My life didn’t end with my departure.
You’re good at what you do. Their loss, and you’re better off.
Skunkfeathers´s last blog .."Rabbit Tracks….Train Tracks.."
@ Frank: If I made it to your blog roll then I know I’m reader-worthy. Thanks for that.
@ Lisa: Thanks for the support. You’re the best.
@ Skunk: Thanks skunk. I can always count on you to make me feel better.
I’m a member of both HBDC and Humor-Blogs.com. I’ve enjoyed SOME of the camaraderie I’ve gotten in both places…but neither alone has done a great deal for me. I think it’s more through building connections on your own that makes a difference, and also having a good “product,” which you do.
Unfinished Rambler´s last blog ..I am the Thread Creep or Professional Thread Jacker, at your service
I received the exact same reply several months ago. It is a form letter reply. So, I sent another email wondering why my blog was rejected. Here is my email.
July 26th, 2009
Hello, I understand that I was rejected but could you tell me the reason(s) why? (Your email was a little cryptic to say the least.) By your own criteria, my blog is well established. It went active November of 2006, well over 6500 comments, especially with my Lost Secrets area. My blog is the home of the 99 cent conspiracy theory, all humor, (Hopefully it is anyway) My blog is updated frequently, not every day, but at least three to four times per week. About other concerns, my blog is not pornographic, no nudity, no erotic stories, a bit of profanity, however, my blog does have over 1.5 million views since October of 2007 and is highly ranked on Google for my specific search criteria. OK, now I sound like a commercial. See what you made me go and do?
In a nutshell, I happened upon your group through a friend of mine, (Chica) and I decided to sign up. Since that time, I have visited and read all 95 members of Humor Bloggers, and commented on many of them. I don’t keep count, but plenty of them. So, other than moonwalking, walking on water, or sunshine, (Oh yea) or as Neil Armstrong did 40 years ago, walk on the fucking moon, I have no idea how to crack your one hell of an exclusive club.
Thank you anyway for your time. I’m not going to apply again in thirty days because my blog will be exactly the same way it is today, and will once again be rejected for the same reason(s) known or unknown.
The Curator of the Grassy Knoll Institute
And here was the reply.
July27th, 2009
The review panel is not required to give reasons for voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a blog. Some do and some do not. In your case, none of the voters commented. So I cannot tell you why they voted the way they did.
The reason for the option to reapply is not so you will change your blog in the hopes of “passing muster.” Nobody at HBDC is interested in changing anyone’s blog. It is what it is…
The reason for that option is because voters, in all likelihood, will change to some extent.
We’ve had people reapply only to get in easily because the voting panel has changed.
Thanks for your interest.
My final reply back
July 27th, 2009
Thank you for your reply.
Perhaps my application to the Bushwood Country Club will have better results. (I know a caddy there named Danny)
LOTGK´s last blog ..Vikings Defeat Lions 27-10 November 15th, 2009
@ LOTG: Good on ya. I like that comeback. Also I wouldn’t join them now if they begged me to. pffft. As if that would ever happen.
And also, if they rejected your blog too then I know I’m in great company. Your blog rocks.
Just got an email….
I’m in….
I’m in.
They accepted me.
Bushwood country Club accepted me.
It pays to know people.
LOTGK´s last blog ..Kennedy Camelot Begins
LOTGK: Congratulations. I’m happy for you. Don’t forget us common folk though.
Wait, hold on. Bushwood didn’t accept me as a member. They want me as a caddy….
LOTGK´s last blog ..Kennedy Camelot Begins
Leeuna, I got rejected by HBDC too, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I’m f**king hilarious. At first, I felt all hurt and angry, but then I remembered how awesome I am and I thought “there has to be some reason behind this madness…”
The rejection email mentioned something about requiring member blogs to be “established” which I take to mean “have been around for a good while.”
I do wish they would be more specific with what they mean by the term, though. Six months? Nine years?
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I am one of the funniest people alive* and I got rejected, so you shouldn’t feel so bad. They obviously don’t know what they are doing.
*Claim is unsubstantiated, but probably true. Actually it is almost definitely true.
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