Tiny obscurity
The Daily Beast does a story on the ’08 DC Challenge.
A few notes: 1) I did not invent the Blogger Challenge, which is kind of how the story makes it sound. 2) I super-hate that quote about the next closest blog in my category! I did say that, and Doig didn’t take it out of context or anything, but I meant it in a disbelieving way, not a “FACE!” way. I’m bursting with pride in y’all, but I don’t need anyone else in the Challenge to think I think they’re chumps, because I don’t, because they aren’t.
3) I did not realize how very tiny and obscure Tomato Nation is until reading some of the press this year. Hee. The David-and-Goliath part is what sells it to the section editor, I guess, and it’s true that TN isn’t HuffPo; I think the point is that your achievement is mind-boggling, which you know I agree on, but the whole “where the hell’d THEY come from” narrative is starting to feel a liiiiiittle condescending.
Tags: contests Daily Beast news
Oh, please! TN is what HuffPo wants to be when it grows up.
Congrats on the story, but yeah: not great reporting if there’s no mention of Television Without Pity, you know, at all. You’ve earned your readership in myriad ways, but the intimacy you brought to the writing and editorship of that site definitely helps feuls what that one guy accurately said about Tomato Nation, that it “[does]n’t have an incredibly huge readership but d[oes] have an incredibly engaged relationship with their readers.” It’s a little like they wanted to sell the “future of philanthropy” narrative more than look at the unique things that make this site and this effort special.
But anyway! Congrats on all you do, and for being recognized for it in any case!
Haha, “that one guy” is the guy who runs DonorsChoose! Well, anyway, I agree with him. Whoever the hell he is :)
Take the prize yourself, Sars – you’ve earned it by not poking this guy in the eye via the internet.
“An incredibly engaged relationship with their readers” probably does sum up why TN does so damn well every year, though. (Well, that and the tomato costume. I won’t lie: that definitely helps.) I don’t know how involved people would get for a blogger they don’t really…I don’t want to say “know,” because that’s kind of creepy, but you’re not some anonymous being. I giggled during my mole biopsy because I kept wanting to refer to it as a “Japanese fighting mole.” I worried about Hobey like he was a cat I knew that time he was hospitalized. You wrote an essay on the history of your family’s affinity for fart humor. (I have to admit I do sometimes miss the old TN format, because there would be times where I’d be doubled over my laptop chewing on my sleeve so that no one would notice my hysterical, tear-inducing laughter.)
If we were never allowed into your life in those small ways, I don’t think we’d be so invested in the Challenge. Maybe I’m underestimating the power of peoples’ desire to help, but I can’t see a fundraiser for, say, Cracked.com doing so well, despite the site’s awesomeness.
“The Oprah effect,” huh? I don’t remember telling you to stuff your endlessly proselytizing yap and use a wee fraction of your eleventy billion dollars to fund every single request on the entire site your own self, but maybe I forgot that part.
And I know the DB is new to the internet and all, but if they can link to, say, every other ancillary site mentioned in the article, maybe they could work out the tricky mechanics to link directly to either of the main subjects of the article–TN or DC.
Meh, journalists aren’t perfect (speaking as an ex-journo). Good on you, Sars! You should be proud of Tomato Nation’s achievements. Go Tomato Nation and Donors Choose!
Like others have said before me – take the credit. Energising a mass of people and inspiring them into action is a massive task and you do this year after year. I should know, I used to work in fundraising and left it to work in education and I’ve never looked back.
I understand that; it’s not really this one story. (And the timeline on the TN/DC partnership is complex enough that a few things always get conflated, which is fine.) It’s the aggregate bafflement that I have any influence at all that’s starting to get juuuuuust a bit tiresome — and the sense, too, that I should be happy enough to get any attention at all that it doesn’t matter whether they spell my name right, which is what happened the last time.
I can’t take the credit for what happens with this every year, even if I wanted to, which I don’t: you guys all pull together and get the money raised, my partners kick in with match money, and Donors Choose is just a damn smart idea with damn smart execution. I’m not holding the planet on my shoulders or anything. But it’s not exactly a huge cognitive leap to assume that all that money got raised IN PART because I work hard and I sometimes know what I’m doing, and because my readers are the oldest of pros at this by now.
This isn’t directed at you guys, and I’m not fishing for compliments or trying to be a meta whiny butthole. My issue is that, after four years, I think we’ve all earned the right to be taken a bit more seriously than “Tomato in the what now?”
I’ll be over it in about 15 minutes. Go about your business.
Tomato Nation is still quite the land of AWESOME. I hear you on the bad reporting. This challenge got me looking at my own blog readership in a new way; unfortunately I’m a really tiny blog in the great big blogosphere. The best thing about finding the TN crew is that here are a group of people passionate about helping these kids who chatter like the best baseball team ever. It’s like you are the coach at batting practice, lobbing projects our way. Onto DC!
Well, he also thinks that box turtles live in aquariums, so…
I too am annoyed, just on principle, when I see “personal blog” written in the kind of tone I associate with, like, “diaper rash.” But whatever, I’m proud to be “hardly anyone.” Nice work everybody.
Well you’re not obscure to me, Sars. I’ve been reading TN for TEN YEARS I realised the other day. I started reading it in Year 11 while bored at school, and here I am, still checking in every morning ten years later. Obscure? That’s my adolescene and early twenties you’re talking about, Daily Beast!
Also, “less-than extraordinary daily life”? They obviously haven’t read any of the stuff about Little Joe.
We, and you, have certainly earned the right to snarl at the “less-than-extraordinary” (psha!) reporting of our achievements. I figure that these types of articles are targeted to (and coming from) people who don’t know much about the internet or blogs or how there’s this crazy thing called “online donation” that lets you make contributions to things you care about without waiting for someone to knock on your door or your church to pass the hat. ‘Cause really? It’s not like the DHAK crew is a big unknown, and your collective readership is certainly nothing to belittle.
Well, I’m not over it. *huffs in “The Daily Beast’s” direction*
TN is not “an obscure personal blog that hardly anyone’s ever heard of”. That would be MY blog. Thanks for everything you do.
@Australian Jen: Having just pried a Styrofoam peanut off his bottom fang…it’s extra-something around here.
(In the author’s defense, I did point out pretty clearly that it isn’t Faulkner around here, so it’s my own bad for mentioning the cats and relegating myself to the respect basement as a result, probably. Ask not for whom the startle poo tolls. IT TOLLS FOR THEE.)
@Mollie: “Hardly Anyone” is another excellent band name. And I’m glad they play here every day. Hee.
This really isn’t one of those navel-gazy blogs. I kind of think of it like a magazine, albeit one that gives more attention to deli snacks than your average Conde Nast publication.
@Laurabelle: Preach. It.
Sars, it works because you care, and we know it. You’re not raising money to feel good about yourself or to fund your pet cause (except in the sense that schools are a cause, I guess) or even to give money to random strangers in the most creative ways (which, I’m sorry, but gag me) – you’re suggesting to us, people just like you with pets and jobs and families and celebrity crushes, that hey, if we find a little extra cash in our pockets, here’s a place we could put it.
I like that about you. I’d rather give money to someone who will dress up like a tomato than someone who just wants to stand around and feel proud about how much money she raises. And you make me feel that maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll get to wear a tomato costume too.
“less-than extraordinary daily life”? Do they not know about the Underground Cat Railroad?! We make history here, dammit! We change the world one toothless cat at a time!
Aw, damn…now I’m inspired to break out Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
And we are inspired to do so because of Bunting Family stories, the Girl’s Bike Club, and toothless cats, among so many other things. Life’s too depressing not to take a daily dose of laughing until it hurts.
I guess it’s just a…better story if they make you sound more obscure and stuff, without noting that you ran a wildly popular website for years, and you’re not just some crazy cat lady amateur. It does read as bizarrely condescending.
Aw, can I say I love the photo? How appropriate, a tiny and awesome tomato. And I too am proud to be “hardly anyone”. I forget when I started reading TN exactly, but I read tons of the back entries in Spring 2002 in my computational linguistics class (it was held in a computer lab, so…clearly) and it definitely got me through a lot of dull hours in that lab and added a dose of laughter to what was otherwise a pretty tough time in my life. Yay for TN the site and for Tomato Nation the community!
“Having just pried a Styrofoam peanut off his bottom fang…”
Okay, see? That right there is comedy gold. I don’t get that from any other blog I read. That I laughed out loud is partly because of the mental picture those words evoked, but mostly because I have three cats of my own and have had to do the same damned thing.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been reading, but I know it was well before 9/11, because I “knew” you pretty well by then. And, you gotta admit, it’s a little tough to categorize a blog that goes from “For Thou Art With Us” to startle poo?
Also, I put my TN/DC bumper sticker on my car yesteray, and you know how it looks?
AWESOME, of course!
I think you should take the credit where it is due. with you there are no readers to donation.
The greatest nation in the world is the DO-Nation. Then the Tomato Nation.
And who the heck is the Daily Beast? Are they famous enough to comment meaningfully on TN’s obscurity? I’ve never heard of them, and I’ve heard of you, but maybe I have been living under a well-placed rock or something.
@Debineezer: My current contract gig is helping to graphic-design a textbook that focuses on ocean conservation, and I just typed that same quote into a sidebar on Friday. Bears repeating!
Foam peanut+cat fangs=a few of Sar’s favorite things!! That was so worth snorting hot coffee up my nose this morning.
Engaged is the thing. This is the only blog I read with any regularity. “Obscure” my left hind foot!
The Daily Beast is Tina Brown’s gig; relatively high profile, I’d say.
Again, I get that these writers are on deadline and aren’t going to nail every nuance. The Little Blog That Could is a better read and an easier piece to write. As predicted, I’m now over it, if it drives people to Donors Choose it’s for the best, etc. etc.
…Oh, wait. I don’t think the story had a link to DC. sigh.
I’d be happy to hold your coat for you while you mutter. I had to restrain myself from responding, “No, no, you’re mistaken! TN isn’t obscure, we, her readers, are obscure!” Then I thought, well, maybe the rest of y’all aren’t. Then I thought, well, I’m obscure enough for all of you!
Then I thought I’ll just hold her coat while Sars mutters.
And HEY! I LURRVE me the Roomba stories!
Signed,
Hardly Anyone
Seriously – a Buckley gets dooced over an article he writes for them and all of a sudden they’re allowed to pass judgment on sites that have been there longer than they have. The cheek!
All I ask, Sars, is that you write about said lunch, mayhaps with pictures, and cats?
And am I the only one who thinks the idea of an “Oprah effect” is…annoying? At the very least? Oprah isn’t some stranger, or a nobody – she’s a freaking life coach/guru of sorts – people turn to her so she can tell them how to live, so when she says, hey, help these people out, fund this project, OF COURSE it’s going to get done.
They should call “one person’s ability to passionately engage an audience of strangers, then employ this engagement to rally them to a pet cause” the frickin’ Bunting Effect.
I’ve been reading Tomato Nation almost daily for at least six years, but I can honestly say that I had to Google Tina Brown, cause I’d not heard of her before now. Post-Google, I am still not sure that I’m interested in her ventures (past the TN story, anyway). Guess these things are relative.
Startle poo. *snerk*
“This really isn’t one of those navel-gazy blogs.” — Kate
Bingo, Kate! A few months ago the NY Times ran a long piece by a young woman in NY who used to chronicle every little aspect of her life in her online blog. It sounded like a mind-numbingly boring read. Tomato Nation is an entirely different animal, one that I often have trouble explaining to friends and family when they notice my TN magnet.
“Tomato Nation? It’s a website. So, there’s this writer, Sarah Bunting. She writes a blog — but it’s not like one of those blogs where she just whines about her daily life. Well, she does talk about her life, and it’s funny, but it’s other stuff too, like books and feminism and she writes an advice column. There was this one piece she wrote about jury duty, I almost died laughing.”
::Dead silence::
“… here, let me send you the link. It’s hard to explain.”
I think the Bunting Effect is the ability to have persons of all ages, all genders, all nations, come together and laugh at the absurdity of life. Life with cats. Life with families. Life with jobs. Life with romance. Life with guys who strike at The Man by stealing beans… It’s all damned funny here, and we’ve come to count on that humor.
And that’s on you, Sars. Okay, we do love the Challenge, but it’s you that brought us all here to find the AWESOME.
You’re the little blog that ROARED. It’s all good!
After you organize the donation of more than a quarter of a million dollars to the future of the country? You should not be characterized as The Little Blog that Could. Easier to write, sure, but insulting.
Eh. I saw whatsherface on Colbert and she came off as totally full of herself. ‘You only need to read Daily Beast because we are so cool and will tell you what to read.’ Whatever.
On another note…that picture shows the cutest little tomato ever.
“But the most intriguing explanation for Bunting’s success is what Best calls “the Oprah Effectâ€: one person’s ability to passionately engage an audience of strangers, then employ this engagement to rally them to a pet cause.”
Well, it could be, but you’d be wrong. Education…such a pet cause. Especially since…we picked the causes, er projects.
The Daily Beast just wishes they were this awesome.
And yeah…why did this article manage to link to several other blogs but neither TomatoNation nor DonorsChoose? Fail.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Pats on the back to Sars and to TomatoNation peeps. We did good. Shiny.
@Margaret in CO: Actually, I think it was a can of tomatoes, which makes it even funnier to me. :)
I’m irritated that the author decided to use “less-than-extraordinary” rather than “ordinary” when describing Sars’ daily life. Either he doesn’t know they’re not really interchangeable (and given the state of “journalism” today, that’s entirely likely), or he’s a bit of a tool.
Seriously, when writing about a person who has managed to raise a quarter of a million dollars, you don’t use the phrase “less than extraordinary”.
@Margaret in CO: THAT made me laugh out loud. Best Vine memory ever.
Just a short note to say that I’ve been reading TN for ten years as well and couldn’t be prouder of what this community accomplishes year after year with their generosity and spirit. Hardly Anyones, unite!
Someone on the comments for the story kindly took the time to point out TWoP and your extensive resume, thereby doing some fact checking that the writer couldn’t be bothered with, apparently.
I mean, I don’t think he sat down, rubbed his hands and Bwahaha’d “And NOW I shall mock Sarah Bunting, and her readers, and her puny efforts, HAH!” But it feels like a template article, or a Mad Libs, where he just pulled up “Little *blank* That Could* and filled it in with his taskbar the night before deadline. That’s what comes across as condescending.
What’s extraordinary for me about the article is how fundamentally … what? Undemocratic? – it is. I’m not sure I can fully articulate it. Sure, I get that The Little Web Site That Could is an easy handle for an editor, and it’s easy article to write (relatively speaking; hello, research!) but it’s not just reductive as far as Tomato President For Life Bunting is concerned. It suggests to me that there’s some drastic failure of imagination somewhere. If you really believe that one person can make a difference, can you still write an article whose tone is “but, wait, you’re not anybody, really. You’re not connected to a big online noise, you’re obscure”? The fundamental assumption is that relevance is bestowed from outside. But authenticity is self-creating. (Especially when it’s as well-written, moving and frequently hilarious as TN.) The engagement of the readership is the precise measure of that authenticity.
Well said, Sandman.
The only thing I can commend Tina Brown for is bringing Anthony Lane to The New Yorker. She took that superlative magazine and brought it down to the level of “good,” (and it’s been going downhill ever since); she failed to make a go of it at Talk and The Daily Beast appears to be HuffPo with a different but equally irritating layout. And, apparently, at least one contributor is too lazy to scroll through a Google page or three before posting his piece. So peanuts to her, as Chico Marx would say.
Congrats to all the “Hardly Anyones” here who made such a big difference in the lives of wee kidlets – you guys are awe-inspiring.
I don’t think of Tomato Nation as being “tiny and obscure.” I mean, come on – a site that can get a homeless cat adopted in less than a week? A site than can raise over $100k in, what, three weeks or so? A site run and written by the founder of Television Without Pity, without which I might never have survived the past 10+ years in an office environment? Who is this “Doig” person anyway? Can I poke him in the eye?
Okay, I don’t know if TWoP has been around 10 years, but all I know is, the day I discovered it was a GOOD DAY.
https://tomatonation.com/?p=2088 (the Jack story is the second one)
You’re right, Kendra – it was tomatoes. It IS funnier with tomatoes!
That is one gorgeous smackdown, though, a work of art.
A woman getting people to open their hearts and wallets in America? Gotta be Oprah.
I double heart Laurabelle’s comment regarding the lack of this ‘Oprah’s eleventy billion dollars. Oprah did not invent inspiring people to good works. Oprah amassed enough money and used that money to influence things. Sars, on the other hand, rocks the charity without insane funds of her own, which is all the more aspiring for the millions of Americans managing to live without billions of dollars ever day. Deification of celebrity: hate.
Little guy victories are awesome. Little guy/gal victories that help thousands of littler little guys and gals? More awesome. But doing so year after year, it should stop being surprising. Tomato Nation as a brand should be known for overly involved cat stories, awesome donors, the best damn advice, frank deli discussions and if I had my way Sar’s coining of the moniker “The Pink Hammer” for Tab, which still cracks me up.