STGRB

Okay, before we get into GR Bully Meltdown Part II, Athena wanted me to re-iterate for everyone that we don’t encourage anyone to attack an author’s book if that author is on our BBG list.  In fact, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we don’t encourage anyone to contact or harass these people in anyway.  We are simply here to report on their behavior.  I know we’ve joked around a lot on this blog, but in all seriousness, we hope we’ve never given anyone the impression that we think this is okay.  In fact, we’ve stated this on our Who We Are page and if you read our Do’s and Don’t’s page, we say:

If you are ever the victim of a bully attack, don’t:

1. Panic

2. Respond

3. Fight back

4. Retaliate by writing revenge reviews (if the bullies are authors, many of them are)

And this isn’t just for victims, this is for everyone.  We don’t recommend getting into it with the bullies.  We just recommend avoiding them.

So, getting back to part two of the GR Bully Meltdown.  The post below, we published on August 19, 2012.  We’re posting the GR Bully Meltdown now because the two posts are relevant to a new one we have coming soon.  If you haven’t read The GR Bully Meltdown, Part I, we recommend doing so.  In the following post, we mention a few we did before this one: one on Anna Karenina, one called GR Rolls ‘Em Out, and an interview with Kenya Wright.  All these will be coming up shortly, so don’t worry.

Now, on with the Meltdown…

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Okay, we’re back for part two of the GR Bully Meltdown.  Ready your popcorn, or your wine & cheese, or whatever your pleasure, because this one is going to be fun!

Ever since Kat and Ridley’s cat fight in GR Rolls ‘Em Out, we’ve been watching and waiting.  Now, we realize that their little spat back then was just a warm up, because the snakes are really starting to eat each other.  On our last post, The Many Faces of Anna Karenina, we were tipped off by our site visitor, Mushrooms:

“

Read the article, then scroll down to where you see Ridley and her minions speaking about their disdain towards Cuddleboogery, Kat, and Archer under the Conversations On Twitter. I wonder if they realize that their tweets are showing up on the website… lol.

I find it very funny how they’re all turning on each other. It would be a good idea to create a new blog post around this subject.”

Then Mushrooms says:

“Ridley has tweeted a bit more about the situation. Apparently the people of Cuddlebuggery have blocked her on twitter. She has also retweeted two comments made against the blog revolving over their twitter conversation being linked to the site. There happens to be other people joining in the feud. People like Blythe H., Kara, Lyn, and Jessie have decided to side with Cuddlebuggery against Ridley and her minions. They’re calling people like Ridley and her followers the real trolls now. From the looks of the newest tweets from Kat, Blythe H., Archer, Steph (on the cuddlebuggery account) and some others, they’re attempting to have some private group chat to discuss their current situation in private with one another.

They’re falling into this deeper and deeper. One by one the bullies unity have started to crumble. No authors are involved this time, this is their own doing.

One of the users twitter account. You can follow along with what’s going on from there. From the looks of it, they don’t plan on stopping their twitter war anytime soon.”

Alright, for a little background – Cuddleboogery just changed its commenting system so that if a visitor logs on with their twitter account and then later references the site while tweeting, that person’s twitter conversation gets recorded into the comments of Cuddleboog.  Okay so, you with me so far?  Good.  Now on to the good stuff.

Well, apparently, Ridley wasn’t aware of that when she referenced Archer’s latest blog post here:

And then the recording commenced.  So, we took these screenshots from Cuddleboog before they were deleted:

This is where they realize they’re being recorded:

Here’s the rest of the conversation:

 

 

Now, that’s Camp Ridley from their recorded conversation on Cuddleboog.

Here is Camp Cuddleboog on Twitter where they are calling Ridley a troll – get this – even though it is their site that is pulling in the conversation from Ridley’s Twitter account:

 

Then Camp Cuddleboog gets smart, because they know we’re watching, and decide to go into a private chat:

Ah, bummer!  They hid from us!  That’s no fun.  So now we go back to Camp Ridley, where she says that they’ve blocked her but are still pulling her conversation:

And finally back to Camp Cuddleboog where they try to cut the cord to Ridley but fail:

Aw, poor Cuddleboog.  But here’s another interesting conversation:

Bookish Belle says: “That’s ridiculous.  Like you can’t express your opinion on your own blog.”

Yeah, imagine that – other people thinking you don’t have a right to express your opinion on your own blog or that you don’t have a right to freedom of speech.  Who would ever think something like that?  Oh I don’t know.  Maybe… ALL of them.  They’ve been saying this about us forever.  But unfortunately for them, we have rights, too.

And finally, here is Ann on Cuddleboog calling us a “shitty site”:

Hey, it’s not our fault your rotten house of bully is burning to the ground. You did that to yourselves.  But thanks for the new name!  Now, in addition to being “the site that must not be named,” and “that heinous site,” we are also “that shitty site.”  Alright!

Okay, we’re going to switch gears for a minute but there’s a reason.  Do you all remember the Q&A we did with Kenya Wright?  Well, there was a section that was edited out of that Q&A and people have been asking us about it, so we’ll show you what it was:

Stacia Kane is an author that is adamant that authors should stay silent when it comes to reviews. I asked her to comment about the site “Stop the GR Bullies.” This is the comment:

I’m so tired of the sense of entitlement on the part of authors who feel like readers have some responsibility to them or owe them something. I’m tired of seeing that entitlement oozing all over every discussion of reviews or review sites or blogs or whatever else. It starts with “reviews should be constructive (because they’re all about SERVING MEEEEE)” and ends with “You guys are just mean bullies!” and outing people. Last time I checked the president of Nestle didn’t feel the need to create mean little websites outing people who prefer Hersheys. You know why? Because he’s a damned professional.

“Authors” who pull this crap need to spend less time having hissyfits and more time writing better books.

I’m sure the nasty reviews of my books will start soon, but oh well. I think readers are smart enough to tell the difference between honest reviews and those that aren’t.

What is your response to Stacia’s comment?

STGRB: If Stacia is referring to our site, we will say it again.  Our site is not about critical reviews.  It is about bullying.

Now, if we are just discussing the topic of authors and reviews, we will say this.  Anybody who is invested in one’s career will take that career seriously and protect it from those who try to destroy it either for their own personal fun or for vengeance.  If that is considered sense of entitlement to Stacia Kane, then so be it.  Yes, it is good practice to stay silent on constructive reviews and not nitpick negative reviews to death or take them too personally.  We both agree on that.

However, where we differ is that we adamantly DO NOT AGREE that authors should stay silent when their careers, livelihoods, and personal dreams are being slandered or threatened.  That is what we are talking about here, not run-of-the-mill negative reviews.  Show us a person alive who will sit back quietly and allow someone else to destroy the career they’ve worked so hard on, the one that supports their families, and we’ll show you someone who will be standing in the unemployment line.  This is not about those readers who post reviews describing why they did or did not like a book.  This is about the minority who actively band together to try and destroy careers under the guise of “honest, critical reviews.”  True honest, critical reviews are acceptable (and welcomed).  Career-destroying is not.

I also reached out to Kat Kennedy. This is her comment:

Unfortunately, there is no winning.  Nobody comes out of this not looking like an asshole.  It shames our community, it embarrasses us, and it makes us look stupid.  I prefer to spend my time working with authors to help promote their books and give them exposure than play character games.

What these people are doing is cowardly, sad, and ultimately a poor reflection on the state of our community.  However, through these threats and attacks, we’ve seen the community band together and show the kind of strength and greatness that reminds me of why I love being a book blogger and a Young Adult reviewer.

What is your response?

STGRB: It appears as though Kat Kennedy has toned herself down a bit from her usual nasty responses.  Maybe this is because she has a soon-to-be released book to promote?  Now that she will be on the other side of things, as an author, we wonder if she will have the guts to publish under her own name?  And if so, how she will respond if any of her bully-cronies target her book and career?  Also, we’re curious to know if her publisher stands by the brand she is building as an author and internet persona.

Furthermore, we came up with the idea for our site by watching Kat Kennedy on her blog (see answer above).  If she thinks what we do is “cowardly, sad, and ultimately a poor reflection on the state of our community,” then she really needs to take a serious look at her own behavior.

In case you’re wondering, the question about how we got our idea for the site was this:

Who came up with the idea for this site? When did the idea pop up? What truly sparked this?

STGRB: A community of writers, readers, and everyone in between has been slowly gathering to address what is happening on Goodreads.  It is an underground movement that is growing exponentially every day as more and more people find us.  More people have been harmed by the GR bullies than we ever knew.  We knew there were a lot who had had terrible experiences (or witnessed them) and left the site, but we had no idea how many.

As for our small group of members who run the site, we got the idea by watching Kat Kennedy on Cuddlebuggery Book Blog.  With every Scandalous Scandal post, she profiles authors that the bullies want to target and sends the lynch mob after them.  She doesn’t just profile authors either.  For example, she wrote a post on The Story Siren and convinced her followers to boycott the blog.  So, this is really where we got the idea.  Of course we are not trying to send a lynch mob after these bullies.  We just want to call them out and create awareness about who they are and what they do.

“Nobody comes out of this not looking like an asshole.”

You got that right.

“It shames our community, it embarrasses us, and it makes us look stupid.”

Uh huh.  When do you all not embarrass yourselves?

“I prefer to spend my time working with authors to help promote their books and give them exposure than play character games.”

Working with authors to help promote their books?  Is that right?  Is that why you started Scandalous Scandals – so you can promote authors like this (this is how Kat started off the year):

If you want to see exactly how Kat promotes authors and their books, just go back to this blog post and every subsequent Buzz Worthy News blog post after it, scroll down to Scandalous Scandals and read your heart out.  You’ll be amazed.

And some people still wonder why we consider Kat Kennedy to be the biggest offender of all the bullies.

So, now, you’re probably wondering, why are we showing you all this?  Well, because, after this whole bully meltdown occurred, we had to get the screenshot of the year.  The kicker!  The icing on the cake that had us rolling on the floor, barely able to breathe.  Kat Kennedy, the creator of Scandalous Scandals, the infamous queen of drama herself, says (*drumroll*):

*wipes tears from eyes*

As one of our site visitors said, you can’t make this stuff up.

Below is a post we published on August 18, 2012.  Approximately 5 weeks after we started our blog, taking screenshots of the bullies abuse of other people, posting them our blog, and stating our opinions on it, the GR bullies had a major meltdown.  Our coverage of their meltdown made Kat so mad, she tried to silence us by hypocritically reporting us for copyright infringement (we say hypocritically because if you look on her blog, it’s copyright infringement galore.)  After we removed the material from the original post () and left the excerpts from it for our analysis, she reported us again when we were perfectly within our rights under the terms of fair use.  Once again, this proves that like Looney, Kat can’t handle criticism.  She can dish it out, but she can’t take it.  This is the mark of the bullies – being able to dish abuse out in spades, but being unable to deal with criticism (and just criticism, not abuse.)  In fact, their reaction to our site was so extreme, a wave of mass hysteria swept over the bully community, causing them to turn on each other.  The GR Bully Meltdown I and II is our coverage of this event.

In part one of the GR Bully Meltdown, Peter Pan translates Archer’s Cuddleboogery blog post, , in which he addresses the widespread panic and tells everyone in the bully community basically to “keep calm and carry on.”

We guarantee the following post (and the next one) will be thoroughly entertaining.

Enjoy!

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Well STGRB readers, we hope you’ve got your popcorn ready because this is what we have been waiting for – the GR bully meltdown.  It all started with a published by Archer in which he addresses the current hysteria circling around the book community.

After he published his post, the explosions commenced.  So, we’re doing this in two parts.  The first part will be Peter Pan who picked apart Archer’s inane and self-contradictory post.  And the second, will be… well, you’ll see.  😀

So without further ado, here’s Peter:

 

“Blogs refusing to review indie books in the future, Cuddlebuggery included.”

Here is the irony in this statement. Irony 1: You aren’t keeping “carrying on” if you are no longer doing what you’ve done before. Irony 2: Does this include not “reviewing” indie books a la reviews that are about the author and not the book? If so, you’re doing indies a favor.

 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THE WATER RECENTLY?”

You tell us. You put it there.

 

“We have readers/authors/bloggers going on crusades to ease their burning butthurt.”

Translation: We have readers/authors/bloggers setting the record straight when people tell lies. Who does that? I mean seriously. You aren’t allowed to do that. We have freedom of speech here, not you.

 

“We have readers/authors/bloggers running around with a mentality of “If you aren’t with me then you’re the enemy”.”

Translation: We have readers/authors/bloggers running around with the mentality of “If you tell lies, I’m going to out the truth so others can know what’s real.”

 

“We have authors refusing to use GR out of fear of being boycotted for one reason or another.”

Translation: We have readers/authors/bloggers refusing to use GRs because all of the fake reviews and fake ratings that make the site freaking useless. We have bullies refusing to use GR because GR might actually enforce their terms of service and they will actually have to READ the books they review and make the review about the BOOK.

 

“We have people crying foul of review styles that they don’t like and deem as bullying or hurtful.”

Translation: We have people crying foul of author reviews being posted in a book review section because, by definition, a book review is supposed to be about the book, and when they read book reviews that is what they want to see, not us shaming an author/reviewer/fan for a perceived wrong we’ve created by taking things people have said out of context or making things up entirely.

 

“No matter how you cut it… that’s a lot of crazy in the community.”

Translation: I’m going to call you all crazy, but this doesn’t apply to me, even though I’m one of the biggest ringleaders in the pack. I mean seriously. Can’t you tell I’m trying to save face and make Cuddlebuggery seem like a credible review site now that it’s no longer fashionable to attack people?

 

“People need to calm the fuck down. LIKE SERIOUSLY. All this bullshit needs to end.”

Translation: I’m so calm right now, I’m going to throw in a few curse words just to show you how fucking calm I am. DO I LOOK ANGRY TO YOU? Like seriously.

 

“People voicing their personal opinion, is being compared to bullying. I mean seriously, all of this over different opinions about fucking books.”

Translation: Remember when we told lies about authors and they defended themselves? That wasn’t voicing their opinion. That was bullying. Now this whole bullshit fucking shit of us being called bullies for voicing our opinions. Now THAT is just fucking crazy. All this over different opinions about fucking authors. Not that we were trying to fuck them. We were just giving honest opinions about their books, I mean, them as people who we have never met, based on something we’ve taken out of context and stuck in a blender.

 

“I think that most reviewers will realise that 99.9% per cent of the time they follow them [the goodreads guidelines] without even realising it when they write a review. And honestly, if you don’t, then maybe you shouldn’t be complaining… maybe you should be finding a new hobby… like playing games, watching movies… eating paste.”

Translation: I am going to go eat paste, because I like making fun of people who are crazy and mentally ill when I’m not cursing out teen girls. I’m going to play games and watch movies because I am condemning you for doing the very thing I do. I didn’t follow the Goodreads terms before because I didn’t have to, but I might now. I mean seriously, you know I’m lying through my teeth right now. Like seriously.

I want to take a break from dissecting this.

Like, seriously, I mean seriously, how many times can you seriously say seriously in a blog post? Oh, please, go back to judging the writing of others real quick. You are seriously better at judging writing than writing yourself. We should seriously take your serious opinions as fact as you seriously are seriously intelligent enough for us to take your word on things.

To answer my own question:

1)     I mean seriously.

2)     LIKE SERIOUSLY

3)     I mean seriously.

4)     Seriously . . . why the fuck are they even here.

5)     Seriously . . . log off and go for a walk.

6)     Seriously I can.

7)     Seriously, I don’t know these people and I don’t need anymore shit in my life.

“I do concede that that is a very subjective connotation and it is poorly worded.”

Translation: I am the master of words. Can’t you like seriously tell?

 

“But if you want to write a high quality review, might I suggest just one thing. Write it from your fucking heart and talk about the book. And I’m not saying this to be an asshole, or to be deliberately inflammatory I’m saying it because IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD.”

I don’t need to translate this. The irony of ARCHER saying this on CUDDLEBUGGERY is irony enough.

 

“Just because people don’t agree with you on a matter doesn’t mean that they are the enemy. It means that they have a different life experience and are seeing things differently to you. Guess what, that makes them human just like you. It doesn’t mean that they are bullying or victimising you, IT MEANS THEY ARE SEEING THINGS DIFFERENTLY TO YOU.”

Note: By people we mean other reviewers. Obviously authors do not fall under the definition of people.

 

“And as for people harping on and on about people (most commonly in this com­mu­nity authors) being bullied via different means be it GR, reviews, comments, tweets whatever… I’m sorry I’m calling bullshit on that too.”

Thank you for not harping on and on about it, Archer.

 

“1 – Some people can’t comprehend that others don’t fawn over and worship the same things that they do”

Translation: 1: Some people don’t think your feelings about an author are relevant to the book.

 

“ 2 – Some people need to grow a much thicker skin when it comes to their works.”

Translation: 2: Some people need to shut the hell up when people are making up lies about them and attacking them personally instead of posting an actual book review.

 

“And this makes me headdesk. Fucking hard. Harder than John G.’s now infamous excessive headdesk meme. I could break desks the amount I do this. Why? Because it is fundamentally fucking stupid! To a level that makes me lose faith in the intelligence of the community in general.”

Thank you again for not harping on and on about it.

 

“If people can’t handle the fact that no book is EVER going to be universally praised then seriously… why the fuck are they even here?”

Here’s a thought. Authors exist for reasons OTHER than making you happy, Archer. Most of them aren’t pissed about your opinion on their BOOK either. Does Cuddlebuggery STILL really not get that? They pretend they do, by admitting some reviews aren’t about the book (while excluding their own reviews from that judgment!) but they clearly think the PROBLEM is about ACTUAL book reviews.

 

“If people can’t grasp the fact that there are things that the vast majority of people now find patently offensive then seriously… log off and go for a walk, talk to people and pull yourself together.”

Like how the majority find the things you do and say patently offensive? Why are you still typing? Go take that walk you were talking about.

 

“I’m not going to review Indie authors who I don’t have a pre-existing relationship with. There is just too much risk of crazy recently.”

Translation: I now interrupt this post to talk more about how people other than myself are crazy, because that is not at all offensive.

You’re trying, Cuddlebuggery, but it’s hopeless. Until you realize what you did wrong and apologize to the authors you have wronged and delete your offensive content, NO ONE is going to take you seriously. After your most recent posts on your blog, twitter, and Goodreads, you have now alienated your fellow bullies as well as all the people you have bullied. You don’t have much left unless you start taking your own advice.

 

“Why are people not able to let things simmer down anymore? It’s been going on for far too long.”

To this, we agree.

 

“Everyone needs to take a step back and remember why we all started doing this in the first place. For the sheer joy of reading.”

Had us fooled.

 

JBG: Great analysis!  Thank you, Peter!

Okay, well, that’s it for part one.  Stay tuned for part two when the bullies go to war – wait for it – with each other.  😀