Yay Cheerios. Boo America!

Yes, people of different races sometimes marry and they sometimes have children. And they love each other and care about each other and eat breakfast cereal. OMG!! The horror!!!!

If you haven't seen it yet, Cheerios has put out a very adorable commercial starring a biracial family. I
wanted to reach into my computer monitor and hug that little girl, she's about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

This commercial is somewhat of a breakthrough. There is very little representation of multicultural relationships/families in the media. Of course, along with this kind of representation also comes backlash from those that have not caught up with modern society and tolerance. Those who still live in a world with the backwards thinking that people of different races shouldn't intermingle and breed. I cannot believe in this day and age that there are still people living in this country with that mindset.

Cheerios received so many negative, racist comments on Youtube that they had to disable them. Some commented on how "disgusting" the ad was. Others complained about getting multiculturalism jammed down their throats. Really? Take a look around you. There are beautiful, diverse couples, families all around you. You can't hide from diversity or sweep it under the carpet.

Some of the commenters said such nasty things I don't want to sully my blog by referring to them. And though Cheerios has disabled their comments, the sock puppets of the world are finding other places for their vitriol on news videos and such.

Why can't people remember what this country was built on? We emerged as a melting pot. We are a symphony of diversity that should be embraced, not repudiated.

And for you white people who are spewing this verbal venom, remember also that our race was not the first here, and some came against there will at your ancestor's hands. Then came the Irish, Italians, Germans, Hispanics, Russians, Vietnamese, Cambodians etc, etc, on and on. It's just going to continue. This isn't YOUR country. This is OUR country, built on color and culture and the differences among us.

Stop standing still and catch up with the 21st century. Biracial relationships have been around forever. And guess what? Now people of the same sex can be married. What are you going to do when the first same sex commercial comes out? If you don't like it, don't watch TV. If you don't want to see it out in public, don't leave your house or live in a cave. But leave everyone else the hell alone. That commercial, these relationships, they have nothing to do with you.

Didn't your mother ever teach you, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So, get over yourself and shut the fuck up.

ABNA part 3: The Forum

This, at least for me, is a big part of the contest. It's a chance to talk to other writers, to help each other, commiserate, and celebrate each other's successes.

The first ABNA started in October. I saw the forum that Amazon put in place for its contestants and said, "huh." Yep, that's pretty much it. I was not savvy where online forums were concerned, I had only participated in one other before, on a writing sight, and this was a whole 'nother ball of wax altogether.

I started lurking. There were definitely charismatic persona's one was drawn to. You found yourself following them from thread to thread, laughing your ass off by yourself in your computer room. I lurked until January, then I just jumped right in and acted as if I'd always been there.

The thing about the ABNA forum, is you can find just about anything there. There are 1,023 threads. There are threads about writing, of course, threads about books, threads about agents and publishers. But there are also the silly threads. These seem to be the ones that I'm drawn to. I get enough serious in real life. I tend to trust very few when it comes to advice on writing. So, I go there to goof off.

I'm a step ahead of myself, as that last statement isn't entirely true. The first year, I used the forum also as a way to promote myself and my entry. You see, back then, we thought our customer reviews counted for something (which they didn't unless you made the top ten).

So, I would trade reviews with people. I traded reviews with other YA writers, with others from the Pacific Northwest. I did as many reviews as I could that year, I think it was about 66 total. In return I received 94, which was always in the top ten of review totals. I thought I was a shoe in for the finals. But whatever.

So back to the forum. It's been, especially that first year, like a second home for me. I met some really wonderful people, got loads of useful information about writing and the publishing industry, and had a lot of laughs.

Some of my favorite threads (you on the forum will know what I'm talking about):

The Stupid Question thread
Will somebosy tell me what thisis about
The lovely girl thread
Need help stabilizing a graphene nonoribbon for an orbital structure!

The throwing thread (Gae <3)> and everyone's favorite, Jeff Fielder: funnyman, quipster, bon vivant...(this thread almost broke amazon.com)

And while the second year of ABNA the forum turned a little ugly. Bitter, hateful people spewing their toxic words all over the place turning many of us away, this year, is different. This year there are many new people, nice, smart, witty people. People with the same goals, the same problems, the same dreams. Some of the old faces of course are still there, some never having left. And the place is good again. Happy. Again, it feels like home.

I Want to Strangle the Sock Puppets

The internet sock puppets, that is. Okay, that maybe strangling is too harsh a punishment But, come on! Get a life already.


For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a sock puppet, as descibed by Wikipedia is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person,[1] like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.


Here are my specific interactions with sock puppets. First, on the amazon.com ABNA thread, there is an option at the bottom of each post asking the reader if they feel that post contributes to the thread. It seems a couple of sock puppets went through and hit the "no" button on every post of mine as well as a few friends, on every single thread we participated on. This annoyed me a little, but not very much. I didn't get enough "no" votes for it to make a difference, and the result would just have been my post being hidden from those who chose not to read it.

Interaction number two, people who post under a pseudonym and spew nothing but toxins and venom. There were four that I recall on the ABNA threads, and I will call them out, Billy de Vere aka Michael Caulfield, aka Juanita, AIRMID aka about 50 other names, and R.E. Cluse aka Maura something. I don't really care who they really are, what I care about is the fact that just about every post from them was negative. They continually bashed other posters and other threads and wondered why everybody had a problem with them.

My third interaction is ongoing, happening probably as we speak. The anonymous sock puppet is going around and voting "no" on every single review I post for the ABNA contesants. Now this I find greatly annoying. I take the time to read every excerpt thoroughly, each take me about fifteen minutes. I take notes while I'm reading. I compile and organize notes to form a script. I film my review trying to point out the good qualities of the piece. This takes me about 30 minutes. I edit the video, this takes me anywhere from about 30 minutes to an hour. I add titles and effects and turn it into a polished piece. Then I upload to amazon, Facebook, and Youtube, this usuall takes anywhere from 10 too 20 minutes per site. I have been adding not only my blog address, but also the entries web address to get the author more hits to their entry. This is why I am pissed. I put my time and effort into this, and to have someone come and down it, just because they don't like me for some strange reason just doesn't make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?


The bottom line, sock puppets have way too much time on their hands. I mean, I screw around on the internet a little (stop laughing) but even I don't have time to go hit every no button, search for the perfect post to criticize, and spew my toxicity all over the internet. Who would want to?

These are pathetic, bitter, more than likely ugly people (both physically and emotionally), and it saddens me that someone hates people enough to try to make their lives a little more miserable. And please do not get them confused with sock monkeys, for the latter are cute, loveable, squishy creatures, with nice long arms for hugging rejected writers.

Grow up sock puppet. We see through you.