So in the spirit of fairness, I wanted to go through and see how this social media experience panned out in the year since the winners were announce and all the controversy erupted. I feel the same way now as I did when the winners were announced. I think that the judges were full of crap, either at the behest of Cap C or Nissan Canada or both. I think certain people were set as winners before the contest even started and I think certain people were cut from the options for winning before the judging started. I don't think Angie had any specific knowledge of this as the surprise on her face seemed totally real when I saw her after the winners were announced. She seemed as stunned as I was.
Basically, I'd still challenge anyone to give me any legitimate reason several people won,where I did not. I don't think anyone could then, nor can now. First and foremost at the top of my list is KGRANDIA, who did not make a single blog post in all of Cube Community for the last year. Nothing. Nada. And I bet he still has his free car.
Now while that's obviously ridiculous, it's also plain to see that several other people did not meet their contractual obligations for keeping their free car. Of all the winners, I found about 17 of the 50 winners that actually blogged regularly and did at least their obligatory 2 posts/month as agreed upon when accepting their prizes. There were about 7 winners who were pretty good, but still managed to blog relatively consistently over the year. About 3 winners made 2 or less posts in the last 2 months and were pretty sparse all throughout. The rest you ask? Let me briefly break it down:
Anthony Hare not updated since September
TheZimp not since september
birdalert 1 post since October
curtis santiago not since august
jeanaymeri not since December
luv3 not since september
Furni not since october
fn vegas 1 since december
pigz 4 since december
Real Slim JP not since september
strych9 not since August
syd woodward 3 entries in the last 6 months
tha Phlash not since November
Sandbar Mark not since January
rafem not since December
Photojunkie not since March
Markwotton not since February
tinkugallery not since September
Tony Holiday 2 posts since January
famouskid not since February
TimD 2 since December
So yeah, many of these people had great canvases and certainly deserved to win for sure, but some really showed sub par stuff and seemed to win for other reasons and I guess you get what you pay for. When you have a contest about social media and creativity and you pick winners based on other things despite the rules, you end up having half your winners not follow the rules either.
So the next question is, would I have done any better? Was I creative enough to update a blog twice a month? Was I creative enough to do interesting things for the last year? While I realize that their cube community blogs don't accurately represent everything each of these people did for the last year, I'd say the point of rewarding people involved in social media is that they do in practice update their life online in some social media venue. What's the use of having people do cool things if no one reads about it? Here's what I did in the last year in the social media world:
I made 64 blog entries on various sites.
In these blogs, among other things and off the top of my head, I documented painting my first painting, I grew and donated my hair for women who suffered from hair loss due to illness, I bought a Hyundai Elantra (which has been a really kick ass car) and I sat for a couple photoshoots. I basically talked about all the stuff going on in my life.
I wrote 16 articles:
For those Articles, I Interviewed 2 little girls, an artist, 2 bands, 1 author and an author/performance artist/teacher. I wrote 2 Book Reviews, one fiction and one non-fiction.Did a few photo shoots including a concert.
I did a bunch of other random shit:
I created a new holiday and with it, a facebook event with 92 people and built an accompanying website. I created a new Wordpress theme. I did a lot of driving around, including a bunch of cottaging and concerting. I learned to sew and made some clothes. I'm learning to crochet and made myself a hat. And all this shit was documented in one form or another online.
So yeah, I'd say creativity, check. Social media, check. And I'd also like to add that Sunny dwarfs both my creativity and my social media skills.
I think my point was made here and I think a number other people made their points as well in their own ways. I think the contest ended up as a huge embarrassment for Capital C and for Nissan Canada and I think it's the fault of the people who made the decisions to bend the rules to their agenda, rather than actually follow through with the proposed and advertised concept of the contest. I feel very sorry for the employees who put their heart and soul into this campaign and deserved awards for the great ideas contained therein and had it fucked up by some ignorant executive somewhere who though he know better than the creatives.
At the end of the year, I have a new car anyway and I like it. I don't feel like I'm driving around in an advertisement car, which is basically what the cube turned into. The only person I've seen with one up here that didn't win one or buy one to use as a billboard for a company is my buddy Steve who I talked into buying one before the winners were announced (for the record, I've talked 3 people into buying Hyundais since I got mine). I've gotten a nice raise. I've learned a lot about one thing or another. I've done a lot of great cooking (which I've also been posting online). It seems I've managed to salvage my twitter-lationship with a few of the winners and cap C people after the strain of all this shit going crazy and I'm happy about that. I've maintained my relationship with a good handful of other people from the contest and I'm happy about that too.
I still despise Nissan and will spend the rest of my life talking anyone out of buying one of their cars, but I'm not going to let that control my life. There are still a few self serving judges whose faces I'd love to spit in if I had the chance. All things considered though, things are pretty good and I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing for the last 10 years or so and enjoy my life.
As the paid version of this blog is expiring, I'm more than likely done with it unless something really funny happens. Thanks to everyone who read and commented, especially our troll who was fucking hysterical. Obviously we hit a nerve, which I think is only fair as they did it first.
So good on the people who legitimately won and followed through on their obligations to the contest. You deserved to win a car and I hope you love it. Good on those who deserved to win and didn't, who are still out there being creative and yapping about it on-line. And good on everyone else who's having a kick ass day for no other reason than why not. Have a good one.
Basically, I'd still challenge anyone to give me any legitimate reason several people won,where I did not. I don't think anyone could then, nor can now. First and foremost at the top of my list is KGRANDIA, who did not make a single blog post in all of Cube Community for the last year. Nothing. Nada. And I bet he still has his free car.
Now while that's obviously ridiculous, it's also plain to see that several other people did not meet their contractual obligations for keeping their free car. Of all the winners, I found about 17 of the 50 winners that actually blogged regularly and did at least their obligatory 2 posts/month as agreed upon when accepting their prizes. There were about 7 winners who were pretty good, but still managed to blog relatively consistently over the year. About 3 winners made 2 or less posts in the last 2 months and were pretty sparse all throughout. The rest you ask? Let me briefly break it down:
Anthony Hare not updated since September
TheZimp not since september
birdalert 1 post since October
curtis santiago not since august
jeanaymeri not since December
luv3 not since september
Furni not since october
fn vegas 1 since december
pigz 4 since december
Real Slim JP not since september
strych9 not since August
syd woodward 3 entries in the last 6 months
tha Phlash not since November
Sandbar Mark not since January
rafem not since December
Photojunkie not since March
Markwotton not since February
tinkugallery not since September
Tony Holiday 2 posts since January
famouskid not since February
TimD 2 since December
So yeah, many of these people had great canvases and certainly deserved to win for sure, but some really showed sub par stuff and seemed to win for other reasons and I guess you get what you pay for. When you have a contest about social media and creativity and you pick winners based on other things despite the rules, you end up having half your winners not follow the rules either.
So the next question is, would I have done any better? Was I creative enough to update a blog twice a month? Was I creative enough to do interesting things for the last year? While I realize that their cube community blogs don't accurately represent everything each of these people did for the last year, I'd say the point of rewarding people involved in social media is that they do in practice update their life online in some social media venue. What's the use of having people do cool things if no one reads about it? Here's what I did in the last year in the social media world:
I made 64 blog entries on various sites.
In these blogs, among other things and off the top of my head, I documented painting my first painting, I grew and donated my hair for women who suffered from hair loss due to illness, I bought a Hyundai Elantra (which has been a really kick ass car) and I sat for a couple photoshoots. I basically talked about all the stuff going on in my life.
I wrote 16 articles:
For those Articles, I Interviewed 2 little girls, an artist, 2 bands, 1 author and an author/performance artist/teacher. I wrote 2 Book Reviews, one fiction and one non-fiction.Did a few photo shoots including a concert.
I did a bunch of other random shit:
I created a new holiday and with it, a facebook event with 92 people and built an accompanying website. I created a new Wordpress theme. I did a lot of driving around, including a bunch of cottaging and concerting. I learned to sew and made some clothes. I'm learning to crochet and made myself a hat. And all this shit was documented in one form or another online.
So yeah, I'd say creativity, check. Social media, check. And I'd also like to add that Sunny dwarfs both my creativity and my social media skills.
I think my point was made here and I think a number other people made their points as well in their own ways. I think the contest ended up as a huge embarrassment for Capital C and for Nissan Canada and I think it's the fault of the people who made the decisions to bend the rules to their agenda, rather than actually follow through with the proposed and advertised concept of the contest. I feel very sorry for the employees who put their heart and soul into this campaign and deserved awards for the great ideas contained therein and had it fucked up by some ignorant executive somewhere who though he know better than the creatives.
At the end of the year, I have a new car anyway and I like it. I don't feel like I'm driving around in an advertisement car, which is basically what the cube turned into. The only person I've seen with one up here that didn't win one or buy one to use as a billboard for a company is my buddy Steve who I talked into buying one before the winners were announced (for the record, I've talked 3 people into buying Hyundais since I got mine). I've gotten a nice raise. I've learned a lot about one thing or another. I've done a lot of great cooking (which I've also been posting online). It seems I've managed to salvage my twitter-lationship with a few of the winners and cap C people after the strain of all this shit going crazy and I'm happy about that. I've maintained my relationship with a good handful of other people from the contest and I'm happy about that too.
I still despise Nissan and will spend the rest of my life talking anyone out of buying one of their cars, but I'm not going to let that control my life. There are still a few self serving judges whose faces I'd love to spit in if I had the chance. All things considered though, things are pretty good and I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing for the last 10 years or so and enjoy my life.
As the paid version of this blog is expiring, I'm more than likely done with it unless something really funny happens. Thanks to everyone who read and commented, especially our troll who was fucking hysterical. Obviously we hit a nerve, which I think is only fair as they did it first.
So good on the people who legitimately won and followed through on their obligations to the contest. You deserved to win a car and I hope you love it. Good on those who deserved to win and didn't, who are still out there being creative and yapping about it on-line. And good on everyone else who's having a kick ass day for no other reason than why not. Have a good one.
So just to throw out a quick post, we bought a 2010 Hyundai Elantra this weekend. I have other stuff to say about it, but I've got other things to do today.
I feel honoured. In my 10 plus years of active internet life, I've never had my very own troll. Sadly this troll is under the impression I'm Sunny, so it's even more sad because said troll is not smart enough to read that I took over this journal a long time ago. But then again, this troll is not smart enough to make a very good argument either. I mean there are a million people out there who could rip on me and Sunny waaaaaaay better than this and maybe even make some legitimate points. Henceforth, this troll will be referred to as 205.207.121.49 since our troll is such a winner that he/she was too scared to take credit and use his/her real name. Let's take a look:
So the biggest slam that you could come up with is that we lose. Going by the actual data, we lost one contest, which I think was aptly shown to be unethical and full of bullshit. And whereas we're being chastised for bitching about it, I'd say if anyone in the world comes across a corporation that is using unethical means to achieve their goals and you sit back and take it in the ass, that would be truly losing.
The cycle is even funnier. So we're losers because we blog about something and then we're losers because we no longer blog about it? I think 205.207.121.49 is trying to make the data fit a predisposed judgment rather than using the data to find the correct judgment. It's just the poorest kind of analysis.
I'd really love to see the other things that we've failed at. In fact, I'd say that we're doing pretty damn well. I'd say that indicating I'm working on a number of other creative projects in no way constitutes as failing at them, rather the contrary. I'd also say that pointing fingers and saying that I bitch constantly about everything is quite funny since that's exactly what 205.207.121.49 is doing here. I could make a supposition that this is someone from Cap C or Nissan who ended up not getting all the awards and prestige after this contest failed so hard, which would make them someone who lost and is now bitching about it. If that's not the case, so be it, but it's not a stretch to think it might be.
I would like to say thank you though because if 205.207.121.49 is coming after me because of the hypercube campaign failing, they're giving me and Sunny a hell of a lot of credit. I mean do you really think two losers such as ourselves could take down big powerhouses like Cap C and Nissan? I guess they really do see us as the internet elite. I'd love to say that little old us crumpled this campaign and made it the laughing stock of the ad world, but sadly, we can't take credit. Nissan and Cap C drove it into the ground themselves.
Next commet:
I'll be the first to say that Nissan makes great cars and I was certainly considering getting one prior to this contest. I have no issue with the hardware, just the company behind it, which is reason enough for me not to buy one. What 205.207.121.49 fails to realize is that I've never once said that Nissan didn't make great cars. 205.207.121.49's not so good with the facts.
This whole comment is short on reality though, but I guess reality never stopped 205.207.121.49. I've already talked about the whole loser thing and wondered aloud what these supposed things we are losing at are, so I'll move on. When someone makes a decision based on how they feel rather than real information, they tend to make fools of themselves as evidenced here. Let's see, I have a job. A pretty awesome job at that. And I do really well at it. I show up, I get paid, I get promotions, I get all sorts of positives from it. I am smart with my money. I've gone from nothing, when I first came to Canada and couldn't work to owning a home and keeping a family functioning and above water on one income. That's unusual in this day and age and takes a lot of good money handling to accomplish.
Telling someone to get off the internet when yourself are on the internet is in itself enough of a reason to dismiss this comment, but just to be thorough, I work on a computer. Being on the internet is necessary for me to work. Which is what 205.207.121.49 wants me to do.
Once again, I have a job and I don't have agoraphobia either (and have never claimed to). If 205.207.121.49 is referring to Sunny, then first, 205.207.121.49 needs to learn to read because it's been pretty apparent that I took over this blog a long time ago. As well, claiming that you know more than a number of doctors about Sunny's mental state, when you can't even read enough to figure out who is writing this shows just how inept your ability to think is. To add to that, if 205.207.121.49 did know how to read, 205.207.121.49 would realize that Sunny can go anywhere with me and does often, she just doesn't go alone. Not even to "an art show or a concert." Once again, lack of reading comprehension. Or maybe just lack of comprehension.
Last comment from today:
This is probably the weakest attempt at a comment because it doesn't really say anything except that we keep losing at things and life in general. Again, I have no idea what I'm losing at. I have a loving wife, brilliant kids, I own a home, I have a job I love and compared to most Canadians, we have very little debt. Could I handle a big raise at work? Of course, but who couldn't? And realistically, that'll come in time.
I admit, I sat on my couch when I ate dinner tonight. That was for about 20 minutes and then I got off it. Looking through my blog, I have certainly pointed out things that I'm going through, but I'm not failing at them, I figuring out how I want to proceed with them in the most intelligent way. I've looked through Sunny's site and of the entire first page of posts, they are all positive except maybe one about Jenny McCarthy being stupid and really, it's looking back on how things were in Sunny's head pre-medication and showing how she's won and is in a better place, so not really even bitching or losing in that post.
So yeah, this is some of the worst trolling I've ever seen. With a little effort, 205.207.121.49 could have actually gotten some real information and maybe even made a legitimate point. I hate to say it, but 205.207.121.49, you lose. It's likely that you lost something because they Hypercube campaign failed. You lost and you're bitching about it. Your bitching was incredibly weak and you lost about that too? Are you going to come back here and bitch about losing at that too? Sucks to fail at your own game doesn't it?
I certainly invite any criticism of the views that I express. I invite all non-chickenshit people to say what they have to say, identify who they are and stand behind their opinions, just as I do. If all 205.207.121.49 can do is post anonymously and go on an uninformed bitch rant, 205.207.121.49 has already lost all credibility and will thus be ignored henceforth. But feel free to keep posting your useless shit. Hey lose more and bitch all about it. You seem to be the expert.
PS Still hate Nissan
(205.207.121.49) wrote:
Mar. 3rd, 2010 11:43 am (local)
Keep on losing, losers.
Sunny and Blake are soul mates of loserdom. They will forever find new ways to lose, then bitch about it, then lose, then bitch about it, until they turn into piles of dust.
Here's the cycle: 1. Find out about thing. 2. Fail to win at thing. 3. Bitch about thing. 4. Start blog about how wrong thing is. 5. Fail to update that blog/let blog die. 6. Find new thing. 7. Repeat cycle. 8. Adjust medication as needed.
Forever and ever and ever and ever.
Like the twins in 'The Shining': "Come and lose with us. Forever. And ever. And ever."
So the biggest slam that you could come up with is that we lose. Going by the actual data, we lost one contest, which I think was aptly shown to be unethical and full of bullshit. And whereas we're being chastised for bitching about it, I'd say if anyone in the world comes across a corporation that is using unethical means to achieve their goals and you sit back and take it in the ass, that would be truly losing.
The cycle is even funnier. So we're losers because we blog about something and then we're losers because we no longer blog about it? I think 205.207.121.49 is trying to make the data fit a predisposed judgment rather than using the data to find the correct judgment. It's just the poorest kind of analysis.
I'd really love to see the other things that we've failed at. In fact, I'd say that we're doing pretty damn well. I'd say that indicating I'm working on a number of other creative projects in no way constitutes as failing at them, rather the contrary. I'd also say that pointing fingers and saying that I bitch constantly about everything is quite funny since that's exactly what 205.207.121.49 is doing here. I could make a supposition that this is someone from Cap C or Nissan who ended up not getting all the awards and prestige after this contest failed so hard, which would make them someone who lost and is now bitching about it. If that's not the case, so be it, but it's not a stretch to think it might be.
I would like to say thank you though because if 205.207.121.49 is coming after me because of the hypercube campaign failing, they're giving me and Sunny a hell of a lot of credit. I mean do you really think two losers such as ourselves could take down big powerhouses like Cap C and Nissan? I guess they really do see us as the internet elite. I'd love to say that little old us crumpled this campaign and made it the laughing stock of the ad world, but sadly, we can't take credit. Nissan and Cap C drove it into the ground themselves.
Next commet:
(205.207.121.49) wrote:
Mar. 3rd, 2010 12:40 pm (local)
Nissan
Nissan makes great cars. You've just got a chronic case of Lifeloserdom. That's your role. You're gonna lose, you're gonna whine, you're gonna lose again, you're gonna whine again. You're probably gonna grow old watching your kids lose, unless they actually transcend the genetic lot they drew, and the awful guidance they receive at the hands of you two losers.
Here's an idea: want a car? Get a job. Show up. Get paid. Be smart with your money. It's not what you make, it's what you save. Once you get enough money, buy a car you can afford. Then you'll have a car. Get off the internet. Grab yourself a job instead of claiming agoraphobia of convenience which seems to kick in every time you have to go shopping, but lifts when there's an art show or a concert you absolutely have to attend because you're 'creative'.
I'll be the first to say that Nissan makes great cars and I was certainly considering getting one prior to this contest. I have no issue with the hardware, just the company behind it, which is reason enough for me not to buy one. What 205.207.121.49 fails to realize is that I've never once said that Nissan didn't make great cars. 205.207.121.49's not so good with the facts.
This whole comment is short on reality though, but I guess reality never stopped 205.207.121.49. I've already talked about the whole loser thing and wondered aloud what these supposed things we are losing at are, so I'll move on. When someone makes a decision based on how they feel rather than real information, they tend to make fools of themselves as evidenced here. Let's see, I have a job. A pretty awesome job at that. And I do really well at it. I show up, I get paid, I get promotions, I get all sorts of positives from it. I am smart with my money. I've gone from nothing, when I first came to Canada and couldn't work to owning a home and keeping a family functioning and above water on one income. That's unusual in this day and age and takes a lot of good money handling to accomplish.
Telling someone to get off the internet when yourself are on the internet is in itself enough of a reason to dismiss this comment, but just to be thorough, I work on a computer. Being on the internet is necessary for me to work. Which is what 205.207.121.49 wants me to do.
Once again, I have a job and I don't have agoraphobia either (and have never claimed to). If 205.207.121.49 is referring to Sunny, then first, 205.207.121.49 needs to learn to read because it's been pretty apparent that I took over this blog a long time ago. As well, claiming that you know more than a number of doctors about Sunny's mental state, when you can't even read enough to figure out who is writing this shows just how inept your ability to think is. To add to that, if 205.207.121.49 did know how to read, 205.207.121.49 would realize that Sunny can go anywhere with me and does often, she just doesn't go alone. Not even to "an art show or a concert." Once again, lack of reading comprehension. Or maybe just lack of comprehension.
Last comment from today:
(205.207.121.49) wrote:
Mar. 3rd, 2010 05:06 pm (local)
Have you gotten up off your couch today?
And the whine goes on and on and on and on,
Blake and Sunny,
Never gonna win at life
They're sucking
The tailpipe of the Gaw-aw-awds!
Can't decide what to lose at next,
But you'll see it on the internet,
They fail, and fail repeatedly!
This is probably the weakest attempt at a comment because it doesn't really say anything except that we keep losing at things and life in general. Again, I have no idea what I'm losing at. I have a loving wife, brilliant kids, I own a home, I have a job I love and compared to most Canadians, we have very little debt. Could I handle a big raise at work? Of course, but who couldn't? And realistically, that'll come in time.
I admit, I sat on my couch when I ate dinner tonight. That was for about 20 minutes and then I got off it. Looking through my blog, I have certainly pointed out things that I'm going through, but I'm not failing at them, I figuring out how I want to proceed with them in the most intelligent way. I've looked through Sunny's site and of the entire first page of posts, they are all positive except maybe one about Jenny McCarthy being stupid and really, it's looking back on how things were in Sunny's head pre-medication and showing how she's won and is in a better place, so not really even bitching or losing in that post.
So yeah, this is some of the worst trolling I've ever seen. With a little effort, 205.207.121.49 could have actually gotten some real information and maybe even made a legitimate point. I hate to say it, but 205.207.121.49, you lose. It's likely that you lost something because they Hypercube campaign failed. You lost and you're bitching about it. Your bitching was incredibly weak and you lost about that too? Are you going to come back here and bitch about losing at that too? Sucks to fail at your own game doesn't it?
I certainly invite any criticism of the views that I express. I invite all non-chickenshit people to say what they have to say, identify who they are and stand behind their opinions, just as I do. If all 205.207.121.49 can do is post anonymously and go on an uninformed bitch rant, 205.207.121.49 has already lost all credibility and will thus be ignored henceforth. But feel free to keep posting your useless shit. Hey lose more and bitch all about it. You seem to be the expert.
PS Still hate Nissan
So I've been busy doing lots of writing and lots of creative things in the last 6 months, so I haven't really cared to take time away from all that to update cubeless. I figure that it's about time to check in though.
It looks like cubecommunity.ca has opened itself up to other people than the 50 winners now. I looked around a bit, but I didn't see any updates from people other than the 50 though.
I think 6 months has been a good amount of time for reality to set in and things have gone just about as I expected. Ya see, during the contest, there were a group of people who really made the contest into an actual community. These were the people who understood social media. These were the people who were doing it because they do it and not just to win a car. These are the people that Nissan and Capital C insinuated would be in a good position to win as participation was part of the judging process. For me, the community was composed of people like Telma, Jason Dollin, PhotoJunkie, Jade, Anna Karenine and BeCircle to name a few of those who ended up winning. These are all creative people who have created an online presence for themselves and really deserved to win. There were also people like Sunny, HearsandClefs, WillEagle, PhilKnudson and (I'd like to think) myself who also were part of this community and would have made good winners as well, but that's not what I'm talking about at the moment.
What really stands out about cube community though is that the community kind of died. I haven't been checking in for a while and was not surprised to see not much going on. So many of the winners that were chosen really had no idea what social media was all about. They were people who joined twitter because they had to for the contest. They didn't really interact much on line and as soon as the contest was over, they magically disappeared from twitter and everywhere else. It's not surprising that they've done the least amount possible to contribute to cube community. And I think the lack of community has made those that are social media oriented less likely to participate there as well. There's just no reason to post other than the fact that it was a stipulation of winning.
I see cube related stuff going on via twitter every now and again and I think it's cool that those people managed to stick together after the contest ended. I honestly think it would have been so much stronger of a community if they would have actually chosen the people that made up the original community rather than the ridiculous nepotism and (psudo)starfucking that occurred. I think Nissan would have gotten more out of it and I think Capital C would not have been the laughing stock of the Advertising world because of it.
So all those useless winners, who never updated once on cubecommunity or seem to have had their profiles removed aren't even worth mentioning because we're not really going to ever see them again on-line anyway. But the people who were there from the beginning and seem to still be doing it up on-line get my utmost respect.
I think in the end, a handfull of really deserving people got rewarded and I'm happy about that. And as screwed as some of the other people got, I think that Nissan and Capital C screwed themselves worse than anyone else.
As a quick aside, a guy I know bought a black cube. He heard about it when I was canvasing for votes. I never told him about how shitty Nissan was after it all came out in the wash, so he checked it out. The final verdict was that it was the best car for a tall person and he's fucking tall. So yeah, the one person I know who bought one is a 30something year old call center manager who is a father. Go figure. I see his car every few days at work and it still reminds me how much I hate Nissan.
Oh and Nissan's new ad??? Something like: "Putting yourself first is the real Holiday spirit!" How fucking wrong is that? But I guess we see what Nissan is all about again. Doesn't matter what else is going on or who you might deceive or let down as long as you get what you want.
It looks like cubecommunity.ca has opened itself up to other people than the 50 winners now. I looked around a bit, but I didn't see any updates from people other than the 50 though.
I think 6 months has been a good amount of time for reality to set in and things have gone just about as I expected. Ya see, during the contest, there were a group of people who really made the contest into an actual community. These were the people who understood social media. These were the people who were doing it because they do it and not just to win a car. These are the people that Nissan and Capital C insinuated would be in a good position to win as participation was part of the judging process. For me, the community was composed of people like Telma, Jason Dollin, PhotoJunkie, Jade, Anna Karenine and BeCircle to name a few of those who ended up winning. These are all creative people who have created an online presence for themselves and really deserved to win. There were also people like Sunny, HearsandClefs, WillEagle, PhilKnudson and (I'd like to think) myself who also were part of this community and would have made good winners as well, but that's not what I'm talking about at the moment.
What really stands out about cube community though is that the community kind of died. I haven't been checking in for a while and was not surprised to see not much going on. So many of the winners that were chosen really had no idea what social media was all about. They were people who joined twitter because they had to for the contest. They didn't really interact much on line and as soon as the contest was over, they magically disappeared from twitter and everywhere else. It's not surprising that they've done the least amount possible to contribute to cube community. And I think the lack of community has made those that are social media oriented less likely to participate there as well. There's just no reason to post other than the fact that it was a stipulation of winning.
I see cube related stuff going on via twitter every now and again and I think it's cool that those people managed to stick together after the contest ended. I honestly think it would have been so much stronger of a community if they would have actually chosen the people that made up the original community rather than the ridiculous nepotism and (psudo)starfucking that occurred. I think Nissan would have gotten more out of it and I think Capital C would not have been the laughing stock of the Advertising world because of it.
So all those useless winners, who never updated once on cubecommunity or seem to have had their profiles removed aren't even worth mentioning because we're not really going to ever see them again on-line anyway. But the people who were there from the beginning and seem to still be doing it up on-line get my utmost respect.
I think in the end, a handfull of really deserving people got rewarded and I'm happy about that. And as screwed as some of the other people got, I think that Nissan and Capital C screwed themselves worse than anyone else.
As a quick aside, a guy I know bought a black cube. He heard about it when I was canvasing for votes. I never told him about how shitty Nissan was after it all came out in the wash, so he checked it out. The final verdict was that it was the best car for a tall person and he's fucking tall. So yeah, the one person I know who bought one is a 30something year old call center manager who is a father. Go figure. I see his car every few days at work and it still reminds me how much I hate Nissan.
Oh and Nissan's new ad??? Something like: "Putting yourself first is the real Holiday spirit!" How fucking wrong is that? But I guess we see what Nissan is all about again. Doesn't matter what else is going on or who you might deceive or let down as long as you get what you want.
So I've been a bit lax on the cubeless updates, but I've had so many other projects on the go that this really hasn't taken priority.
Buuuuut, just for fun, here are some little things that made me laugh.
First, I love the post that Syd Woodward made on October 5th entitled "FIRST POST...I KNOW....I SUCK." That's right, despite the two post a month requirement, one winner didn't make a post until yesterday. Anthony Hare managed a first post on September 22nd, almost a full two weeks before Syd, but hasn't managed to update again since then. KGrandia has still not done a damn thing. Way to pick 'em Nissan. Not sure if it matters much since there's jack for participation.
I plan to do a post sooner or later to actually give props to the winner who actually deserved to win and have been able to follow through on their commitment that came with winning.
I'd also like to give props to qubicmx, who despite not winning the contest recently purchased a cube, (and as we all predicted, he got a better deal just talking to the sales person than the shitty "deal" that nissan offered the losers). I have to say he's a bigger man than I am for being able to get past Nissan's shit and pick the vehicle that suited his life. I still want to spit on every nissan I see and I have random day dreams of spitting on a couple of the judges too. I'd probably still be more likley to spend $5000 more on a worse car than buy a nissan.
Buuuuut, just for fun, here are some little things that made me laugh.
First, I love the post that Syd Woodward made on October 5th entitled "FIRST POST...I KNOW....I SUCK." That's right, despite the two post a month requirement, one winner didn't make a post until yesterday. Anthony Hare managed a first post on September 22nd, almost a full two weeks before Syd, but hasn't managed to update again since then. KGrandia has still not done a damn thing. Way to pick 'em Nissan. Not sure if it matters much since there's jack for participation.
I plan to do a post sooner or later to actually give props to the winner who actually deserved to win and have been able to follow through on their commitment that came with winning.
I'd also like to give props to qubicmx, who despite not winning the contest recently purchased a cube, (and as we all predicted, he got a better deal just talking to the sales person than the shitty "deal" that nissan offered the losers). I have to say he's a bigger man than I am for being able to get past Nissan's shit and pick the vehicle that suited his life. I still want to spit on every nissan I see and I have random day dreams of spitting on a couple of the judges too. I'd probably still be more likley to spend $5000 more on a worse car than buy a nissan.
- Listening To:I Hope You Die - The Bloodhound Gang
For anyone who just so happens to need some lulz, Cube Community has finally launched.
As of today (3 days shy of 2 months since the winners were announced), there are 7 winners who have not made a single blog post and 8 who have only made one post, which is amazingly interesting since making 2 posts a month was a condition of receiving the prize according to the rules.
Let's give a hand to our blogless winners:
ANTONYHARE - He didn't really interact via social media during the contest, I'm not sure why he would start now.
BEV - Same as Anthony.
SYD WOODWARD
KGRANDIA
PHOTOJUNKIE - which really surprises me since he's been all over the social media since the beginning and is creative as well.
LUV3
DJORIVEST
another round of applause for the people who've only made one post:
DELF BERG
LAURAAQUI
DOLLIN - another surprise since he's got mad skeelz and also very active on the social media scene.
EM
F.N.VEGAS
STRYCH9
TINKUGALLERY - surprised here as well since she did a lot of writing on her canvas and was pretty active on-line throughout the contest.
FAMOUSKID
This would have been so much cooler if I could have made a cool looking graphic thing to announce my lists. Oh well.
Do what you will with this information
As of today (3 days shy of 2 months since the winners were announced), there are 7 winners who have not made a single blog post and 8 who have only made one post, which is amazingly interesting since making 2 posts a month was a condition of receiving the prize according to the rules.
Let's give a hand to our blogless winners:
ANTONYHARE - He didn't really interact via social media during the contest, I'm not sure why he would start now.
BEV - Same as Anthony.
SYD WOODWARD
KGRANDIA
PHOTOJUNKIE - which really surprises me since he's been all over the social media since the beginning and is creative as well.
LUV3
DJORIVEST
another round of applause for the people who've only made one post:
DELF BERG
LAURAAQUI
DOLLIN - another surprise since he's got mad skeelz and also very active on the social media scene.
EM
F.N.VEGAS
STRYCH9
TINKUGALLERY - surprised here as well since she did a lot of writing on her canvas and was pretty active on-line throughout the contest.
FAMOUSKID
This would have been so much cooler if I could have made a cool looking graphic thing to announce my lists. Oh well.
Do what you will with this information
Hi, My name is Blake and I'm Cubless.
As I would assume all of you know, Sunny started Cubeless as a way to bring positivity to a negative situation. She wanted to take losing the Hypercube contest and rather than give in to depression, take steps forward and move past it on to bigger and brighter things. Unfortunately it was very hard to stay away from all that negativity and Sunny decided to walk away from this project and move on to bigger and better projects that had nothing to do with this contest.
I on the other hand didn't feel that negative about losing. Unfortunately with the bullshit ethics and poor handling of the contest after the fact, I've become really pissed off and just yesterday declared war on Nissan and Capital C (well, mostly just this contest/ad campaign). Sunny graciously let me take over Cubeless since I wanted to keep going with it.
Now there's this issue I have. What the hell do I do with it???
I had a few ideas and I thought I'd ask and see if anyone had any input.
My first thought was to somehow focus on everyone who is cubeless. I thought it might be interesting to see what the losers could do in a community format and compare it to the winners. Of course, I'm fully aware that I don't know most of the losers and many of them have distanced themselves from the contest in every way possible. I also know that many of the losers don't have live journal accounts and might not want to sign up just for this.
I also thought about just keeping this site strictkly for me to rant and bitch with, but I already have an account and I do okay there. Plus, I like to take credit for my obnoxious behavior and somehow posting in a second journal seems like I'm hiding or something.
I also considered using this journal to chronicle what I'm doing creatively as well as what I see other cubeless people doing creatively.
I don't know, what do you think? Any input is welcome. I especially hope to get some trolling.
As I would assume all of you know, Sunny started Cubeless as a way to bring positivity to a negative situation. She wanted to take losing the Hypercube contest and rather than give in to depression, take steps forward and move past it on to bigger and brighter things. Unfortunately it was very hard to stay away from all that negativity and Sunny decided to walk away from this project and move on to bigger and better projects that had nothing to do with this contest.
I on the other hand didn't feel that negative about losing. Unfortunately with the bullshit ethics and poor handling of the contest after the fact, I've become really pissed off and just yesterday declared war on Nissan and Capital C (well, mostly just this contest/ad campaign). Sunny graciously let me take over Cubeless since I wanted to keep going with it.
Now there's this issue I have. What the hell do I do with it???
I had a few ideas and I thought I'd ask and see if anyone had any input.
My first thought was to somehow focus on everyone who is cubeless. I thought it might be interesting to see what the losers could do in a community format and compare it to the winners. Of course, I'm fully aware that I don't know most of the losers and many of them have distanced themselves from the contest in every way possible. I also know that many of the losers don't have live journal accounts and might not want to sign up just for this.
I also thought about just keeping this site strictkly for me to rant and bitch with, but I already have an account and I do okay there. Plus, I like to take credit for my obnoxious behavior and somehow posting in a second journal seems like I'm hiding or something.
I also considered using this journal to chronicle what I'm doing creatively as well as what I see other cubeless people doing creatively.
I don't know, what do you think? Any input is welcome. I especially hope to get some trolling.
I thought I'd cleared this up regarding permanent resident status being a legal thing as opposed to a "where in the world you live" thing, but "Tayfife" has been whining and crying to Blake about this, so I thought I'd just post his original e-mail to shut him up.
For the record though? It's not my job to do this or clear up misinformation. "Tayfife" or any of the others who are freaking out right now over an Encyclopedia Dramatica article on the contest that came out this week or Nissan themselves are more than welcome to create blogs or write press releases or whatnot of their very own and write whatever they damn well please. In fact, when CubeCommunity.ca finally comes up, why don't they do just that?
Also? Certain folks are pointing fingers at me and there is a witch hunt going on in a private Facebook group for the 50 winners as to who wrote about some of them on ED and no matter how many times I say I didn't do it, the fact remains that certain people have seemingly stopped speaking to me and accusations have been made over rumour and assumption, the exact same things these people are pissed about, making them hypocrites.
The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter who wrote the ED article. What matters is, are the accusations true? Everyone knows this contest was botched from the very beginning, none of that is new information. Everyone who was part of the contest has opinions on who deserved to win and who didn't, as well as why certain people won. But I was shocked, along with everyone else, that certain contestants had previous ties to judges. Four of them. All I hear is how pissed the winners are and how pissed Angie Kramer is, but why isn't anyone addressing these very real, very serious accusations? There is actual evidence and pictures of contestants with judges, so we're not just talking rumours here.
All I've seen so far, and this is hard for me to say because a couple of the people targeted for "lulz", which is Encyclopedia Dramatica's thing, are supposedly my friends, is a lot of people crying that someone said something mean about them on the internet and to that I just have to shake my head and kinda laugh because these people have NO clue about the real internet or how things really work. These people are, for the most part, web 2.0ers who think everything's always been sunshine, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and rainbows.
Encyclopedia Dramatica's been around for a fairly long time and this is what they do. Wherever there's drama on the internet, they report about it. That's why it's called Encyclopedia Dramatica. If any of the people who are up in arms about this really took a good look at the site, they would see this, but it doesn't appear any of them have, so I'll intersperse this post with some links.
Half the time ED doesn't get their facts straight and they don't care. It's almost impossible to take legal action against them because they rely on user generated content and legally aren't responsible for their content. To my knowledge, no one to date has been successful in making anything stick. Furthermore, they've gone after MUCH bigger fish than Nissan or Cap C or any of these contestants who - no offence to them - are ants to ED. They mean nothing, as they can do nothing. And the more upset they get over what's been written about them on ED, the harder ED laughs. And they're watching. Don't be so naive as to think they aren't. In fact they're probably reading everything I'm saying right now as this blog is linked in that article and they used some of my quotes, so they know who I am too. And they know I'm just as butthurt over the contest as these people are that strangers said mean things about them on the internet. They're probably dying of laughter because with this one, the "lulz" just keep on coming. In fact, it's probably gone unnoticed by most of the Twitter crowd, but ED's made the article their "article of the now" on the very front page of their site.
And that's the other thing, the other reason why I wasn't going to say anything about any of this: I've been on the internet a long time and I've not only been on the internet a long time, but I've spent 18 hours a day, every day, on the internet for a long time and I tend to run in social circles with untoward folk that run the gamut between hackers and trolls. I've never kept this a secret. There's a link to the Stile Project forum [NSFW], mostly full of porn and gore, on my site that's been there for many years. I also most certainly have ties to people who have ties to Encyclopedia Dramatica too, as well as 4chan and many other "seedy" places on the internet. (But you never really know who has ties to what, especially in the cases of ED and 4chan because everyone wants to keep their anonymity and people rarely admit to anything.) And I can even see how that makes me suspect. But I'm not the only one. Out of 500 contestants, 450 of which were losers, plus the thousands of people who voted for them, do you really think I'm the ONLY one with connections to these places? It's like I said in my post about mental illness, out of 500 contestants, do you really think I'm the only one with a mental health issue? Use your brains.
I feel like I'm being thrown under the bus for being transparent, for being honest, for being me. I feel like the biggest reason people are pointing fingers at me is because I happen to know a lot about the internet, particularly the social aspects, and its history and well...sorry? I can't really help knowing what I know and I mean, that's not much to go on. Yes, I've been vocal about my displeasure at how this contest was run and how it turned out, but...if I wanted to write about that, I have this blog for that purpose, like I'm doing right now. That wasn't supposed to be its sole purpose, but there it is all the same. Oh, and this is my first update in almost 2 weeks. If I had something to say, I'd have said it by now.
As I've said before, I've been blogging and a pretty hardcore user of the internet for over a decade now and I've always prided myself on the fact that I've always been "Sunny" everywhere I go, that I've always been accountable for every single word I've ever put on the internet. There's not one word that I've written that I haven't attached my name to, not now, not ever. Anonymity isn't my style. (Partially because I have a giant ego, partially because it's what I expect from others.)
In every single post on this blog I've refrained from calling out specific contestants or winners and the ones I have spoken about, including Taylor Pfeifer whose name I'm only using now because he wants me to, I've never put a name to because I don't think it's my place to do that, especially when it's just my opinion on things (which means nothing) and I KNOW I don't have all the facts. I'm also not a journalist writing a professional article here either, I'm writing a stream of conscious blog that about 100ish people read on a slow day, triple or quadruple that if I promote the post on Twitter. It doesn't even matter what I say and I'm not held to ANY standards except my own, especially not that bullshit Word of Mouth Association crap the Hypercube winners are supposedly legally held to. I can say whatever I want.
Taylor Pfeifer, who started getting nasty with Blake via e-mail last night (which was very un-Christ-like...typical though, I guess) suggested I take this blog down as it's only bringing negativity to our home (??) and that I should start a new blog where everything's unicorns and lollipops. And that's just it, he doesn't know me, obviously, he hasn't done his homework. This is blog 4 of 4, at the moment and the one on the bottom of the totem pole as far as importance goes. And it really chafes my ass that he said I should take this blog down (won't happen) because I've been thinking that I probably wasn't going to update it anymore because I already have 3 other blogs to maintain and this one just further segregates my audience and causes more clutter for them as things get x-posted and between this blog, my![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.6)
sunnybananas blog, my site's blog and my site's RSS feed, some people are going to be bombarded with the same posts up to 4 times in a single day which means they'll just start unfollowing things and if they start unfollowing things, like this blog for example, what's the point of even doing it? But in not updating this blog, I don't want someone like Taylor Pfeifer thinking they had ANYTHING to do with it. I don't want anyone who's been pointing fingers at me over this goddamn ED article thinking that they had ANYTHING to do with it.
And there are two other things that Taylor Pfeifer said to Blake tonight that I need to get off my chest. The first was that because I've been blogging for 10 years, I should be used to confrontation on the internet and he said something about confrontational things being the best things to blog about. Again, Taylor Pfiefer hasn't got a bloody clue as to what he's talking about. As most of my readers know because they aren't total n00bs talking out of their asses, a blog can be about anything and most blogs I wouldn't consider to be confrontational at all, especially mine.(Well, this post might be...a little bit...but overall, I'd say my web presence is pretty non-confrontational.) I've been blogging about myself and my family and my life for the past 10 years and there's really not a whole lot to be confrontational about. And no, the best posts aren't about confrontational things, at least not in my corner of the internet; the best posts are the things that touch people on a deeper level and make them laugh, cry or think. I have a friend who blogs about vegan cooking. I have another friend who does nothing but blog about her sexual exploits. I have another friend who blogs about what she wears every day and another who blogs about what she makes her husband for dinner. All semi-popular blogs, none of which are confrontational in the least.
My own blog? God even saying this out loud is going to probably screw me, but in the 10 years I've been doing this, I can count the number of trolls I've had, real trolls, not just assholes passing by, on one hand. Even during the so-called "wild wild west" days of the internet where WORSE sites than Encyclopedia Dramatica existed that I found myself on fairly regularly for no other reason than to well, troll me. The difference between ED and those sites is that ED "does it for the lulz" whereas the sites of olde existed to destroy lives. I'm talking about people having child protective services being called on them for no other reason than because a mother decided to take her clothes off in front of a webcam after the kids went to bed or people being arrested because someone tipped off the police that they had nudes of 17 year olds...and it was the 17 year olds that sent the nudes, as well as tipped off the police. Encyclopedia Dramatica? Well, it's something, but nowhere near as bad as some of the sites that preceded it. Bigger, yes, but as I said, ED is supposed to be funny, although admittedly only to people with a certain sense of humour, and those sites existed to be mean and inflict real world consequences on people who were, 9 times out of 10, innocent of whatever it was they were being accused of. These sites went way beyond trolling.
Back to my own dealings with trolls? I'm so transparent and self-deprecating, it's usually not worth the effort. My last troll was a schizophrenic man from the UK who posted conspiracy theories and had conversations with himself in my blogs' comments. I turned off anonymous posting and set it so that only people on my friends list could post comments, thus starving him of his outlet and he eventually lost interest. My latest troll? He doesn't like my art work and tries to insult me by saying what I do is "craft" and not "art". I don't care. Also "he" is probably a "she" and I know exactly where "they" hail from. But that's a whole other thing.
My point here is that when you put yourself out there on the internet, you automatically make yourself a potential target. That's just how the internet works. Nissan put 50 people "out there" and with 450 unhappy people in this contest + everyone who voted for those people, there's gonna be a significant number who are going to want to throw darts at those targets. Encyclopedia Dramatica is one of the ways to do it.
Ah, the second thing. Taylor Pfeifer said that this blog is "spiralling down every winners morality and joy". Again, it's not my job to keep up the morale of anyone, let alone winners in a corporate contest I'm not getting paid to blog about. This is the internet. Reading is optional. If you don't like it? If it's affecting you negatively? Don't fucking read it! It's as simple as that. I'm not doing anything to anyone, if this truly is the case then you are doing it to yourself by coming here. He also said that this blog was bad, more or less because it gives a voice for the losers of the contest to air their gripes on the contest and the winners and the judges and to that I say, "so what?" The losers are supposed to what, be silenced? They don't deserve to have a voice because they didn't win? What kind of fascist bullshit is that? And as I said in the beginning of this post, every single winner in this contest is more than welcome to make a blog of their own and voice any opinion they feel they need to voice to boost "morale".
As I've seen a lot of people say in the past couple of days, "social networking goes both ways" and to that, I'll add, so does word of mouth. This was a word of mouth campaign and Nissan can't go crying about it now because the word coming out of the mouths isn't entirely positive. They knew the risks going in and made some questionably bad decisions along the way. That's certainly not my fault and I'm not going to shut up about it just because someone chooses to read what I write and gets upset. Again, it's not my job to go tiptoeing around other people's feelings on a blog that you have to surf to yourself in order to read.
And once again, the entire point of this blog was SUPPOSED to be life after the contest and coming up with a new immersion therapy plan, but as I said in one of the (many) paragraphs above, it's doubtful that I'm going to continue with this blog after this post. Beside the fact that I already have all these blogs and my site to maintain, the fact of the matter is, I've spent the last week and a half stressed to the gills about getting three paintings finished before my surgery in 3 weeks for an art show shortly after because despite popular belief, I have been going on with my life and I'm nowhere near the sore loser I've been made out to be, and then this ED thing happened which compounded my already staggering anxiety and I simply don't need this shit! As someone once said, the best revenge is to live a good life and that's precisely what I've been trying to do, hence not updating this blog in almost 2 weeks.
I also think that maybe it's time to cut ties with some of the people I've met through the contest simply because I'm sick of hearing about this stupid contest. There are 5 or 6 friends who truly are friends that I'm going to maintain relationships with, especially since I'm working on a project with one of them, but the others? When it really comes right down to it, they're disposable. They're people I met on the internet, never even met in person at the Hypercube events and they're just not really all that important to me or my life in the grand scheme. I took my Hypercube-related searches off of my Twitter a while back, so once I ditch these "friends", I should be Hypercube-free.
I've also changed my mind about my participation in CubeCommunity.ca once it's launched because what my friendrecalcitrant said about it a few posts back was true: "I don't know about you but I certainly don't want to be using a car corporation's website for my networking activities for creative pursuits." I don't want to be used again by this corporation. Also, I think the site's going to ultimately bomb and I'm not going down with a sinking ship. Artistically and career-wise I'd been doing pretty okay for myself before this contest and I'll be fine now that it's finished. The only thing that burns my ass is that during the 3+ months of the contest, I put off other projects in favour of trying to stay ahead of the curve and win and now I have a lot of catching up to do. (Like finishing 2 more paintings POST-surgery for an art show where the deadline is September.)
Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say about the Hypercube contest. If anyone's interested in following the current drama, I suggest joining Twitter and making a "hypercube" or "thehypercube" (or both) search to your feed or follow the media, if they pick it up. (Did I mention Time magazine often quotes Encyclopedia Dramatica? It's not unheard of for ED articles to get mainstream press.) Personally, I'm going to be mostly offline getting these paintings done, watching movies with my husband, having sleepovers with my kids and the neighbourhood kids, enjoying my summer and recovering from surgery.
As for this blog? Well, it's a paid account and I'm not wasting $25 +$10 for the domain so it stays up, as is, for the next year whether anyone likes it or not.
So, without further ado, here's Taylor Pfeifer's e-mail to me, which apparently Nissan themselves contacted him and asked him to send, so he'll STFU and stop contacting us:
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject:
From: "TaY !" <circa_dude15@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 3:38 pm
To: cubeless@sunnycrittenden.com
----------------------------------------
Hey Sunny, This is Taylor Pfeifer, AKA TAYFIFE. I'm displeased to hear that you didn't win a cube. I just want you to have your facts straight before you may, or may not keep blogging about me. I am the guy who lived in california.
- I was there for a 10 month internship at a church with multiple entries into central american countries, and entries back in to Canada.
- I was awarded the car when I was on Canadian Soil (June 23rd 2009)
- I am legally, logistically a Canadian Citizen and permanent resident.
- I do not live in California anymore, I live in Saskatoon SK CANADA, i've been back for a while.
- Therefore, at no point will I ever be liscencing the cube in California, or anywhere in the US, I am permanently residing in Canada; contrary to popular belief.
This isn't a rebuttle; I just saw that you had some of your facts mixed up.
I hope I brought some clarity to your confusion.. if you STILL don't believe I live in Canada, maybe run some of those IP tests you claim to use.
-Pfeifer.
----------------------------------------
One more thing? I'm turning off comments because I can't be arsed to keep up with them, but if you have something important to say, you all know my e-mail address.
For the record though? It's not my job to do this or clear up misinformation. "Tayfife" or any of the others who are freaking out right now over an Encyclopedia Dramatica article on the contest that came out this week or Nissan themselves are more than welcome to create blogs or write press releases or whatnot of their very own and write whatever they damn well please. In fact, when CubeCommunity.ca finally comes up, why don't they do just that?
Also? Certain folks are pointing fingers at me and there is a witch hunt going on in a private Facebook group for the 50 winners as to who wrote about some of them on ED and no matter how many times I say I didn't do it, the fact remains that certain people have seemingly stopped speaking to me and accusations have been made over rumour and assumption, the exact same things these people are pissed about, making them hypocrites.
The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter who wrote the ED article. What matters is, are the accusations true? Everyone knows this contest was botched from the very beginning, none of that is new information. Everyone who was part of the contest has opinions on who deserved to win and who didn't, as well as why certain people won. But I was shocked, along with everyone else, that certain contestants had previous ties to judges. Four of them. All I hear is how pissed the winners are and how pissed Angie Kramer is, but why isn't anyone addressing these very real, very serious accusations? There is actual evidence and pictures of contestants with judges, so we're not just talking rumours here.
All I've seen so far, and this is hard for me to say because a couple of the people targeted for "lulz", which is Encyclopedia Dramatica's thing, are supposedly my friends, is a lot of people crying that someone said something mean about them on the internet and to that I just have to shake my head and kinda laugh because these people have NO clue about the real internet or how things really work. These people are, for the most part, web 2.0ers who think everything's always been sunshine, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and rainbows.
Encyclopedia Dramatica's been around for a fairly long time and this is what they do. Wherever there's drama on the internet, they report about it. That's why it's called Encyclopedia Dramatica. If any of the people who are up in arms about this really took a good look at the site, they would see this, but it doesn't appear any of them have, so I'll intersperse this post with some links.
Half the time ED doesn't get their facts straight and they don't care. It's almost impossible to take legal action against them because they rely on user generated content and legally aren't responsible for their content. To my knowledge, no one to date has been successful in making anything stick. Furthermore, they've gone after MUCH bigger fish than Nissan or Cap C or any of these contestants who - no offence to them - are ants to ED. They mean nothing, as they can do nothing. And the more upset they get over what's been written about them on ED, the harder ED laughs. And they're watching. Don't be so naive as to think they aren't. In fact they're probably reading everything I'm saying right now as this blog is linked in that article and they used some of my quotes, so they know who I am too. And they know I'm just as butthurt over the contest as these people are that strangers said mean things about them on the internet. They're probably dying of laughter because with this one, the "lulz" just keep on coming. In fact, it's probably gone unnoticed by most of the Twitter crowd, but ED's made the article their "article of the now" on the very front page of their site.
And that's the other thing, the other reason why I wasn't going to say anything about any of this: I've been on the internet a long time and I've not only been on the internet a long time, but I've spent 18 hours a day, every day, on the internet for a long time and I tend to run in social circles with untoward folk that run the gamut between hackers and trolls. I've never kept this a secret. There's a link to the Stile Project forum [NSFW], mostly full of porn and gore, on my site that's been there for many years. I also most certainly have ties to people who have ties to Encyclopedia Dramatica too, as well as 4chan and many other "seedy" places on the internet. (But you never really know who has ties to what, especially in the cases of ED and 4chan because everyone wants to keep their anonymity and people rarely admit to anything.) And I can even see how that makes me suspect. But I'm not the only one. Out of 500 contestants, 450 of which were losers, plus the thousands of people who voted for them, do you really think I'm the ONLY one with connections to these places? It's like I said in my post about mental illness, out of 500 contestants, do you really think I'm the only one with a mental health issue? Use your brains.
I feel like I'm being thrown under the bus for being transparent, for being honest, for being me. I feel like the biggest reason people are pointing fingers at me is because I happen to know a lot about the internet, particularly the social aspects, and its history and well...sorry? I can't really help knowing what I know and I mean, that's not much to go on. Yes, I've been vocal about my displeasure at how this contest was run and how it turned out, but...if I wanted to write about that, I have this blog for that purpose, like I'm doing right now. That wasn't supposed to be its sole purpose, but there it is all the same. Oh, and this is my first update in almost 2 weeks. If I had something to say, I'd have said it by now.
As I've said before, I've been blogging and a pretty hardcore user of the internet for over a decade now and I've always prided myself on the fact that I've always been "Sunny" everywhere I go, that I've always been accountable for every single word I've ever put on the internet. There's not one word that I've written that I haven't attached my name to, not now, not ever. Anonymity isn't my style. (Partially because I have a giant ego, partially because it's what I expect from others.)
In every single post on this blog I've refrained from calling out specific contestants or winners and the ones I have spoken about, including Taylor Pfeifer whose name I'm only using now because he wants me to, I've never put a name to because I don't think it's my place to do that, especially when it's just my opinion on things (which means nothing) and I KNOW I don't have all the facts. I'm also not a journalist writing a professional article here either, I'm writing a stream of conscious blog that about 100ish people read on a slow day, triple or quadruple that if I promote the post on Twitter. It doesn't even matter what I say and I'm not held to ANY standards except my own, especially not that bullshit Word of Mouth Association crap the Hypercube winners are supposedly legally held to. I can say whatever I want.
Taylor Pfeifer, who started getting nasty with Blake via e-mail last night (which was very un-Christ-like...typical though, I guess) suggested I take this blog down as it's only bringing negativity to our home (??) and that I should start a new blog where everything's unicorns and lollipops. And that's just it, he doesn't know me, obviously, he hasn't done his homework. This is blog 4 of 4, at the moment and the one on the bottom of the totem pole as far as importance goes. And it really chafes my ass that he said I should take this blog down (won't happen) because I've been thinking that I probably wasn't going to update it anymore because I already have 3 other blogs to maintain and this one just further segregates my audience and causes more clutter for them as things get x-posted and between this blog, my
sunnybananas blog, my site's blog and my site's RSS feed, some people are going to be bombarded with the same posts up to 4 times in a single day which means they'll just start unfollowing things and if they start unfollowing things, like this blog for example, what's the point of even doing it? But in not updating this blog, I don't want someone like Taylor Pfeifer thinking they had ANYTHING to do with it. I don't want anyone who's been pointing fingers at me over this goddamn ED article thinking that they had ANYTHING to do with it. And there are two other things that Taylor Pfeifer said to Blake tonight that I need to get off my chest. The first was that because I've been blogging for 10 years, I should be used to confrontation on the internet and he said something about confrontational things being the best things to blog about. Again, Taylor Pfiefer hasn't got a bloody clue as to what he's talking about. As most of my readers know because they aren't total n00bs talking out of their asses, a blog can be about anything and most blogs I wouldn't consider to be confrontational at all, especially mine.(Well, this post might be...a little bit...but overall, I'd say my web presence is pretty non-confrontational.) I've been blogging about myself and my family and my life for the past 10 years and there's really not a whole lot to be confrontational about. And no, the best posts aren't about confrontational things, at least not in my corner of the internet; the best posts are the things that touch people on a deeper level and make them laugh, cry or think. I have a friend who blogs about vegan cooking. I have another friend who does nothing but blog about her sexual exploits. I have another friend who blogs about what she wears every day and another who blogs about what she makes her husband for dinner. All semi-popular blogs, none of which are confrontational in the least.
My own blog? God even saying this out loud is going to probably screw me, but in the 10 years I've been doing this, I can count the number of trolls I've had, real trolls, not just assholes passing by, on one hand. Even during the so-called "wild wild west" days of the internet where WORSE sites than Encyclopedia Dramatica existed that I found myself on fairly regularly for no other reason than to well, troll me. The difference between ED and those sites is that ED "does it for the lulz" whereas the sites of olde existed to destroy lives. I'm talking about people having child protective services being called on them for no other reason than because a mother decided to take her clothes off in front of a webcam after the kids went to bed or people being arrested because someone tipped off the police that they had nudes of 17 year olds...and it was the 17 year olds that sent the nudes, as well as tipped off the police. Encyclopedia Dramatica? Well, it's something, but nowhere near as bad as some of the sites that preceded it. Bigger, yes, but as I said, ED is supposed to be funny, although admittedly only to people with a certain sense of humour, and those sites existed to be mean and inflict real world consequences on people who were, 9 times out of 10, innocent of whatever it was they were being accused of. These sites went way beyond trolling.
Back to my own dealings with trolls? I'm so transparent and self-deprecating, it's usually not worth the effort. My last troll was a schizophrenic man from the UK who posted conspiracy theories and had conversations with himself in my blogs' comments. I turned off anonymous posting and set it so that only people on my friends list could post comments, thus starving him of his outlet and he eventually lost interest. My latest troll? He doesn't like my art work and tries to insult me by saying what I do is "craft" and not "art". I don't care. Also "he" is probably a "she" and I know exactly where "they" hail from. But that's a whole other thing.
My point here is that when you put yourself out there on the internet, you automatically make yourself a potential target. That's just how the internet works. Nissan put 50 people "out there" and with 450 unhappy people in this contest + everyone who voted for those people, there's gonna be a significant number who are going to want to throw darts at those targets. Encyclopedia Dramatica is one of the ways to do it.
Ah, the second thing. Taylor Pfeifer said that this blog is "spiralling down every winners morality and joy". Again, it's not my job to keep up the morale of anyone, let alone winners in a corporate contest I'm not getting paid to blog about. This is the internet. Reading is optional. If you don't like it? If it's affecting you negatively? Don't fucking read it! It's as simple as that. I'm not doing anything to anyone, if this truly is the case then you are doing it to yourself by coming here. He also said that this blog was bad, more or less because it gives a voice for the losers of the contest to air their gripes on the contest and the winners and the judges and to that I say, "so what?" The losers are supposed to what, be silenced? They don't deserve to have a voice because they didn't win? What kind of fascist bullshit is that? And as I said in the beginning of this post, every single winner in this contest is more than welcome to make a blog of their own and voice any opinion they feel they need to voice to boost "morale".
As I've seen a lot of people say in the past couple of days, "social networking goes both ways" and to that, I'll add, so does word of mouth. This was a word of mouth campaign and Nissan can't go crying about it now because the word coming out of the mouths isn't entirely positive. They knew the risks going in and made some questionably bad decisions along the way. That's certainly not my fault and I'm not going to shut up about it just because someone chooses to read what I write and gets upset. Again, it's not my job to go tiptoeing around other people's feelings on a blog that you have to surf to yourself in order to read.
And once again, the entire point of this blog was SUPPOSED to be life after the contest and coming up with a new immersion therapy plan, but as I said in one of the (many) paragraphs above, it's doubtful that I'm going to continue with this blog after this post. Beside the fact that I already have all these blogs and my site to maintain, the fact of the matter is, I've spent the last week and a half stressed to the gills about getting three paintings finished before my surgery in 3 weeks for an art show shortly after because despite popular belief, I have been going on with my life and I'm nowhere near the sore loser I've been made out to be, and then this ED thing happened which compounded my already staggering anxiety and I simply don't need this shit! As someone once said, the best revenge is to live a good life and that's precisely what I've been trying to do, hence not updating this blog in almost 2 weeks.
I also think that maybe it's time to cut ties with some of the people I've met through the contest simply because I'm sick of hearing about this stupid contest. There are 5 or 6 friends who truly are friends that I'm going to maintain relationships with, especially since I'm working on a project with one of them, but the others? When it really comes right down to it, they're disposable. They're people I met on the internet, never even met in person at the Hypercube events and they're just not really all that important to me or my life in the grand scheme. I took my Hypercube-related searches off of my Twitter a while back, so once I ditch these "friends", I should be Hypercube-free.
I've also changed my mind about my participation in CubeCommunity.ca once it's launched because what my friend
recalcitrant said about it a few posts back was true: "I don't know about you but I certainly don't want to be using a car corporation's website for my networking activities for creative pursuits." I don't want to be used again by this corporation. Also, I think the site's going to ultimately bomb and I'm not going down with a sinking ship. Artistically and career-wise I'd been doing pretty okay for myself before this contest and I'll be fine now that it's finished. The only thing that burns my ass is that during the 3+ months of the contest, I put off other projects in favour of trying to stay ahead of the curve and win and now I have a lot of catching up to do. (Like finishing 2 more paintings POST-surgery for an art show where the deadline is September.)Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say about the Hypercube contest. If anyone's interested in following the current drama, I suggest joining Twitter and making a "hypercube" or "thehypercube" (or both) search to your feed or follow the media, if they pick it up. (Did I mention Time magazine often quotes Encyclopedia Dramatica? It's not unheard of for ED articles to get mainstream press.) Personally, I'm going to be mostly offline getting these paintings done, watching movies with my husband, having sleepovers with my kids and the neighbourhood kids, enjoying my summer and recovering from surgery.
As for this blog? Well, it's a paid account and I'm not wasting $25 +$10 for the domain so it stays up, as is, for the next year whether anyone likes it or not.
So, without further ado, here's Taylor Pfeifer's e-mail to me, which apparently Nissan themselves contacted him and asked him to send, so he'll STFU and stop contacting us:
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject:
From: "TaY !" <circa_dude15@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 3:38 pm
To: cubeless@sunnycrittenden.com
----------------------------------------
Hey Sunny, This is Taylor Pfeifer, AKA TAYFIFE. I'm displeased to hear that you didn't win a cube. I just want you to have your facts straight before you may, or may not keep blogging about me. I am the guy who lived in california.
- I was there for a 10 month internship at a church with multiple entries into central american countries, and entries back in to Canada.
- I was awarded the car when I was on Canadian Soil (June 23rd 2009)
- I am legally, logistically a Canadian Citizen and permanent resident.
- I do not live in California anymore, I live in Saskatoon SK CANADA, i've been back for a while.
- Therefore, at no point will I ever be liscencing the cube in California, or anywhere in the US, I am permanently residing in Canada; contrary to popular belief.
This isn't a rebuttle; I just saw that you had some of your facts mixed up.
I hope I brought some clarity to your confusion.. if you STILL don't believe I live in Canada, maybe run some of those IP tests you claim to use.
-Pfeifer.
----------------------------------------
One more thing? I'm turning off comments because I can't be arsed to keep up with them, but if you have something important to say, you all know my e-mail address.
- Where I Am:Sunnyland, CANADA
- Current Psychosis:
hopeful - Listening To: Sabatoge - Beastie Boys
This comment was just left on my first post of this blog and I decided to highlight it as there are a lot of comments in that post and I'm not sure anyone's actually reading it anymore:
"(Anonymous) (72.53.89.79) wrote:
Jul. 3rd, 2009 02:21 pm (local)
Oh hey guess what!
I've been asking around about the person living in California that won, well it's actually an issue.
Basically, the rules were put in place by them (Nissan and capital c) for this contest regarding eligibility. It's pretty clear. You have to be a permeant resident of canada in order to win, which mean you have to LIVE HERE! If Nissan and Capital C give this individual the car then they themselves are not honoring the rule that they've created well, then that's the biggest F U to us! We followed the rules why aren't they? If they really care they would fix this and if they don't then I'd have to heavily questions their credibility.
Anyway, I think we should voice our concerns and if they (nissan and Capital C) wont respond or resolve this properly then we have a right to file a complaint to the Competition Bureau. And I feel we should! It's not fair to us and it rude!
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/s
So with that said, technically there is one more cube up for grabs! Let's go get it!"
----------------------------------------
Not sure what to think of this. I do think it's crap that someone who "permanently" lives in California won a Cube and is taking that Cube to California, but I'm not sure if Nissan or Cap C are necessarily doing anything wrong. "Permanent Resident" is actually a legal status, not necessarily a "where you reside in the world" thing. My husband, who is from Michigan, has a permanent resident card and is thus, a permanent resident even though he's American. A person born in Canada would thus be a "permanent resident" by default and that would only change if they sought legal, permanent residence elsewhere. Or at least that's the loophole I'm assuming Nissan and Cap C are using or are going to use, if I had to guess.
Maybe they (Nissan or Cap C) should respond to this issue before people DO start complaining to the Competition Bureau.
"(Anonymous) (72.53.89.79) wrote:
Jul. 3rd, 2009 02:21 pm (local)
Oh hey guess what!
I've been asking around about the person living in California that won, well it's actually an issue.
Basically, the rules were put in place by them (Nissan and capital c) for this contest regarding eligibility. It's pretty clear. You have to be a permeant resident of canada in order to win, which mean you have to LIVE HERE! If Nissan and Capital C give this individual the car then they themselves are not honoring the rule that they've created well, then that's the biggest F U to us! We followed the rules why aren't they? If they really care they would fix this and if they don't then I'd have to heavily questions their credibility.
Anyway, I think we should voice our concerns and if they (nissan and Capital C) wont respond or resolve this properly then we have a right to file a complaint to the Competition Bureau. And I feel we should! It's not fair to us and it rude!
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/s
So with that said, technically there is one more cube up for grabs! Let's go get it!"
----------------------------------------
Not sure what to think of this. I do think it's crap that someone who "permanently" lives in California won a Cube and is taking that Cube to California, but I'm not sure if Nissan or Cap C are necessarily doing anything wrong. "Permanent Resident" is actually a legal status, not necessarily a "where you reside in the world" thing. My husband, who is from Michigan, has a permanent resident card and is thus, a permanent resident even though he's American. A person born in Canada would thus be a "permanent resident" by default and that would only change if they sought legal, permanent residence elsewhere. Or at least that's the loophole I'm assuming Nissan and Cap C are using or are going to use, if I had to guess.
Maybe they (Nissan or Cap C) should respond to this issue before people DO start complaining to the Competition Bureau.
- Where I Am:Sunnyland
- Current Psychosis:
curious - Listening To: Shove - L7
It was brought to my attention earlier this week that certain folks on a certain social networking site were basically saying that Nissan didn't choose me to win a 2009 Cube because they wouldn't want someone who's mentally ill to be one of their brand ambassadors. I was called unintelligent for thinking they might, as it was apparently plain to the people saying this that I never had a chance. Then I was again called unintelligent for disclosing my recent mental health history on my canvas and it was said that if I'd have just shut up about that and focused on my paintings or photography, I would have had a better chance at winning. Not that I would have won, just that my chances would have been better.
Well. Let's take this sentence by sentence.
"It was brought to my attention earlier this week that certain folks on a certain social networking site were saying that Nissan didn't choose me to win a 2009 Cube because they wouldn't want someone who's mentally ill to be one of their brand ambassadors."
The most vocal person saying this is a Nissan Cube brand ambassador and let's hope this brand ambassador is just talking out of her ass and misrepresenting Nissan and the Cube brand by saying this stuff because if she isn't, guess what? If that is the case? That's DISCRIMINATION and I think my friends at the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario and the Mood Disorders Society of Canada might like to know about that.
Well. Let's take this sentence by sentence.
"It was brought to my attention earlier this week that certain folks on a certain social networking site were saying that Nissan didn't choose me to win a 2009 Cube because they wouldn't want someone who's mentally ill to be one of their brand ambassadors."
The most vocal person saying this is a Nissan Cube brand ambassador and let's hope this brand ambassador is just talking out of her ass and misrepresenting Nissan and the Cube brand by saying this stuff because if she isn't, guess what? If that is the case? That's DISCRIMINATION and I think my friends at the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario and the Mood Disorders Society of Canada might like to know about that.
"Discrimination. What is it?
Negative and disrespectful actions against you. Examples are calling you names, ignoring your opinions, making cruel jokes about you, refusing to rent you an apartment or denying you a promotion at work – because of your illness. Discrimination is also not doing something such as not inviting you to a party or family gathering or not interviewing you for a job when you are qualified."
From the Mood Disorders Society of Canada's PDF on stigma, available here.
Not having a chance to win a contest or being disqualified to win a contest because of my mental illness when I am qualified by all other criteria would be discrimination.
Also, here's what Blake said on the matter: "If there was no way you could win due to mental illness, then why were you selected for the 500? And if there was no way due to mental illness, then they basically would have included you in the 500 to use you and your social media presence while knowing they would not pick you. I'd hope that's not the case."
Negative and disrespectful actions against you. Examples are calling you names, ignoring your opinions, making cruel jokes about you, refusing to rent you an apartment or denying you a promotion at work – because of your illness. Discrimination is also not doing something such as not inviting you to a party or family gathering or not interviewing you for a job when you are qualified."
From the Mood Disorders Society of Canada's PDF on stigma, available here.
Not having a chance to win a contest or being disqualified to win a contest because of my mental illness when I am qualified by all other criteria would be discrimination.
Also, here's what Blake said on the matter: "If there was no way you could win due to mental illness, then why were you selected for the 500? And if there was no way due to mental illness, then they basically would have included you in the 500 to use you and your social media presence while knowing they would not pick you. I'd hope that's not the case."
"I was called unintelligent for thinking they might, as it was apparently plain to the people saying this that I never had a chance."
Did these people even read my canvas? I casually said that I have bipolar disorder and was hypergraphic as a result. Since I entered as a "wordsmith", this seemed to me to be relevant.
I said that I'm currently in treatment for agoraphobia and would be using the Cube as part of my immersion therapy. Again, I entered the contest as a "wordsmith" and this is my story and this is what I'd be doing in my Cube. I linked to my extensive immersion therapy plan, which showed that I'd be doing a lot more in my Cube than most people who entered who had no idea what they'd be doing in their Cubes or where they'd be. I knew.
This contest was to be judged on "uniqueness, creativity, personality, enthusiasm and a wide variety of talents or approaches". I meet all of that criteria. And guess what else? When you're holding a contest based on creativity - true creativity - there's going to be some mental illness involved whether people disclose it or not. All of the greatest artists of this world were either proven to be mentally ill or suspected of it. Some people say - and there's evidence to support it - that all creativity is, is another form of mania.
If I said I was in treatment for cancer, would it have been a different story? Is that one okay because it's a disease of the body and not the mind? No one asks for bipolar disorder any more than they ask for cancer. It just happens. What if I had MS? Would that one be okay for the same reason even though I'd have to be medicated for it for the rest of my life? Well guess what? I'm going to have to be medicated for bipolar disorder for the rest of my life too. Again, it's all illness, there is no difference.
Just so this person who's supposed to be representing Nissan and the Cube brand is aware, my bipolar disorder is under control. It's treated with medications I take every single day just like any other long term condition. The agoraphobia? Well, being a PHOBIA, which everyone has, there is no medication for it, hence the immersion therapy. Immersion therapy for something in the mind gone wrong (usually due to trauma) has absolutely zero difference from physical therapy for something within the body gone wrong (usually due to trauma).
After I'm no longer agoraphobic, as I said on my canvas, I will consider myself a survivor.
Did these people even read my canvas? I casually said that I have bipolar disorder and was hypergraphic as a result. Since I entered as a "wordsmith", this seemed to me to be relevant.
I said that I'm currently in treatment for agoraphobia and would be using the Cube as part of my immersion therapy. Again, I entered the contest as a "wordsmith" and this is my story and this is what I'd be doing in my Cube. I linked to my extensive immersion therapy plan, which showed that I'd be doing a lot more in my Cube than most people who entered who had no idea what they'd be doing in their Cubes or where they'd be. I knew.
This contest was to be judged on "uniqueness, creativity, personality, enthusiasm and a wide variety of talents or approaches". I meet all of that criteria. And guess what else? When you're holding a contest based on creativity - true creativity - there's going to be some mental illness involved whether people disclose it or not. All of the greatest artists of this world were either proven to be mentally ill or suspected of it. Some people say - and there's evidence to support it - that all creativity is, is another form of mania.
If I said I was in treatment for cancer, would it have been a different story? Is that one okay because it's a disease of the body and not the mind? No one asks for bipolar disorder any more than they ask for cancer. It just happens. What if I had MS? Would that one be okay for the same reason even though I'd have to be medicated for it for the rest of my life? Well guess what? I'm going to have to be medicated for bipolar disorder for the rest of my life too. Again, it's all illness, there is no difference.
Just so this person who's supposed to be representing Nissan and the Cube brand is aware, my bipolar disorder is under control. It's treated with medications I take every single day just like any other long term condition. The agoraphobia? Well, being a PHOBIA, which everyone has, there is no medication for it, hence the immersion therapy. Immersion therapy for something in the mind gone wrong (usually due to trauma) has absolutely zero difference from physical therapy for something within the body gone wrong (usually due to trauma).
After I'm no longer agoraphobic, as I said on my canvas, I will consider myself a survivor.
"Then I was again called unintelligent for disclosing my recent mental health history on my canvas and it was said that if I'd have just shut up about that and focused on my paintings or photography, I would have had a better chance at winning. Not that I would have won, just that my chances would have been better."
I have so much to say about this.
First of all, I'm a blogger. I've been blogging about every embarrassing detail of my life for an audience of around 3,000 people just about every day for the past 10 years. I happen to also create art and take pretty pictures from time to time. In this contest, I had the option to either describe myself as a "wordsmith", which was the Hypercube's category for writers, or "creative license" which was creativity all encompassed. Since my biggest strength is writing, I went with "wordsmith", since my biggest strength in writing is writing about myself, I went with that too.
Since mental health has been a large part of my life during the past 3 years, the majority of my blogging pertains to that and I didn't want to misrepresent myself by writing anything else. What else would I write? After you chose your category and submitted your profile to the Hypercube contest, you couldn't change your mind, so I was (happily) stuck with "wordsmith" and told, what I and many others within the contest, consider to be a pretty great story, particularly if I had won and had the chance to go through with my immersion therapy as planned. Nissan would have had a success story on their hands, a marketable one, one with bigger reach than - no offense to the winners - probably anyone else who had planned to do specific things with their Cubes. If played right, my story could have gotten the attention of the media well beyond simply winning the Cube, it would have given Nissan sponsorship possibilities it wouldn't have had before, like perhaps being one of the sponsors of Touched By Fire, an art show with a bit of prestige put on by the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, that's already sponsored by a large, well-known company, Raymond James, maybe you've heard of them? I mean, Nissan wanted to support creativity in Canada, right?
But as I said, the last 2 or 3 years worth of blog posts on my site and my Live Journal (sunnybananas) are mostly about the hell I've lived through in trying to get well and I knew they'd be looking at all of that, so why not be upfront about it and make it into a good story and an angle Nissan could potentially use and benefit from? I think that's a hell of a lot more creative than throwing up pictures of all the shit I've done artistically over the last 7 years, that's so bottom shelf as far as ideas. I already did that, I made a post about it as per Angie's request and linked to it from my canvas.
One of the things that bugged the crap out of me with this contest is that there were so many people who chose the colour of the Cube they liked best as their category instead of which one described them the best. So many people misrepresented themselves this way. I chose not to. My whole tactic was to just be myself, warts & all. Sure, it didn't win me a Cube, but I, and a lot of people both in the contest and outside of it, thought it would.
So, I guess that's all I really have to say on this matter. Did Nissan discriminate against me because of my mental health? Well, according to one of their very own, brand spankin' new Cube brand ambassadors they did...but that's just her opinion. I doubt I'll ever know for sure if they did or not, but if I ever do, it'll be a shitstorm of epic proportions, I can promise you that.
And now, I'll leave you with some facts on mental illness in Canada because apparently there are a whole lot of ignorant folks out there, some of whom happen to be representing Nissan! So listen up:
I have so much to say about this.
First of all, I'm a blogger. I've been blogging about every embarrassing detail of my life for an audience of around 3,000 people just about every day for the past 10 years. I happen to also create art and take pretty pictures from time to time. In this contest, I had the option to either describe myself as a "wordsmith", which was the Hypercube's category for writers, or "creative license" which was creativity all encompassed. Since my biggest strength is writing, I went with "wordsmith", since my biggest strength in writing is writing about myself, I went with that too.
Since mental health has been a large part of my life during the past 3 years, the majority of my blogging pertains to that and I didn't want to misrepresent myself by writing anything else. What else would I write? After you chose your category and submitted your profile to the Hypercube contest, you couldn't change your mind, so I was (happily) stuck with "wordsmith" and told, what I and many others within the contest, consider to be a pretty great story, particularly if I had won and had the chance to go through with my immersion therapy as planned. Nissan would have had a success story on their hands, a marketable one, one with bigger reach than - no offense to the winners - probably anyone else who had planned to do specific things with their Cubes. If played right, my story could have gotten the attention of the media well beyond simply winning the Cube, it would have given Nissan sponsorship possibilities it wouldn't have had before, like perhaps being one of the sponsors of Touched By Fire, an art show with a bit of prestige put on by the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, that's already sponsored by a large, well-known company, Raymond James, maybe you've heard of them? I mean, Nissan wanted to support creativity in Canada, right?
But as I said, the last 2 or 3 years worth of blog posts on my site and my Live Journal (
sunnybananas) are mostly about the hell I've lived through in trying to get well and I knew they'd be looking at all of that, so why not be upfront about it and make it into a good story and an angle Nissan could potentially use and benefit from? I think that's a hell of a lot more creative than throwing up pictures of all the shit I've done artistically over the last 7 years, that's so bottom shelf as far as ideas. I already did that, I made a post about it as per Angie's request and linked to it from my canvas. One of the things that bugged the crap out of me with this contest is that there were so many people who chose the colour of the Cube they liked best as their category instead of which one described them the best. So many people misrepresented themselves this way. I chose not to. My whole tactic was to just be myself, warts & all. Sure, it didn't win me a Cube, but I, and a lot of people both in the contest and outside of it, thought it would.
So, I guess that's all I really have to say on this matter. Did Nissan discriminate against me because of my mental health? Well, according to one of their very own, brand spankin' new Cube brand ambassadors they did...but that's just her opinion. I doubt I'll ever know for sure if they did or not, but if I ever do, it'll be a shitstorm of epic proportions, I can promise you that.
And now, I'll leave you with some facts on mental illness in Canada because apparently there are a whole lot of ignorant folks out there, some of whom happen to be representing Nissan! So listen up:
- Chances of having a mental illness in your lifetime in Canada: One in five. (So do the math...401 Hypercube contestants....divided by five...that means 79 other contestants probably had a mental illness too, they just didn't know it or weren't open about it.)
- At any given time, percentage of Canadians who have a mental illness: 10.4%
- Percentage of adolescents (aged 15 – 24) who report a mental illness or substance abuse problem: 18%
- Percentage of people who commit suicide who have a diagnosable mental illness: 90%
- Percentage of Canadians who experience a major depression in their lifetime: 8%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience bi-polar disorder in their lifetime: 1%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience schizophrenia in their lifetime: 1%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience an anxiety disorder in their lifetime: 12%
- Group with the highest rate of hospitalization for anxiety disorders: People 65 and over
- Percentage of Canadians affected by eating disorders in their lifetime: 3% of women and 0.3% of men.
- Number of suicides in Canada every year: Approximately 4000
- Suicide accounts for 24% of all deaths among Canadians aged 15 – 24 and 16% of all deaths for the age group 25 – 44.
- Age with the highest rate of depression symptoms: Under 20 years of age
- Age with the highest rate of anxiety symptoms: 20 – 29 years of age
- Unemployment rate among people with serious mental illness: 70 – 90%
- Likelihood people with mental illness will commit violent acts: No greater than the general population.
- Likelihood people with mental illness will be victims of crime: 2.5 times that of the general population.
- Predictors of violent behaviour for anyone (including people with mental illness): Excessive alcohol and drug use, a history of violent behaviour.
- The cost of supporting someone with serious mental illness to live in the community: $34,418 per year (all costs)
- The cost of keeping someone with serious mental illness in the hospital: $170,820 per year.
- Number of Canadians who meet the criteria for a moderate risk of problem gambling or who were problem gamblers: 1 in 50
- Number of Canadians who meet the criteria for substance dependence (alcohol or drugs): 1 in 30
Here are some facts on bipolar disorder alone:
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience bi-polar disorder in their lifetime: 1%
- Mortality rate, including suicide, among people with bipolar disorder: 2 – 3 times higher than the general population
- Rates of bipolar disorder among men and women: Roughly equal.
- Number of doctors a person will see, on average, before obtaining the correct diagnosis of bipolar disorder: 4
- Number of years a person with bipolar disorder will spend seeking help, on average, before they are successful: 8
Hey, let's throw in Seasonal Affective Disorder because I have that too!
- Percentage of Canadians who experience the winter blues: 15%
- Percentage of Canadians who have symptoms severe enough to be diagnosed with SAD: 2 – 3%
- SAD is more common in northern countries and among women. Incidence decreases with age.
Psychiatric medication use? Sure, why not?
- Highest per capita users of psychiatric medications in the world: Canadians
- Second highest users of sedatives and the fourth highest users of prescription narcotics in the world: Canadians.
- Rate at which the costs for anti-depressant medication have risen in Canada:
1981 ($31.4 million)
2000 ($543.4 million)
estimated costs for 2005 ($1.2 billion)
- Number of prescriptions for psychotropic (psychiatric) medications dispensed by pharmacies to Canadians in 2006: 51 million
- Percentage increase in usage over a four year period: 32%
All taken from the PDF Quick Facts on Mental Illness and Addictions in Canada, 2nd Edition, September 2007, which conveniently comes in both English and FRENCH and I'm sure a lot of the information would surprise you.
- At any given time, percentage of Canadians who have a mental illness: 10.4%
- Percentage of adolescents (aged 15 – 24) who report a mental illness or substance abuse problem: 18%
- Percentage of people who commit suicide who have a diagnosable mental illness: 90%
- Percentage of Canadians who experience a major depression in their lifetime: 8%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience bi-polar disorder in their lifetime: 1%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience schizophrenia in their lifetime: 1%
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience an anxiety disorder in their lifetime: 12%
- Group with the highest rate of hospitalization for anxiety disorders: People 65 and over
- Percentage of Canadians affected by eating disorders in their lifetime: 3% of women and 0.3% of men.
- Number of suicides in Canada every year: Approximately 4000
- Suicide accounts for 24% of all deaths among Canadians aged 15 – 24 and 16% of all deaths for the age group 25 – 44.
- Age with the highest rate of depression symptoms: Under 20 years of age
- Age with the highest rate of anxiety symptoms: 20 – 29 years of age
- Unemployment rate among people with serious mental illness: 70 – 90%
- Likelihood people with mental illness will commit violent acts: No greater than the general population.
- Likelihood people with mental illness will be victims of crime: 2.5 times that of the general population.
- Predictors of violent behaviour for anyone (including people with mental illness): Excessive alcohol and drug use, a history of violent behaviour.
- The cost of supporting someone with serious mental illness to live in the community: $34,418 per year (all costs)
- The cost of keeping someone with serious mental illness in the hospital: $170,820 per year.
- Number of Canadians who meet the criteria for a moderate risk of problem gambling or who were problem gamblers: 1 in 50
- Number of Canadians who meet the criteria for substance dependence (alcohol or drugs): 1 in 30
Here are some facts on bipolar disorder alone:
- Percentage of Canadians who will experience bi-polar disorder in their lifetime: 1%
- Mortality rate, including suicide, among people with bipolar disorder: 2 – 3 times higher than the general population
- Rates of bipolar disorder among men and women: Roughly equal.
- Number of doctors a person will see, on average, before obtaining the correct diagnosis of bipolar disorder: 4
- Number of years a person with bipolar disorder will spend seeking help, on average, before they are successful: 8
Hey, let's throw in Seasonal Affective Disorder because I have that too!
- Percentage of Canadians who experience the winter blues: 15%
- Percentage of Canadians who have symptoms severe enough to be diagnosed with SAD: 2 – 3%
- SAD is more common in northern countries and among women. Incidence decreases with age.
Psychiatric medication use? Sure, why not?
- Highest per capita users of psychiatric medications in the world: Canadians
- Second highest users of sedatives and the fourth highest users of prescription narcotics in the world: Canadians.
- Rate at which the costs for anti-depressant medication have risen in Canada:
1981 ($31.4 million)
2000 ($543.4 million)
estimated costs for 2005 ($1.2 billion)
- Number of prescriptions for psychotropic (psychiatric) medications dispensed by pharmacies to Canadians in 2006: 51 million
- Percentage increase in usage over a four year period: 32%
All taken from the PDF Quick Facts on Mental Illness and Addictions in Canada, 2nd Edition, September 2007, which conveniently comes in both English and FRENCH and I'm sure a lot of the information would surprise you.
- Where I Am:Sunnyland
- Current Psychosis:
frustrated - Listening To: Runs In The Family - Amanda Palmer
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