I started writing this as a response to some of the comments on the previous article and post, but it got so long I decided it should be its own post. Included are a general mini review of some popular EN sites today, more trivia concerning the origins of Scary-Crayon and stuff, and an apology to the readers who’ve sent me e-mails but to whom I’ve neglected to reply. Good times. 😛
So in response to agustinaldo’s suggestion, I think reviewing other EN sites in depth would be pretty pointless. They’ve all got articles I like and articles I don’t — and though some have more hits than misses, it’s really as simple as that. I also largely dislike most of the larger sites these days because of what they’ve become. I can’t even view X-E on my desktop without the numerous Flash ads slowing it to a crawl and the last time I visited I-Mock it was a mess of popups and stupid “wait 30 seconds” pages featuring javascript balloons telling me I was the 8,283,712th visitor to the page or something and had won some random shit. I-Mock also seems more like a super vanity project to me than anything else these days. It’s cool to see a photo of the article’s author engaged in using the product during a given review (especially when the author is female and attractive or is wearing zombie makeup for no significant reason), but when you’ve got 2+ MB animated gifs with Photoshopped effects in almost every article, you’re just being a vainglorious asshole. I remember one pic of RoG that was zoomed in so close you could see his fucking nose hairs. I’ve got no problems with Seanbaby’s page, but does he even update anymore?
I guess the above counts as a mini review of those sites, though. It largely focuses on the negative, so I’ll also reiterate that I do like a lot of the articles. It’s no secret that I love the TMNT, and Matt’s articles about them always help to remind me why. (Not that I’ve forgotten, but yeah.) I’ve found many of the film reviews on X-E and I-Mock to be humorous enough to warrant my tracking down the movies to add to my own collection — for example, Nukie and the Jack Frost flicks and the godawful live action TMNT Christmas special. I once considered myself a big fan of those sites, so much so that they were a large part of my “inspiration” to start Scary-Crayon. Even that, however, was partly negative; it was less a “wow these guys are so cool I want to be just like them!” than a “hey, I write this kind of stuff in my blog all the time so why don’t I write a few articles in this vein too” kind of deal. And then I tried sending the articles to these guys in an effort to get them printed on their sites — Something Awful and I-Mock were accepting submissions at the time — but nobody ever gave me a response. In fact, the only webmaster who responded to me then was Per Arne of Encyclopedia Obscura, who was kind enough to even preview SC articles and give me feedback and advice when I was getting the site together. Hope he’s doing okay.
So I guess SC exists partly because the big site webmasters didn’t think I was worth the several minutes or less it would take to write back and say something encouraging before shooting me down. (Though I recognize it’s also possible that the e-mails slipped their minds or that the sends didn’t go through. That happens sometimes.) I guess the site might eventually have come to pass anyway, but I probably would’ve spent more time trying to tailor my writing for other sites than trying to strike out on my own. I’d also probably have a little more love for those webmasters, but eh — if they cared what I thought, they’d swing by once in a while and comment or maybe even link the site. Odds are they’ve never even heard of SC. Well, except Matt, because I quietly plugged it on his comments board like several weeks after it opened (in one of those tangential remarks, so it wasn’t totally rude, but then more people started commenting on it there and well…) and he banned me for it. 😉
Btw, since I called those other webmasters for not writing to me, it’s only fair that I note that I too have neglected to respond to a lot of the folks who’ve written to me (which is largely inexcusable in my case because exceedingly few people do), but I do read and appreciate all of the SC fan mail I get. So if any of those people happen to be reading, thank you and I’m very, very sorry for forgetting to write back. I heart you all. Except the people who call me a fag and go on about how much Raven “rulz” in horrific caps-deprived e-mails. Please fix your shift keys and take the time to write “you” all the way out, mmkay?
Finally, some may be quick to call me a hypocrite for criticizing the other EN sites for their numerous ads when I have Google and SC store ads on SC, so let me respond to that. I also don’t think the SC store ads are very intrusive, and while only two folks besides myself have ever bought shirts, I do like the shirts and think they’d be pretty cool items for SC fans to own (even if they are kind of costly, grr Cafepress grr). I plan to make more shirt designs in the near future that won’t feature the word “cock” and could therefore be worn in unfamiliar company without necessarily offending the sensibilities of strangers. Regarding the Google ads, they’re 1) waaay at the bottom of the articles and 2) not Flash ads, so I don’t think that they’re having all that much of an impact on the presentation. Believe me, if they were, they’d be gone — I’d rather close the site down than be forced to have stupid flash ads featuring idiotic “shoot the rabid monkey” games and new movie releases on every page and shit. But even so, I really hate the Google ads and fully intend to do away with them at some point. Admittedly that’s partly because they’re worthless: Google only pays every $100 and they’ve only racked in about $35 so far — this is since November, btw — so to get rid of them now would essentially be giving Google $35 worth of free advertising. On the other hand, it’s likely that we’ll never get to $100, so not getting rid of them immediately is still like giving them more free advertising. It’s a difficult decision and I’m really not sure what to do, but the $35 or however much would sure help to pay the SC rent if I could ever fucking get it. Also, the ads often have almost nothing to do with the articles, which is pretty stupid.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and ja ne, minna-san. 🙂