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.
