UPDATED: Unappreciated? Not by me

First, an apology: If you dropped something on me during the past few days, I guess I didn't receive it. Today when I logged on, I got a couple of notes referencing review items and even a personal gift, but the items weren't there.

Ugh.

SL needs a better way to deal with RL vacations, rather than just CHOW DOWN on all forms of communication while I'm gone.

Speaking of the recent Blogger Appreciation Week (well, oops, I was before I edited this post), I guess I'll be the one to say what the hell? 

I've been a little out of the loop, so I'll admit right off the bat that I may not have all my facts straight. From her blog, it looks like Callie Cline declared it. 

And from what I could gather from the "OOOOH! Look what I got during Blogger Appreciation Week!" blogs and photos, it looked like it was geared toward fashion bloggers, specifically members of the Fashion Bloggers Group.

But hell, I was out of town most of last week, so what do I know?

<---- Queen of Wrong. Wears lopsided crown with humor.

I regularly read about five fashion bloggers at most. And those are the ones who actually show creativity and insight into ways to create distinctive looks, rather than the ones who blatantly fawn over a particular designer in each post or simply rave about a new release. They're the ones who challenge my imagination. They're the ones who write as well as they dress.

Although fashion bloggers can be fun to read and, yes, meet an important need for people who have a strong interest in fashion and provide valuable publicity for content creators, I'm more impressed by as well as extremely appreciative of the "all-purpose bloggers," as my friend Elizabeth calls them -- the ones who strive to show the many sides of Second Life, the ones who discuss relevant SL issues, the ones who share their accomplishments and disappointments -- hell, the ones who get out there and LIVE Second Life, so to speak, and then take the time to share what they've learned, even if those lessons are painful.

In my opinion, these are the bloggers who truly illustrate that Second Life is so much more than just a game of virtual Barbies. These are the bloggers that truly express the meaning behind Second Life, and the effect it has on so many real lives. 

Frankly if we judged SL by blogs alone, without these "lifestyle bloggers," we'd all look like a bunch of kids playing dress-up (no offense, fashion bloggers, and I mean that sincerely). 

The sad thing is, so many of the ultra-fabulous all-purpose bloggers won't ever get an "appreciation week," mainly because, despite their stellar writing skills, touching insights or hilarious observations, they're not as well-known or widely read as the names on the fashion feeds or the cluster of writers on some of the more popular group blogs.

Does this sound like a "Wah wah wah, I didn't get 'appreciated,' invited to a Blogger Appreciation Party or showered with gifts all week" post? Sure it does! But that's not my intention. My intention is to point out that there are so many bloggers out there who are just as worthy, if not more so, of appreciation. 

It's the joyous mix of bloggers out there that makes the SL blogosphere so great. Creating a "Blogger Appreciation Week" seems somewhat pointless if it fails to spotlight new faces and new perspectives. If you're really going to have a Blogger Appreciation Week, promote it further in advance, give new or lesser-known bloggers a chance to shine, and do a better job of publicizing instructions on how to get involved or "be appreciated." 

(My bad, but I'd never heard about the Fashion Bloggers Group before last week. How was I supposed to know I had to join the group in order to be "appreciated"?)

If not, hell, just call a spade a spade and declare it "Fashion Blogger Appreciation Week" instead.

A reader commented that any blogger -- not just fashion -- could have sent a request to join that group and participate in last week's activities, but again, how were we supposed to know that?

I'm prepared for the fact that this post is going to tick people off, but to me -- an Average Jill who spends hard-earned lindens on content creators' stuff and writes honest posts about the things I like -- many posts about last week's events (with some exceptions, including the awesome posts over on Lifestyles of the Broke and Notorious) really just sort of looked like "Hey, the cool kids are getting together to celebrate and get EVEN MORE free stuff than usual!" 

And don't get me wrong -- I read and admire a lot of those "cool kids," and yeah, there's definitely a reason why a lot of them are cool. You'll find some of them in my blog roll. But if you look over there, you'll also spot several names you may not recognize. I encourage you to take the time to check them out. Many of them are just "commoners" (as I once sickeningly heard a glamourous girl refer to people who weren't SLocialites) who write about joy, heartbreak, fun, forming connections, exploring new worlds and trying new things. They're opening their lives to you, they're opening their hearts to you -- hell, they're giving you a glimpse of their souls.

You're not going to find a lot of them hanging around fashionable parties. You're not going to see them flitting around in high-society SL circles (a laughable concept in itself), making Plurk headlines or landing on popularity lists. 

But I bet you'll learn something from them. Or laugh with them. Maybe you'll even cry with them. At the very least, I do hope you'll appreciate them.

Despite their talents and hard work, unfortunately, many of them didn't get showered with Blogger Appreciation Gifts last week or invited to a big "You're Fabulous!" bash. (And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it was supposedly open-house, but you get my drift.)

They get a standing ovation from me though.