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Friday, March 31, 2006

It's All About Me 

I have gotten a few emails recently, one entitled "What's your issue?" and one stating:

Jokersupdates mod(s) are giving IP information about Jokers members to the Wawa's Watering Hole. Jokersupdates mods who are members of the Wawa's Watering Hole are Kaz and hopper. Which one is the squealer? One or both?

Well I am just going to say I am getting pretty tired of the whole Jokers Updates drama. We have all sorts of splinter boards showing up, Reality TV Gossip should be renamed Jokers Updates Gossip, and it is all really affecting my reading pleasure.

Let us look at the big and little picture. First the little picture - Jokers is run by a drama queen, plain and simple. She has taken a very well run site from Joker and turned it into a suburban high school, except all the grownups are on a permanent vacation. People are always going to flock to it during Big Brother as long as they can keep their live feed updates going. Some people are always going to get burned if they stick around, and they are going to leave to other boards, or start their own boards. And there will be hard feelings all around.

Now the big picture - this happens all the time on the internet. Many of the reality tv sites out there were started as splinter groups from others. Elites TV sprouted from TV Clubhouse. In a way the current Jokers came from Elites TV (it is interesting to note Jokerette was booted out of both of these sites - too bad she can't boot her out of Jokers Updates). The defunct Reality TV Fans came from Big 3 Shows. I believe Media Fiends came from Reality TV Fans. We have splinter boards coming from Fans of Reality TV. They are everywhere.

Do you remember some of those that didn't make it though? Where is realityroxs - one of the first splinter boards from TV Clubhouse? How big is the membership at Reality TV Fans Refugees? How dead is Reality 411? Tornado Hills? Is the Mecca of Razz really hopping?

Splinter boards are so often created in response to anger. And in the beginning that anger drives the site - and brings in people that want to see what the anger is all about. Never great numbers, because the people that are interested come from a very small pool to begin with - the parent site. And that is the crux of the problem - anger can't sustain a site over the long term. For a site to grow it has to get past the anger, cause the anger is a cancer that will eventually kill. A splinter site has to change its focus to something that will make it grow to be successful. Maybe something like reality tv.

Look at the history. Tornado Hills was a site created to get away from the oppressive moderating of TV Clubhouse. It tried to be a new reality site, however, its main draw was its "hate" threads about TV Clubhouse and Elites TV. Tornado Hills was closed when the Mecca of Razz was opened - and it is a graveyard of a site now. Realityrox was also a splinter group of TV Clubhouse - but it couldn't survive, some say because of a member's only area that was focused on its parent.

The sites that succeeded? Reality TV Fans was a splinter board - but they focused on reality tv and not where they came from. Media Fiends the same - they knew to focus on what was important. Elites TV also moved away from their hate of TV Clubhouse and turned their attention to being reality tv site, and thrived.

So the message here? You sites that really want to make a go of it - get down to the business of entertainment, not anger and hate, cause hate and anger is just going to make you a backwater in the reality tv world, or just another fatality. As to all the private sites - I know you are out there and I know where you are - but I don't really care. By being a private site you may as well be in a dark room masturbating because you sure aren't (pro)creating.

Now do something entertaining so I can enjoy myself again!