Examiner.com’s Jesus Lady Will Have None Of Your Phillies Joy, Heathens!
We’ve been through this a bit before, so at the risk of repeating ourselves, let’s cut to the chase: Those Examiner.com sites, where they let pretty much anybody write as an “expert” in one field or another, are a teeming cauldron of insane cat lady types, would-be freelancers who lack the acumen or talent to just get a blog together for themselves, or otherwise unpublishables. (Sort of like Phawker, just… more so.) This, as you can imagine, is a often a goldmine for a kind of sad comedy — poke around long enough and you’re bound to find, say, the Philadelphia “Speculative Fiction Examiner” — and, whether they realize it or not, Examiner.com’s central attraction is that it’s basically the Waiting For Guffman of blogs. (Sorry, Phillyist — HIYO!) But they really outdid themselves when they let Philadelphia “Christian Perspectives Examiner” Lisa Small write about the Rockies@Phils playoff game she attended with her husband last week:
My mind was being flooded with thoughts about how fanatical these fans were about the Phillies and I wondered how fanatical they are about our God and Creator. Given what I saw, I thought this was a legitimate question. My intention wasn’t to criticize or judge anyone but to simply question how long would these fans sit and get excited over a discussion about our Lord?
It goes on like this for many more hundreds of words, judgy as can be and utterly hilarious in the way that only people who force themselves to extrapolate the godliness in any situation can be. And since it posted last week, it’s generated a shitstorm of comments from Phils fans who — shock! — believe in God, as well as one Examiner editor who wrote simply, “We’ve got to be more careful about who we let write on this website.” The outcry was so loud, in fact, that Lisa has since posted a follow-up. Delivered in handy FAQ form, she addresses such pointed questions as:
1. STOP JUDGING AND BEING JUDGMENTAL
2. WHY DON’T I HAVE FUN?
4. WHY DOES MY CAT HATE ME?
5. YES, I LOVE MY CATS
Honey, maybe that’s where you should have started.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I don’t understand why the Philadelphia Christian Perspectives Examiner is so God-focused. Shouldn’t it have more arguing about the relative merits of Sidecar and 12 Steps Down, how long is too long to wait for brunch at Sabrina’s, and gossip about the coming of Paesano’s?
October 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
And your blog is so much better how?
October 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Black Taco goes to bat for our sins. Amen.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
@ first-time commenter todora: Not better, different. We here at Philebrity acknowledge that some people LIKE crazy cat lady bloggers and the furious thunder of cut-and-paste. Different strokes for different folks. Praise his name!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:51 pm
For the record, I do not own any cats and I am, in fact, a paid freelancer. I would prefer to be referred to as the “insane bird lady type freelancer who may or may not lack the acumen and/or talent to be published traditionally but we cannot say with certainty until she has actually tried or something”. Actually I would *prefer* something like “that dashing young lady with the incredible gams and quick wit” but I’ll take what I can get ;)
Sincerely,
Philadelphia Speculative Fiction Examiner