Getting To Know You: The Tomato Nation Demographic Dance Party
Hello, friends, and welcome to The Tomato Nation Demographic Dance Party, in which 1) you tell me a little bit about yourselves, 2) I give away a few iPod Nanos, and 3) in the interests of everyone’s safety, I supportively applaud your dance stylings but stay quietly in my chair.
Why should you fill out the questionnaire? Well, I have an anecdotal idea about you guys and what you get up to, but I’d like to sell a few (tasteful, unintrusive) ads and sponsorships on the site — so that TN can support itself and continue to offer the internet’s cat-hairiest advice, fund-raising, and cultural commentary — and in order to do that, I need specifics. It’s not a very long form; you’ll find a couple of fun questions at the end; and you could win an iPod Nano in the color of your choice!
The data you give me will remain anonymous. If you choose to share your name and email address, I won’t sell it to anyone or otherwise bruit it about.
(And if you would like to purchase an ad or sponsorship on TN, email me: bunting at tomatonation dot com.)
Edited 3/1/11 to add: Much as I would like to give away Nanos, I misspoke — I meant Shuffles, which are less pricey, which means I can give away more of them. I hope nobody feels misled; sorry for the confusion/senility.
Ready? Let’s dance!
Tags: administralia
Are we going to see bar graph breakdowns of the results? As a survey researcher I’d be intrigued to see those. Also, I’m not quite there yet, but 40+ being the oldest age bracket is depressing :P
I’d be interested in that too! Tell me I’m not the oldest…
Also, is it wrong that I hoped there was going to be an actual dance party? Because I would have hauled my ass to NYC for that. And learned to dance.
I definitely would like to see the results!
YA YA WOBBLE.
In case you’re staring at the marital status question all, “Well, I would get married, but my stupid state won’t let me,” just click whatever you feel. If you feel like you’re married, good enough.
Any other question, same thing: just pick the closest thing. I left some things out and forgot some other things, and I apologize for the myriad oversights, but it could be perfect, or it could be finished, noam sayin’.
I mentioned this in the comments section, but I can’t believe I’ve been reading TN since 2003. I also can’t believe there’s a 10+ years option. That’s some prolific (and awesome) writin’, lady.
I am totally in that ten-year club! In the immortal vernacular of 2000 A.D., “boo-yeah!”
PS the free-form comments are cracking me up. “You should check out this book!” “I hate [this other food]!” “What are your cats doing right now?” *
PPS if you have different species of pets, there is an option for that — pick the Doolittle one.
* I totally will; give peas a chance; orange one and fat one sleeping, little one VERY ANGRY at Styrofoam peanut
I’d like to see a graph, too, unless that hurts your ad sales in some way.
I was trying to remember how long I’ve been a reader: since… grad school, definitely. So, maybe ’99? Wow-o.
Also: hellooo to the other Meredith! We are a rare but awesome breed.
I am definitely in the 10+ club. I also had one of the t-shirts you used to get for published vine letters, but it disappeared, damn.
I love album covers like this; my parents had a few of these kinds of things. The graphic design is hilarious: the randomness of the photos and the word placement just cracks me up.
I’m on a scooter … on my way to the dance party! Mashed … wobble.
That “how much do you watch TV” question gave me flashbacks to the sixth grade.
They had us do a lesson in “bar graphs” where we had to track how much TV we watched a week, and then make graphs to represent this. We all *thought* it was just a math assignment. Except, when they saw how much TV I watched, I was required to see the school psychologist for the rest of the year.
Nevermind that it was primarily just on as background noise when my latchkey self got home from school in the afternoons, or that I generally got straight As, but, even after encountering the TWOP world of other non-maladjusted people who just like to watch TV, I still have residual pangs of fear that someone is going to identify me as a freakshow because I like television.
I quickly learned to avoid being earnestly truthful about crap like that ever again. (Although I did answer honestly here!!)
I’m in the 10+ club, too! [weeps softly into her Metamucil]
Yay, free form comments!! Stream of consciousness posting!
Seriously though, I miss those cats! More please!
@Deanna – thank you for making me realize that I’ve also been reading TN since 2003 and not for 4 years like I noted. Apparently I still think its 2007, AB Chao and Pamie are still recapping on TWOP, and that I’ve only been out of college for 4 years. Yeah…not so much. Sigh.
On a related note – Sars – thanks for making that first hellish post-collegiate job much more enjoyable!
@Sars: Little one? What little one? Pics, please?
I very much appreciate the 40+ option sounding strong & righteous, yo.
Although I picked hell yes on the hate-raisins q, I must confess that when they’re drenched in dark chocolate, they’re all right. But alone, I leave ’em be, and eschew them in other food preparations.
Seeing as we’re being confessional.
I’d like to see the graph too…and yeah 40+ was a bit unsettling. And well, a friend pointed me to you, and from there I found TWOP and DHAK. Go figure!
I just freaked myself out a little realizing I’m in the 10+ club. How’d that happen?
Is it okay if I don’t dance either? I just filled out five billion pages of grad school applications and I’m a little too sleepy for a dance party.
@cay, she’s hard to photograph, but you can “see” her here — https://tomatonation.com/donors-choose-and-contests/friends-in-need/ — and here: https://tomatonation.com/donors-choose-and-contests/the-tomato-nation-fall-classic-school-days/
Her name is Mabel. She started out as a foster cat, but when she wouldn’t come out from under the couch for THREE WEEKS, I gave up and let her stay, at which time she came right out and started making biscuits on my slipper.
Dude–I checked “4-6 years,” but now I realize I’m a 10+! Geez. I feel a little old now.
Add me to the “should have selected 10 plus” club. I got thinking about it, and I was reading the vine in 2000. Of course, I haven’t aged a bit…
Aw! Mom’s always bring extra love! Glad to hear of the cat expansion!!
It’s nice to see all the 10+ guys here!!
I didn’t think I watched that much TV … then I did the math, and there’s glorious Netflix streaming … and somehow I’m a 20+. Yikes!
I should have put this in the extra box but I forgot. One of the best presents my husband ever gave me was a TN t-shirt. Partly b/c it’s awesome but also b/c he came up with the idea on his own…nice when they pay attention like that!
Clearly I’m too old and brittle to dance, but 10+ club, baby!
I think I found you in the days of Mighty Big TV. That’s so long ago that I don’t know how long ago it was. It was more than 9 years ago, because I was living in a different city. I’ve probably read thousands of Vines.
I just love surveys, although I probably got a bit long-winded in the comments section. I don’e know exactly how long I’ve been a reader (I came for the baseball and stayed for the rest).
As for the dance party, my dogs and I have been out dancing in the snow. A wonderful time was had by all!
I totally want to see the stats! And I love the new kitteh! More kitteh = better!
Aw, Sam, come sit here by me (pats chair next to me)…. I only recently distinguished the difference between “watching tv” and when I have the box on, volume low, to news or sports just so I have some other noise in the house. If only to mask how much I actually *talk out loud* to myslef. Heh. I don’t count those hours as “watching tv”.
That said, if it ain’t news or PBS, it still falls firmly in my mother’s category of “that’s way too much television”.
Or, you know… how much I talk to mysELf. Oy.
Count me in the 10+ years club. Wow. If you’ll excuse me, I have to get my walker tuned up – gotta make sure I can beat the other old biddys in our home’s weekly race. And my baby’s got flames painted on the side! Vroom!
I’m in the 10+ club and IIRC found out about you through a loose connection to Adam Curry’s Cyber-Sleaze gossip column in the mid-90s. (Good lord, I’m old.)
I’ve had at least three questions published to the Vine and sometimes think, “I wonder what Sars would tell me to do” in sticky situations.
And you wrote “For Thou Art With Us,” which will stay with me forever.
And you introduced me to Donor’s Choose.
And you have contests about candy, and book clubs that I intend to participate in, buy the book for, and promptly forget about. (Except this time!)
I hope you don’t mind that I (and I hope I’m not the only one) refer to you in conversation as “my Internet friend Sarah.”
@Elizabeth: I read your correction as “talk to my ELF,” and I’m like, “Aw, TN readers. Not afraid to let their freak fla– oh. Shit, where’s that lens cleaner?”
@Sasha: Yeah, that’s pre-TN, even (those Notes from the Smoking Section essays are all on here somewhere and are so very very bad — but The Vegas Diaries started as a despairing email forward from Comdex and got me my first “real” job).
And I don’t mind at all.
I couldn’t remember how long I’d been reading, so I went to check when the friend who pointed me here died. I was surprised to find it was four and half years ago, it feels much closer than that. Thanks again Susan, and I wish you were still reading too.
Also, because I’m seeing some concern in the comments on the form, let me just list the ways in which ads/sponsorships would change on TN.
…Okay, end of list. Any questions?
Okay, seriously: TN already has a couple of small sponsored links and ads. You may not have noticed them. Pop-ups/-unders, crazy flashing banners, mouse-over audio campaigns: unless a stack of hundies is waved around, I’m not doing those. They annoy users (and publishers, frankly; I have to live here too) and they don’t get the desired results. A sponsored feature advertorial that stays above the fold, sure, no problem; it’s clearly marked and doesn’t jam up the UI. That porn-site mandala of pop-ups, no.
Definitely a valid concern, but: no substantive difference at the UI level.
I am also 10+, but put down the wrong one. I just realized I’ve been reading this site for quite a while before 9/11…which will be ten years in September, which means I am too old to properly count. Great.
Wait – YOUR grandfather or MY grandfather? And do I get to pick which? Because I totally want to have dinner with Grandpa again. *sniff*
Oh, and I figured it was 10+ years when I realized I was already a regular reader before you first wrote about Don.
Any grandfather you like. If you pick mine, tell him I hope he understands why I’m dining with Freddie.
I’m +10 also and really should have thought harder about that question. But I’d also visited frequently before Don.
I was just shy of 10+ years. I started reading shortly after I got married, so it’s easy enough for me to remember my TNiversary. :)
Oh, sigh, I’ve also just realized that I am old, and can’t count. I picked 4-10 years for my TN readership time, and it must be well over 10 years, now that I think about it!
Yay, Tomato Nation! Boo, being old and time passing more quickly than I can cope with.
10+ yo! Been reading since the late nineties. I’m pretty sure I found TN through Dawson’s Wrap — I was DEEPLY INTERESTED in the Creek in those days. Ahem.
I still have my Vine t-shirt from back then and it’s so faded and stretched out by now that I use it for sleeping. My Vine question was from my very unhappy teen years about my stupidly disfunctional parents… you gave excellent advice, of course (though I never had the guts to really act on it), and everything eventually worked out okay. So thanks again!
Just checking – did everyone else’s browser redirect them to the main page after they submitted their survey?
Also, add me to the club of those embarrassed to admit their actual TV-watching hours per week. 7-10 sounded right when I picked it, but then I realized that that means only an hour or two a day, and that is such an underestimate. I feel worst about this when I’m talking to someone who tells me that they don’t own a TV or don’t have cable or whatever and end up replying that I only watch a few shows religiously anymore, which is true but completely ignores the fact that I watch a ton of crap intermittently.
Wow. Apparently all us 10+ people can’t do math. I *knew* I was here regularly pre-Don and 9/11 but for some reason I did that math as “8 or 9 years”. What is wrong with me??
And I proudly clicked the 40+ button. I’m old. I embrace it.
Also? I still sleep in my Saucy t-shirt.
I first read the Nation in (I think) 2000, when your piece on shoes was linked to alt.gothic.fashion, and I’ve been a faithful reader ever since. Although I have just realised that I’ve been bumped into the category of 10 years+ readership, as apparently in my world it’s still about 2007-ish.
Also, more cat photos!!