Dubious Blogger Awards

A shady practice may have begun long before The Blog Fairy started handing out her lovely Blue Ribbon Blogger awards:
and then suddenly (to some of us) passed on into the fairy heavens:Since the time that Blog Fairy anonymously tapped me through MyBlogLog, A Writer's Edge or I have received a few more awards from people I know, ones I call my "Internet Friends". Suspicion crept in, however, when I began to receive ones with instructions to link back to the givers, and sometimes to an originator, as well as to a certain amount of new awardees. I bristled, as always, at being told what to do. I can think for myself, thank you very much!

Perhaps I was naive from the get-go, but I think I've watched this formerly generous and meaningful practice degenerate into just another shallow attempt to obtain link backs (obviated by Google's revision of the PageRank algorithm). It's a silly, blatant form of viral marketing that reached the ultimate (I hope) this holiday with bloggers passing around growing lists of blogs ostensibly as seasonal greetings. Call me Grinch, but I refused to participate.

Yes, I suppose the same process occurred with the "top women blogging on writing" or whatever that list was. I recall the moment I quit following those links and realized people were just passing on someone else's recommendations without personally evaluating the writers or the blogs. It was nice to be included at the beginning of the pyramid (it's always good to be near the top!) But like any pyramid scheme, it turns into a valueless scam very quickly. And I don't think it fools any half-savvy readers.

Am I hot or what?