Among the many things I’ve learned from twitter, almost everyone there is far, far more important than me. I read the bios of some of the people who follow me, and learn they are all bloggers, aspirational speakers, available for concerts and, in a surprisingly high number, rock stars.
I know! Rock stars are following me! No, I have no clue why either. I’m just a lawyer.
In the email the other day, I received a guest-posting pitch, which I would normally delete like the other dozen I get every day. For no particular reason, I took a look, and boy was I glad I did. This wasn’t from the usual desperate writer or gal from Bangalore trying to eek out a buck.
Hi Scott,
Just a quicky. Your blog http://blog.simplejustice.us excites me! it’s a great looking and well kept blog. Unusual these days!
Anyway, I’m part of a team of rockstar bloggers and I blog for lots of brands. We are always on the lookout for good site to guest post and yours fits the bill!
If you are looking for awesome content to excite your readers then we can certainly provide that. We are willing to pay you a $20 contribution fee for every blog of ours you publish on your site which should help towards the cost of running your site.
What do you think? We’d love to write regularly.
Emily Georgie
Super Blogger
First, I have to point out that it’s been a long time since a woman I don’t know has informed me that something I do “excites her” and she wants a “quicky.” At my age, that doesn’t happen often, so I am damn glad I opened Emily’s email. Sure, she goes on to say that my blog is “great looking,” which kinda takes the wind out of her words. Among all the blogs in all the world, this may be the singular ugliest. I know it. I’ve actually gone out of my way to keep it ugly. Anyone who knows me knows this is true.
But despite her bad judgment as to what makes a “great looking” blog, Emily explains that she’s part of a team of “rockstar bloggers.” I didn’t even know there was such a thing! I mean, I’m told that there are individual rock star bloggers, usually by the bloggers themselves who are the first to call themselves rock stars, regardless of whether anyone else says so or not. But a team? Like the Giants or the Yankees?
As if this fantasy offer couldn’t get any better, Emily is willing to pay me, ME!, to let her have her way with me. Sure, it’s only $20, but it’s $20 coming in rather than going out. I could buy lunch with it, or just put it in a frame on my wall with some sort of notation that this was a twenty from a Rock-friggin’-Star. How cool would that be?
But what really got to me, like an arrow straight to the heart, was her close. It bears repeating:
Emily Georgie
Super Blogger
Super. Blogger. Super Blogger. Now, much as I say that this blawg exists solely for my own amusement, what sort of person would I be if I didn’t want to bask in the reflected glory of a Super Blogger? So what if I disdain the huge honors of Super Lawyerhood. After all, that’s just one of the never-ending legion of phony awards offered lawyers to put on their walls for clients foolish enough to believe that it makes one a better lawyer.
But Super Blogger is entirely different. There is no plaque. There is no badge. There is no glossy four-color magazine in which you’re expected to buy an full color advertisement as a sign of your appreciation of the great respect you’ve “earned,” as well as the publisher’s need to make a car payment. No, Emily just lays it out there, for all to see, without any needless bells or whistles: Super Blogger.
I’m not a Super Blogger. Indeed, as I come to realize when some non-lawyer writes a piece for one of the major online media outlets, the perspective, education, experience and knowledge gained by decades in the trenches isn’t even worth a throw-away link or a three word quote. They explain the law, they explain the world, they explain it all, and do so without anything remotely resembling what a lawyer like me would describe as accuracy. And nobody gives a damn.
You see they get clicks. They write clickbait, and listicles, and pander to the emotional needs of their target audience, sucking them in with visceral appeals that evoke “oh, yes,” and “yes, oh my god, yes.” Me? I’m more along the lines of “you’re so mean,” and “what an asshole.”
Sure, I had an image of Emily, dressed in the most luxurious bathrobe ever, hunched over a keyboard with her own server to the side, giving me that “active verb” look. Oh, it was enticing for sure.
But then I realized, I am unworthy. I’m no Super Blogger, and to lead Emily down a path that leads nowhere would be wrong. Go Emily. Go find a blogger worthy of a rock star. You can’t squander your talents on an old man like me. But I will remember you, Emily. And I thank you for bringing an old man a moment of fantasy that I might be worthy of a Super Blogger like you.
Receives spam, has momentary fantasy, writes 900 words.
No legal discourse. Ugh.
No one makes you read it.
True. Unfortunately I got to the end before realizing the pointlessness of it. I was expecting the shoe to drop but it didn’t and I felt stupider for reading it. Not your usual high calibre of writing topics either. Onwards, upwards.
Please fill out the form in triplicate for a refund.
LOL. Hey, you’re the one who set a high standard for the advancement of knowledge here, not me.
Seriously though, love your work. Cheers.
You come. You read for free. You complain about it? Maybe Scott should ask for your approval before writing about something? What a douche.
And n00b, this is quite normal. On the weekends, Scott often writes about things that don’t bring tears to the eyes of entitled SJWs. He’s allowed to write about any damn thing he wants without someone bitching that it the topic doesn’t interest them. Sheesh.
You take stuff too seriously. Relax, it’s the weekend dontcha know?
Andrew’s a long-time regular here. You’re not. Try not to make yourself unwelcome so quickly.
It’s his blog. He can delete the bitch if he wants. But he’s no more entitled to have everyone love everything he does than anyone else.
His point isn’t that SHG is entitled to have everyone love it. His point is that it’s unnecessary for a newcomer to be a dick a criticize it because it’s not what the newcomer wants to read. Or you. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. But don’t be a dick about it.
Couple of points I feel inclined to say.
I’ve been reading your site for at least a year, I just don’t usually comment, so I don’t think of myself as a newcomer. Admittedly I don’t read each and every post either.
I’ve noted that you can be highly agitated by commenters who haven’t added to the subject matter and “make others stupider” and (clearly failing in my jokingly intended way) held your candle to this post. I didn’t resort to name calling and considered my replies to be civil, particularly to Andrew. Apologies to all who got their feelings hurt.
Fair enough. No worries. I may be a curmudgeon, but I get over things quickly.
She just wants a quickie, because she’s excited by your great looking and well kept… blog ??!?
I always have trouble keeping up with the latest euphemisms. Maybe you should write some advice for the rest of us, so we, too, can attract teams of female rockstars by properly manscaping our “blogs.”
Advice = be old and ugly. It works for me.
My now-ex-girlfriend said, when I showed her SJ and your Twitter feed, “that guy has an awesome beard”.
Disclaimer: we didn’t actually break up because she complimented your beard.
I get that a lot. Sorry that the mere image of my awesome beard caused such a trauma.
Scott, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you deserve to know: Emily’s two-timing you, bro. She wants a quicky with me too, and she says she has “friends.” But don’t be too hard on her, Scott, I’m a middle-aged computer geek who blogs about libertarian issues, and you know what that does to women. I’m sure she resisted as long as she could.
Well, this is disappointing news.
Superblogging requires ingenuity
To avoid being mere superfluity.
Don’t blog if you’re tired.
If divinely inspired,
Strut your stuff! Monetize promiscuity!
If only…
Lets assume for a moment she’s legit – if she is a “super blogger” she is the worst blogger on the internet. A simple google search returns very little. Sure you will find similiar posts to other sites with links to her various blogs. All – of which – belong to suspended or dormant domains. So not only is she the worst blogger on the internet she is also the worst fake blogger on the internet.
(yes – i cared enough to actually google her but this is related to my normal day job so).
I thought about googling her but was afraid she would be remarkably attractive and sincere, and then I would feel really foolish.
I am disappointed that your back page readers are not currently critiquing and discussing your angle, pre-entry foreplay, and enthusiastic penetration into the secret canal of intertube advertisement negotiations via barely legal click bait driving desire.
You could have added all kinds of interesting clauses to mitigate, and if need be accommodate this “old” you speak of.
Emily looks as though she would have been up to at least three response twirls and it is only Saturday.
Oh please. I threw you a softball. Show some appreciation.
It didn’t happen unless we get some follow up word porn or other fluid exchanges between you click-porn superblawger Emily
Advertised change up softball or not. Just saying.
Now you’re just being gross.
I’m sorry to break this to you, but Emily is actually an overweight, 58-year-old smoker with a five o’clock shadow who lives in his mother’s basement. He wanted to be a science fiction writer, but didn’t have the chops. He bathes infrequently, wears a wife-beater and starts each day with a bowl of “Count Chocula” cereal. His only friend is a flatulent chihuahua named “Buster.”
This was just totally unnecessary. Now I’m really sad.
I know this is besides the point, but I have serious doubts about this rockstar team of bloggers’ business plan. They pay you? To paraphrase the kids, they’re doing it wrong.
When I hear about a team of rockstar bloggers, I think of something like this. I know they’re not blogging. I also know about the link rule, but maybe you’ll keep it, because taste.
Now that’s a team of rock stars.
I’ll bet their blog is fantastic.
SHG,
I know my general opinion doesn’t impress you, so for what it is worth, I regularly share your content and regularly refer people to view your blog as a model of awesomeness.
Your blog is simply brilliant and while you do it just to amuse yourself, YOU are a super blogger.
There is plenty of crap I could compare it to as a way to validate the title.
No need for false or even real humility. You are the bomb. And you scare the crap out of me, so I too don’t comment as much as I read.
That’s because I am the bomb. I am Bomb Blogger. Yes, that’s what I am.
By the way, I never share my blog with anyone, so at least one of us does. And you really need to work on your self-esteem issues.
LOL, it’s not as much self esteem is it is knowing what I don’t know. I approach you and the topics you discuss with sincere humility because every time I read your stuff I realize how little I know about the topic.
I will say this, to anyone open to it, your blog is an eye opener as it relates to the average idiot being spoon fed their perspectives.
SHG, you may not be a SuperBlogger™, or even a SuperLawyer™, but what you are is something even more rare on the barren wasteland we call planet Earth: The human form of Kryptonite to SuperLawyers™ and SuperBloggers™ across our fruited plain . . .
Your blog is NOT ugly. It is simple, functional, uncluttered, easy to read, easy to load, and mostly done in my favorite color. It has a classic beauty and no need for flashy gimmicks to enhance it’s natural charm!
That’s very sweet of you to say. All the cool kids tell me its ugly, but I like it too.
Many blogs (and other blog-like websites that are supposed to be polished and professional looking) these days have a visual style that makes them impossible for me to look at. Yours is not one of those.
So you’re saying mine doesn’t suck nearly as bad as others? Well. Okay then.
I think he’s saying your blog does not cause eye strain or seizures which is definitely a plus.
There are only two categories in my grading system- readable and unreadable. Yours is readable.
I’m not talking about content (its readable), I’m talking about visual presentation.
Hmm . . . reading the comments, you seem to attract 6 basic types of readers. Those who swallow; those who gargle; those who need a sippy cup and both hands; idiots; voyeurs; and Barleycorns.
I didn’t have a point; just hoping to become a SuperBlogger through sheer willpower as I already have the costume.
Seven. Fubar.
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