So I was checking my site statistics, cause knowing that more than three people have read my blog makes me happy. I noticed that someone had visited from pudger.blogspot.com and so I wandered on over there. And discovered that I’ve been quoted and snarked upon because of my slightly overly idealistic perspective on Live 8. Now, I’ve been called on my innocence and glass-half-full mentality on previous occasions, so I’m okay with this. But check it out and tell me what you think.
I agree with your desire for its effect, and I also agree with that other blogger’s cynicism of the *direct* effect of this concert on aid to individuals in third-world countries.
Now I’ll get off the fence… I do feel that *not* doing large events like this will be of ZERO assistance to said individuals. I’m down with a few days of inconvenience in order to spread the word and help bring a people’s plight into more homes. Rock on, idealistic girl!
This is an unfortunate risk of the blogosphere: people seem perfectly willing to express cruel and hurtful things to the screen that they’d never dream of saying to a real live person-with-feelings.
le sigh Don’t let it get you down!
Say, what do you use to track visitors?
To track visitors I use http://www.sitemeter.com. The pared down version is free and easy to use. It lets me know how many people are coming and where they are coming from.
a few comments:
1. no such thing as bad publicity (both for your blog and for world poverty)
2. I didn’t feel like pudgey’s comments were that vitriolic (see some of her other posts though). more like some healthy disagreement
3. pudgey lists “hogging the remote” as one of her hobbies so I wouldn’t take anything she has to say very seriously.
Yeah, perhaps “cruel” was an overstatment on my part, though I remain amused by the contract between the claim to “not want to attack a fellow blogger” and the label “toolbag-ery” which seems rather gleefully attacking.
Ultimately though, if you’ll forgive a little age-ism on my part, the world-weary cyncial, seen-it-all tone Pudgey adopted struck me as a rather typical for a 23-year-old, and not exactly the ruler by which I’d structure my worldview…. 😉
-just bc someone responds to a post, it is not accurate to assume that they would not dream of saying something to someone in person.
-if someone watches tv it does not mean that whatever they have to say holds no validity.
-since when should ageism or any other type of prejudice be excused? a person into idealism should no better. cynicism is not an age issue, but something that is unfortunately universal. please be more aware.
-r-
know* i am notorious for typos.
-r-
To be honest, you posted an unpopular opinion. If you aren’t afraid to have unpopular opinions, then you shouldn’t be afraid of the backlash.
Some backlash will be more justified than other bits of it, I might add.
Now, I’ve been called on my innocence and glass-half-full mentality on previous occasions, so I’m okay with this. But check it out and tell me what you think.
Sorry to post anonymously, but I’ve been following these posts. The way you ended your post seems like it was your way of saying, “This girl is mean. Please discuss.” It’s ridiculous.
Hey, nothing wrong with being idealistic. I’m excited about the LIVE 8 too, and I’ve been very surprised by Philadelphians’ ambivalence to the whole affair. That said, I don’t think the LIVE 8 concerts are going to make much of a difference in themselves – although getting people to think about something more than their own lives, even if its only for a few hours is quite an accomplishment, and a worthy one at that. Anyway, let’s make it the party of the year, and maybe get people interested in learning more about poverty and AIDS in Africa. That seems like a reasonable goal for LIVE 8.
It wasn’t my intention to say, “This girl is mean. Please discuss.” I actually wanted to know what people thought.
I’m not afraid of having unpopular opinions. I still believe, despite all this, that the intention behind Live 8 is a good one.
Phew. Sorry for being off-topic (although you do mention site stats), it took me a while to realize that upgrading my browser and turning every preference on and off wasn’t going to fix my missing sitemeter icon and stuff. I also have the “Adblock” extension for Firefox installed, had to remove the sitemeter blocking. Mmmmph. Now I know why so many sites have sitemeter setting cookies on my browser.