We’ve finally been parodied by Allan!
(He does have a good point on one of the other chunks of dust in his asteroid belt, though: What the hell happened to Maffin?)
Come back, Señor iPhone. All is forgiven.
This just in: We really exist
I’m actually Joe Clark. Fake Ouimet is merely a username.
Published August 29, 2008 2:15 pm
11 Comments
Megan, I have my own blog, available in one incarnation or another since 1998. In principle, all my sites have update pages and RSS, so you could call those Weblogs if you really had to.
I am aware at the cost in capital in taking over the ancien Tea Makers. But, as you wrote, I’m building my own audience, and at any rate it’s a fait accompli. It seems not to have been fully appreciated that I have the blessing of Alphonse Ouimet.
Tea Makers, as it was originally known, is on hiatus. Tea Makers as presently known shall continue.
I’m assuming that last comment wasn’t directed at me personally, but I’ll respond:
Blogs are a ton of work. I know: I run one. I have a lot of respect for anyone who takes the time and energy to maintain a blog. Some posts are going to be crappy, but that’s why you post again the next day, or the next hour, or the next week.
I totally understand why you’d want to take over a successful blog instead of starting one from scratch. I can even see why this blog seemed like the right fit. You like to write about the media, and you’ve got a ready-made audience here, with people who were used to coming here every day to see what the other fake Ouimet wrote.
Audiences take time to build. I had about six readers when I started my blog. Two years later, I have a lot more. Those people now read my blog because they like what *I* write, not because I was fortunate enough to take over a URL that got a lot of traffic.
I think you should start your own blog about the media and see what happens. I’ll even subscribe to your feed. I think that keeping things this way is unfair to your readers.
Now let me post a separate comment here that will probably get ignored.
If you ‒œÃ‚ you personally ‒œ accept that not every post on any blog has to be to your liking, then can you also acknowledge that I am putting a shitload of work into this thing?
It’s true I am not overhearing gossip in the halls of Fort Dork. (Then again, Alphonse Ouimet was not overhearing gossip in other CBC locations. Let’s not exaggerate the advantage.) I have a more opinion-columnist/media-critic angle here. I try to be journalistic by verifying facts with sources and running theories by them. This is kind of new, really.
Nonetheless, in my own defence, I don’t think anyone can make a rational case that I’m completely screwing up what I set out to do. The argument that I’m screwing up what Alphonse Ouimet was doing is, I want you to acknowledge, a separate one. And I can’t help you with that, because I’m not Alphonse Ouimet.
Points taken, Megan, and thank you for actually posting under a name.
Yes, I know it’s been a shock for everybody, or at least some of you. And indeed, your implication that I am squandering Alphonse Ouimet’s cultural capital is one that I thought about in advance of taking the helm.
But the fact remains that all the old Tea Makers posts are still online. It’s more than possible to ignore the current incarnation. This isn’t like Marge’s line on that futuristic episode of The Simpsons ‒œ “You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually I barely noticed.†I haven’t obliterated the old Tea Makers by writing a new one.
By the same token, I realized that an independent little CBC blog of my own would arrive on the scene without any cultural capital. I am living vicariously to some extent. I may be depleting the uranium mine, but I’m putting back plutonium in its place.
Moral of story, honourable children friends? Wear your hazmat suits.
I’m not anonymous.
I’m also not a CBC employee, so I don’t know how representative I am of the lurkers here.
If a ton of people showed up on my blog insisting that someone else should be running it, I’d be less than impressed. So I understand where Fake Ouimet is coming from. There’s really no point in demanding a different writer.
However, this blog used to be great because of…well, the other fake Ouimet. This isn’t so much “new management” as an entirely new blog. It would have been better to be open about that.
Fake Ouimet, you made it clear that you’re a new guy with new rules and a new perspective. I respect that. But you’re writing at Tea Makers and we all still expect it to be something like Tea Makers.
This is your blog and you should do what you like with it. But a better way of dealing with this sort of about-face would be to start a new blog with a link from this one. Then you wouldn’t have as many people complaining that you’re not the other fake Ouimet.
No, Teatards⒞¢ are obsessed with reëstablishing the former monarchy. But the Queen abdicated.
Not only have I applied for jobs at the CBC (note the plural), I’ve done CBC contract work, the results of which I turned around and published.
“Come back, X. All is forgiven†is a snowclone. Nonetheless, Allan could in fact come back. I can afford to be magnanimous. I can also afford to own up to my own writing, unlike anonymous cowards.
What was that about Gawker?
No, name dropping doesn’t help.
Rather, it is symptomatic of the fanboi vibe that this blog now frequently emits.
Asking Allan to come back to the dialogue doesn’t score a lotta points either.
I guess we’re retards for working at CBC, eh Joe? Especially in .ca (where, rumour has it, you applied for a job not so long ago).
Maybe there’s a blog about working inside Gawker that you could take the helm of.
In the meantime, sorry we’re all too stupid to understand the changes.
This blog is indeed “focus[s]ed on CBC issues.â€Â
As was the ancien Tea Makers.
Some of my best friends wrote for Gawker. Does that help?
Fake Ouimet,
I feel that not too long ago this blog was home to some smart, insightful and gawker caliber blogging. It was relevant, sharp and on point.
Now the blog seems focused on CBC issues I couldn’t give a flying f*ck about (posts about Allan and Tod come to mind) and long winded entries that are mentally exhausting to read.
I have no idea where this blog is coming from now and where it is going.
Fake Ouimet, I’m sure your heart is in the right place and in person you’re a great guy, but I’m sorry to say but you are no tea maker.
Hello?
“Someoneâ€Â did.
Unclear on the concept of links, Anonymous?
I wish someone would create a similar site.. only about you instead of Tod