Maintaining Relevance: Do Awards Matter?
- April 5th, 2011
- Posted in Cooking . Savory . Sweet
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This Guy is "Winning" the Awards
Every time I fish a new glob of dust out of my eye, it seems as though another awards season rolls around. I’m not talking about awards for movie starlets, miniature dogs or twitchy pop princesses (it occurs to me, Shakira could sweep all three!).
I’m speaking of the awards within or loosely adjacent to my particular field which has a little to do with food and something else to do with writing about it. James Beard has a to-do, as does Saveur Magazine. Food and Wine, San Pellegrino and The Michelin Guide all offer accolades as well. On the blogging circuit, not a day goes by that someone doesn’t tweet, facebook or otherwise humbly entreat their legion of denizens to vote for them for this or that.
What, pray tell, are the meaning of these awards? Why popularity, of course, which all comes down to relevance. Bestowing awards on the glitterati-of-the-moment helps the particular entity or organization who is doing the awarding, maintain an aura of expertise. The award flatters the recipient into believing said establishment is wise and hip, because, after all, who would dare to think the recipient is anything less than the bees-knees? Thus, a mutual ogling and aah-ing admiration is born that is based on one part talent, seven parts vanity and two parts grease the palms of the well-oiled-spaceship otherwise known as social media self-promotion.
The beauty of self-promotion is that it doesn’t solely benefit the “self”; rather it acts as a traffic-generator for all involved. Let’s say hypothetical publication X- we’ll call them “Gourmeur”- hosts a popularity contest and (in)famous tweeter/blogger/transsocial-about-town Y- we’ll call her “Antonia Reichl”- receives a nomination. Never one to miss the opportunity to demurely remind her followers to consider voting (aka smash her peons into pea puree using the centrifuge that is her ego-driven publicity machine), Antonia launches a one-woman vote-for-me campaign.
This campaign drives traffic to Gourmeur’s site, which is good for Gourmeur’s bottom line since it causes their advertisers to get money hard-ons. Money hard-ons are hard-ons companies get when they notice their penises are being “fluffed” under the table by a particular media outlet through which they have chosen to advertise. Companies love to get money hard-ons, and media outlets love to fluff companies. Indirectly, Antonia is the one doing the fluffing and causing the money hard-on, but it’s more like a pay-as-you-play peep show since she doesn’t actually have to touch the advertiser’s penis.
Antonia is perfectly willing to do all of this work because she is vain. She wants to stay relevant and she will go to great lengths to do it. Antonia’s greatest wish in life is to be able to walk into her own personal green room prior to stepping onto Jay Leno’s stage, and demand that the casting assistants tie-dye her peanut M&M’s. Antonia’s followers/peons are also willing participants in this game of relevance because they believe if they support her a little bit of her shine might rub off on them (they don’t realize it’s just spray tan). Or that she will rub them off, but that is only a latent wish that most of the followers care not to acknowledge except in airport bathrooms whilst vigorously brushing legs with the imagined-Antonia in the next stall.
Here is the true kicker of this vicious cycle of relevance- we all secretly want to be Antonia. We will play it off like we don’t really read Gourmeur and we don’t care if our website has a silly little Gourmeur badge taunting lesser bloggers with their inferiority right at the tippy top where it gets in the way of our carefully-designed logo and banner, but we do. We all care. We all want to cause advertisers to get money hard-ons because that will mean that we are important. We are in league with Antonia. Really fancy award-givers will create new categories just so we can win awards and have more tie-dyed M&M’s and create more hard-ons for more people than ever before.
At the end of the day, the advertisers are winning this game, but maybe just maybe, so are we. The advertisers are what allow our little niche of an industry to exist. Our desire to maintain relevance feeds their need for money hard-ons, and even though we outwardly hate the fact that we’re giving these hard-ons to Denny’s and the like, we all secretly want to exist in a Mad Men episode. Who doesn’t want to slip out of a bullet bra while drinking too much Tanqueray during an extra long “nooner” with her super hot boss?
The point is, money makes the world go around and keeps me in butter and Manolos. I practice my craft for its own sake, but I’m certainly not going to malign the system that allows me to work within it. I’ll continue to suck Antonia’s toe while she continues to fluff the advertisers via the glory hole of Gourmeur and all will still be right with the world. Relevance. Word.
This is by far one of the best post I have ever read! You’ve stated it all perfectly. What I hate most about those awards is that it’s always the same list of people regardless of who hosts or gives the awards. Congrats you have a great blog, will be looking forward to visiting you more often.
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Great read! I got all wrapped up in my own panties when I was told I was nominated in the Saveur original baking/desserts category. Then I found out it was someone related to me. Back to the ‘unpopular’ lunch table with dreams of being the prom queen :p
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Now I know why you call yourself Salty Seattle! I think @ruthbourdain getting nominated for a James Beard just goes to show you that award ceremonies are just the fireworks, the carnation in the sky, and the work is what matters. You keep writing, we’ll keep reading. Keep it Salty!
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Amen sistah. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating talent. It just gets annoying when everyone starts fluffing their accomplishments to get votes….Americans get this rhetoric every two years, do we really need more of this sort of marketing ‘spam’ in the blogosphere every other month??
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If it’s all about the money, I can honestly say that I have never seen a penny from the ads on my blog. No one ever clicks on the damn things, so the butter comes out of my own pocket (forget the Manolos – he doesn’t make my size). Sometimes I feel like just throwing off my clothes and posing with the food to see if anyone notices.
Oh, wait.
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This is all so very very true. It’s kinda sad that we feel the need to be apart of this “popularity” contest when most of us are well out of high school and it’s supposed to have stopped.
I was just thinking the other day that I hate popularity contests but that I want to be “recognized” for what I’ve done with out it. But it doesn’t work like that for most of us.
But I know you have gotten a few nominations in such awards, and you deserve it for doing what you do and the way people feel about it when they read your words. You make everyone feel like they know you, and that alone deserves an award :)
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I haven’t been part of the ‘blog game’ long enough to even think about a nomination let alone winning, but you my lady are definitely getting my nom/vote… I love your humor, your food, and manolos! ;-)
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Ha! I think we should nominate Charlie Sheen. :D
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You had me going with this one. I will be sure and swing a vote your way when I see your name.
I don’t have to worry about any of that, since I make about enough for; do they sell penny candies anymore anyways.
So funny.
-Gina-
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This is the GUCKING best thing I have read in a long long time. I hear ya on this one. I think for the first time ever I’m going to re-read a post.
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Funny, funny, funny.
I don’t care about badges, or contests, or any of that, but I love it when people read what I’ve written. (Why else would I write it?) So every once in a while I play the game, just to get my name out there.
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Awesome post…so true.
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You have my vote for #winning.
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Oh honey. How I truly appreciate your humor, honesty, and fearless use of sexual metaphor. Brava.
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BWAHAHAHAHAHA. love this post.
and… WINNING!
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I believe I left a jaded reply to another blog re: contests and awards awhile back :-) You are so right, it is all so wrong, yet I, jaded hypocrite extraordinaire, am about to pander myself to the masses in another bid for food super stardom – spray tans et al.
xoxoxo
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I actually thought about entering the Banana Republic sweepstakes for a cameo on Mad Men, but then realized that I would have to play a role like the Chinaman who gets locked in Pete Campbell’s office. So no, I wouldn’t want to be on Mad Men. But the Gourmeur badge would be nice. :)
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Amen, and Amen! I don’t have anything brilliant to add . . . my brain is completely fried to a crispy after a day chasing 2 crabby children, but I love what everyone else has contributed. And I’m with Barb, it would be nice to at least occasionally see some awards given out in the blogging world that are based on decisions made by a panel of experts.
Hey Winnie, you and I are on the same page! I nominated our Miss Hottie Salty for best culinary essay too! The writing around here rocks! :)
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I don’t get on-line voting but I will “vote” for you because there is genius in your writing and you deserve to be read. One problem however. I looked at the categories. Salty Seattle is an outlier. You don’t fit. Saveur needs a “Drawing-outside-the-lines category”.
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Awards are awesome. They remind us that we are good at what we do. It’s nice to be told that sometimes. It really is. But ultimately this gig, this writing gig, is about connection, telling a story, saying something meaningful that stays with your readers. It’s about them. And if you’re cooking, it’s about inspiring them, making them do something differently the next time they look into the fridge wondering what the hell to do.
I’m going to vote for you for the Saveur blog awards, girl because I think you rock. But you don’t need my vote. The real award is being sure that what you write here matters. That it is important to people. And not even Saveur can give you that.
xo Kim
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Love this. I agree with what everyone above says. At the end of the day, regardless of what I think, how I may cringe a little at various high school-ish type things going on, or (at the same time) how I get (admittedly) a little envious about this and that, I have blogged for 5 years because I love food, I love writing about food, and…I love that my close friends and family are my biggest fans. :) Everything after that is the icing on the cake.
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I agree with the point you make, it is about the money in the long run … but I think we all know that EVERYONE likes a lot of the same big name blogs. These same blogs win year after year. It would be king of great to have an award that excluded the ‘A-list’ blogs. Maybe an award for ‘best blog you never read’, or ‘most underrated blog’.
It can be a little defeating to always see the same winners. If the same people win season after season what motivation is there to care? (Of course I do care … because we all care in the long run which is why we are discussing this in the first place!)
Oh, and I also nominated you …sexy beast!!
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OK OK, I’m sorry for posting on Twitter and Facebook to vote for me. I am vain, I admit it. I know I’ll never WIN against the big boys and girls but that doesn’t stop me from really really wanting one of those badge thingys on my “lesser known blog”. (that’s from someone elses blog who referenced me – gee thanks).
Anyhow – you are totally right. I’m a penis fluffer in a world where all I want to be is Jenna! Ok, I’m done whining.
:)
Heather
p.s. great post! Thanks for the reality check. I obviously needed it.
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One word #Winner.
Seriously though, you’re right on point with this and anyone who thinks the machine (be it food blogging or life) works any differently is sadly mistaken.
It’s the give and take (someone gets the hard-on and someone gives it).
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I agree with awards in principle but it does seem like the same people win them over and over so I do wonder the validity of it – there’s always going to be the “best”/ popular issue going on. That said, like Brian and Winnie, you were on my list of nominations too ;-) The Saveur awards seem diverse enough that some new names might pop up this time too..
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It is a never ending cycle but until the cycle breaks, the awards and the resulting winners mean little to me. The people with the most readers and/or followers can get the most votes delivered, period.That does not translate for me to them necessarily being the ‘best.’
I can’t get vested for myself much less those included until I see profiles of blogs that show real interest or uniqueness. As much I am a part of this community and enjoy blogging I’m really not hell bent on winning (maybe because I am also hell bent on NOT begging for votes?). Until a panel of experts doing thorough research make those decisions in lieu of opening the doors to the multitudes making massive votes for the current ‘blogs du jour’ that won’t change. I didn’t participate in popularity contests in high school and find them even more disdainful today.
I’m building my own list of winners; just started it today. It’s the Stuart Smalley Food Blog Awards. We’re all winners..because seriously we are good enough and smart enough and yes, doggone it, people do like us! And for some of us, that is all it ever will be and truthfully; I’m OK with that!
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You make a lot of valid points… I agree that it shouldn’t be a popularity contest. At the same time, for those of us (like yourself) who spend countless hours each week working on blog posts, commenting on posts, tweeting about them… well, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to (gracefully) ask readers to vote for you if they like what they see.
But I do agree that it is a bit out of control…
And, on a separate but very similar note, I actually nominated for you in the Saveur awards too ;-)
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Well, I don’t do Manolos but money keeps me in butter, too.
ps I am nominating you for the Saveur award in the “best culinary essay” category. Cause I love your writing. So there!
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