Last week I was pleasantly surprised and honored as Liisa of Green Mountain Gardener, gave me a Best Blog Award. Liisa has a wonderful blog, and I appreciate her recognition and thank her for such thoughtfulness. I thank her for believing my blog was worth looking at, and also for making me stop and think about what it meant and ultimately sent me on a mission.Not unlike most of you, I blog not with any competitive spirit or thought of recognition, but rather write as a means of expression and record, the pleasure of doing so and the enjoyment of our interaction and what we have to share with one another. When someone offers an award, I take it seriously and careful consideration is taken in passing on that which I believe to be important.
Interestingly enough, the Best Blogs for me are all those I follow (or I wouldn't waste my time); that keep me coming back, either for the information provided and/or the beautiful photography and words that are written; and as I went through a rather lengthy search from one blog to the other it appeared nearly everyone had already been recipients of this award. So if this is the case, then what is the meaning?
Since I am a curious sort who loves discovery, I enjoy research, understanding and finding answers. I have likely spent too much time on this and may have over-analyzed, but I found it fascinating and worth the effort for purpose of satisfying my own curiosity, and therefore sharing it with you.
In an effort to ascertain who starts this kind of thing and establish creditability, I began tracking from one receiving the award to the one who sent it, and by going back in time I visited over 18 blogs! Remember this number.
Assuming the rules are followed, consider the math: 15 people receive this award times 15 to whom you must send it, and the first shot out of the gate is 225 people immediately are transmitting awards:
15 x 15 = 225
x 15 = 3375
x 15 = 50,625x 15 = 759,375
x 15 = 11,390,625
x 15 = 170,859,375
x 15 = 2,562,890,625
x 15 = 38,443,359,375 ...
At this point I am wide-eyed as by the 8th multiplier the number has now surpassed the world population, and all blogs visited were in the course of less than a single month, NOVEMBER. (By the way, I put this on an Excel spreadsheet so it only took a few minutes to do, and if you might wonder what would 18 blogs produce?... 22,168,378,200,531,000,000,000, that's sextillion.)
There is no intention of bursting anyone's bubble and clearly no criticism is intended of the blogs referenced below, but rather to show you what was identified. It appears that originally there were 7 awards that were bundled (Sassy, J'Adore tien, Humane, Inspirational, Butterfly, Loyal, and Best Blog) and sent out to fellow bloggers. Somewhere along the way, the Best Blog Award split off. Additionally, I got in a loop while climbing this pyramid and decided I had seen enough.
This person received the 7 awards from Gagay's site of primarily advertising which also lists a number of other awards that are waiting to be given. Gagay received his awards from Maurica, while this blog advertises and promotes Contests and made up her own rules for the awards... and it goes on. I had no idea all these marketing-scheme-kinds-of-blogs existed.
The moral of this story in this age of the internet is that we need clarity and concern, and unless we can ascertain the origin or authenticity of an award, one that is meaningful, I receive each of your comment/s as my reward!
Thank you again Liisa!
