Keks has announced the results of the 2005 Australian Blog Awards. Troppo won in two categories – best Australian Collaborative Blog and Best Northern Territory Blog (this year there was some competition).
Congrats to all the other winners and runners up – including Troppo friends Barista (best Victorian blog), piss’n’vinegar (best Tasmanian blog), John Quiggin (best Queensland blog), Kick & Scream, (best WA and best Australian Political Blog and best designed blog), Crazybrave (best ACT blog), The Road to Surfdom (best overseas Australian blog) and She Sells Sanctuary (best Australian personal blog). Another Troppo friend and indeed alumni, Back Pages, ran Rob a close second for best Political blog, despite the nomination being posthumous.
The big winner is MsFits with Reasons You Will Hate Me voted best new blog, best humorous blog and overall Best Australian Blog. I’ve been saying for ages that MsFits is the Hunter S. Thompson of Australian politics. The acceptance speech should be worth reading! 1
It was obvious from the comments thread that Keks put an awful lot of hard work into this exercise, so congratulations go to him as well. A large number of people commented that one of its most useful aspects was becoming aware of the growing diversity of the Australian blogosphere and reading blogs new to them.
ELSEWHERE: After-party is at Jess’ place! That’s if you’re prepared to get naked, of course!
- UPDATE: I’ve now linked to MsFits’ speech, which is graceful and modest, just like its author…[↩]
Mark’s ying to Ken’s yang
I would have voted for Troppo, but didn’t, because the process looked too time-consuming. Which may prove Ken’s point about the voting process being skewed by lefties with time on their hands.
At another level, though, perhaps these voting contest are a bit silly. If all they are doing is measuring popularity daily page views are a far better guide.
What will be interesting over the years is to see whether like in books, films, theatre and TV a body of blog criticism develops that tries to measure worth by some measure other than a popularity contest.
Andrew, Ken made a start with his annotations on blogs – but not without controversy, as I recall.
What a bizarre result: the sixth-placed blog on first preferences won it on preferences.
As the divine Ms Fits put it herself, she’s the Family First of Ozblogistan, which is truly ironic if you consider her proclivities.
“I’ve been saying for ages that MsFits is the Hunter S. Thompson of Australian politics.”
probably alike also in the sense of having a constructed persona for their writing (and a good one!)… lots of people seem to have met MsFits and it’d be interesting to hear whether she’s much like her online persona.
I don’t read the comments on her blog very often because there are too many “I heart MsFits” types who are clearly salivating over her. not everyone, but a good blog should also attract good comments, not just groupies…
I gather that meeting Ms Fits in person is supposed to be the visual equivalent of God shouting in your ear. There might’ve been some exaggeration, ‘course, and you (yello) are right about the groupies. The lady herself, apart from her disturbing Bob Ellis fixation, is very funny.
Fyodor, I must admit that all the girl-girl action stuff on her blog and the photos I’ve seen of MsFits make me rather curious. hence I refrain from entering her comment box lest I join the salivating ones :)
Jess @ ausculture normally has some really excellent comment threads worth reading… (as does Troppo of course)
yellow
I can’t help feeling that salivating over Julia Gillard, Miranda Devine and Ms Fits all in the space of about 3 days might be regarded by some as a trifle excessive. Not me though, you understand, I’ve always been heavily into excess. I don’t fancy your chances with Miranda, either. She’s a strong Catholic and the Pope looks dimly on that sort of thing, or so I’m told. Priests porking altar boys is one thing, but girl-girl horizontal folk-dancing is still strictly off limits.
“Priests porking altar boys is one thing, but girl-girl horizontal folk-dancing is still strictly off limits.”
Mmmmyeah…tell that to the nuns, Ken.
Reading that SMH article today I began to suspect that Ms. Devine has concocted a schoolgirl crush on Gilly. No doubt all that repressed sexuality had to erupt somewhere. M truly, madly, deeply hearts J.
“I can’t help feeling that salivating over Julia Gillard, Miranda Devine and Ms Fits all in the space of about 3 days might be regarded by some as a trifle excessive”
maybe I left my sense of irony behind when I got back from hols. it’s all part of my plan to find lerve on the net though :)
I don’t think that I did salivate over Miranda, but maybe Fyodor’s right and she’s craving some girl-girl action!
maybe I did salivate over Miranda and didn’t notice!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/yellowvinyl/518.html
Who is the elusive yellowvinyl?
FAQ
An Introduction to the World of Yellowvinyl via the Socratic Method
Who is yellowvinyl?
yellowvinyl is the nick I use in a variety of online fora. I sometimes think she has a mind of her own. particularly when she comments on blogs.
bloody good mind but.
Someone pointed out (forgotten who already – sorry, might be here) that a heap of the voters are probably bloggers, who vote for themselves first.
This makes the second preference the important vote.
I am a bit bemused about getting the Vic gong although Ms Fits, who got the national result, is also a Victorian.
It does look a bit as though the Right either didn’t bother to vote, or split its vote horribly and turned its back upon Tim Blair.
If the vote is skewed, it’s toward blog junkeys. How does any normal person have enough time to read all these blogs? This is not to say that many of them aren’t good. But tuning into even just a couple is time consuming enough, assuming one wants to read the posts carefully and make a few considered comments. I’m no more qualified to judge the blog of the year than the car of the year: I leave it to the full time aficionados.
I’m not sure about the Left/Right thing – apart from the political blog award obviously. Rob’s is a great blog but,,, political polemic rather than political analysis – so….what’s my point :) So is Tim Blair’s of course. Ms Fits and Darpism – which won best blog in NSW – are very similar vanity voyeur blogs. Ms Fits does a kind of Melburnian Vagina Monologue, which I personally find relentlessly tedious. It’s reminiscent of the 16 year old Janis Ian composing a lyric while shut in her bedroom – with a sad little spliff – because she hates her mother. Mat Hau specialises in a unique sort of self-conceived, shaved-scrotum, Che Guevara of the Antipodes deal – from an advertising copywriter base – a wonderful and unintended irony which I deeply appreciate :) Both are principally about self-promotion – not that there’s anything wrong with that, particularly if the people doing it are classy in the written expression stakes.
Gianna’s great gift is to offer a personal narrative that involves the reader to the extent that she/he can own it. She writes incredibly well.
I sometimes enjoy ‘Spin Starts Here’, it’s well-crafted and, at times, hilarious. But the basic premise: Caz, The Hack and the ubiquitous Hambo snarkily take on the world, is sort of a one trick pony. At times it gets very ugly. Their habit of siccing their acolytes onto the IP’s of gormless kids who query their pisstakes on media-manufactured celebrity is possibly on par with the adrenalin rush garnered from watching a paraplegic get smacked up till the blood runs.
The most impressive bracketing was that offered by Prof Quiggin’s esteemed and erudite musings racing to the Qld best blog finish line with the execrable Dawei – a persona unique in the Ozblogosphere for possessing not a single redeeeming feature – unless you consider the fact that his schtick makes Paris Hilton look like Susan Sontag.
geoff more pleeeeze. I’ve got drink and cheese and dry biscuit all up my nose.
I am expecting to see your expanded analysis submitted here Geoff. 3000 word limit. You have missed your calling.
“A large number of people commented that one of its most useful aspects was becoming aware of the growing diversity of the Australian blogosphere and reading blogs new to them.”
Growing diversity – LOL!
This year’s awards were most notable for their lack of diversity. Take the blinkers off Mark, or at least apply for a guest blogging post on Back Pages.
Oops, the “here” in my previous comment was supposed to be a hyperlink for BlogTalk submissions: http://incsub.org/blogtalk/index.php?cat=4
James Farmer, one of the organizers for Blogtalk has dropped by my blog and personally endorsed the submissions I suggested.
So Geoff, you have your assignment.
Yobbo can write the paper with the criteria by which you can judge a photo blog along the left-right political divide.
Cheers, saint – I’ve linked to the blogtalk conference above:
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008374.html
“Rob’s is a great blog but…”
Why is there always a but? ;-)
Congrats to all.
Troppo’s the blog I read the most out of those which won. Have no idea what the voting process was.
Certainly most of the blogs I read didn’t win.
Have a look at Robert’s site and enjoy reading it, but….no buts cause differences of opinion are good.
Not into personal narrative stuff at all and it sometimes annoys me that women write so much of it.
Many of my favourite blogs are by men writing the personal narrative stuff. (US and UK mainly)
As with anything it is the quality of the narrative that matters rather than the genre or gender. An eye that relates one’s private narrative to the bigger picture (ideally with links)
(As distinct from Narcissism which is always tedious, but fortunately seems to run its course fairly quickly in blogging. Actually one of the men I link to wrote a much-linked post on Blogging and Narcissism, which made for interesting meta-reading)
I tend to agree with Geoff. To merely focus on the left/right thing, the old-fashioned spectrum metaphor doesn’t really seem to get to the quick of what appears to be going down.
Far from a Prof Bunners’ leftoid conspiracy, I notice that neither the effectively-tied ‘best overall blogs’, neither Tim D nor Ms Fits, have permanent links to each other. Insofar as you can characterise the trend as a ‘left’ swing (from Loobylu, last year, if I remember: get a grip EP: the bias is rampant and revolution nigh!) – good: humanity bubbles, and the web turns.
Yet, while this stands, perhaps a more interesting reading is that it is an effective anti-aggressive-right coalition, with the left now forming up with what is basically an unconnected, young, coarse and fearlessly militant wing, albeit with many intermediaries.
The bifurcaton, as the non-links between the leaders suggests, is deep, and this takes us toward the great variety that is buried under ‘left’ these days, such that, as I have often argued, the term obscures as much as it reveals. The ‘left’ seems primarily defined by being non-‘right’ these days. The ‘right’ is the only cleanly defined player in the field. Once this right are seen off, the interesting discussions might begin, and I suspect there will be much discussed.
In the meantime, it seems we are seeing the reaction to the RWDB blog-era. The march of the LWDB? The demise of the RWDB? Is it a harbinger? A leading indicator? Does it matter?
Great left-wing warriors like Darp have spent the last 6 months fighting “the right”. – “The right” being about a dozen working-class racists with mullets who have a clubhouse where they like to gather round and bitch about asians.
Apparently he’s the new left-wing messiah. John Howard must be shaking in his boots if this is the new face of the “fearlessly militant” left.
OK so CS submits the paper on blogging and yoof and the political process.
And Yobbo needs to get out more.
I’d agree that this whole left/right online dichotomy is a bit of a beatup. And to some extent, it seems to be inflamed by those bloggers who do self-identify as RWDBs labelling anyone who disagrees with their points as lefties.
Actually it’s kind of amusing that so many of these “I’m right, I’m out and I’m proud”
Sure you can handle it? After all that Kool-Aid and all…
“Sure you can handle it? After all that Kool-Aid and all…”
Thanks, whatever. I forgot to mention cliches and synedoche as another example of how the easily excitable polarise online discussion.
As usual, Geoff, love your work. You need to post more.
There seems to be a line of thought that the left are the predominant part of the Aussie blogoshpere these days. I reckon there’s something in that. Maybe it stems from Back Pages last year. CS’s blog was massive up to the election, what with his relentless positivism, and the haven he provided for hopeful lefties. His lead seems to have filtered through to the blogosphere in general.
But I also reckon it’s because the left have more to get upset about at the moment.
When it comes down to tin-tacks, though, the Aussie blog scene needs a good kick in the pants. It’s become dull of late.
Oy, Nab! What the hell’s a synedoche?!?
Yep, Tony T, the non-right have more to be energised about currently.
“What the hell’s a synedoche?!?”
Yes it was a typo, I meant to say “synecdoche”.
“the Aussie blog scene needs a good kick in the pants. It’s become dull of late.”
I’ll say. For starters, I wanna see more good old irreverent Aussie ingenunity and attitude fucking around with the form as well as content of blogging as we know it.
Sounds to me, Nabakov, like maybe you need to get a blog. Will be happy to read it if and when you do.
Sounds to me, Nabakov, like maybe you need to get a blog. Will be happy to read it if and when you do.
“Sounds to me, Nabakov, like maybe you need to get a blog.”
Why?
darlene don’t encourage him.
Ditto FX. Be VERY careful what you suggest, Darlene. That advice has all the hallmarks of “Be a good boy, Nabby. Go outside and play with the car.”
I’ll only mention it once, though.
Synedoche, synecdoche. I wasn’t picking you up on spelling, Nab. I’ve got no idea about either.
Synecdoche is a rhetorical figure. It means using the part to stand for the whole or the genus for the species.
Personally, I prefer catechresis, which I often use when chatting with EP, as I’ve observed before (example: “But why do you hate Sweden?”)
Got it; Kate Crisis. Thanks, Mark.
PS: It’s probably the expensive beer. Or the bloody Volvos.
Personally, I prefer catechresis
Aren’t there tablets for that?
Note to self – must take medication…