Dear Serious Eats: 'Enough with the Damn Year-End Reviews!'
I was wondering when someone would express this sentiment. From the Serious Eats inbox ...
Why the fuck did I read your site all year when it turns out I can just tune in this week and get an entire year's worth of shit in my RSS feeder? Enough with the damn reviews clogging things up. I can't find the new material for all this review shit. Stop it. Stop it now!
—Holli
on vacation with a damn Google reader clogged with stuff I've already seen
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Holli,
The time between Christmas and New Year's Day is a slow period for almost any media outlet that publishes on a daily or weekly schedule. After all, like you, we want a vacation, too. ;)
So we, like other publications, work ahead of time in early December to prepare these endless year-in-review items that we can schedule for posting while we're enjoying the holidays with our family and friends.
Tired of "The Year That Was"? We're not! So until we return you to your regularly scheduled programming, use this special feed from Yahoo! Pipes to filter it out.
But it's not just an easy way to generate content and mindlessly go on autopilot. I know I've had a blast looking through the archives of Serious Eats and all its subsites, and I think my co-eater Alaina Browne here summed it up nicely: "It's a great view into the breadth of the Serious Eats beat and the memes and themes that emerged, and a fun way to revisit some of our favorite and most popular posts."
I'm happy that you've read the site so thoroughly and remember everything on it so well that these Year That Was posts are all old hat to you. We love readers like you! But lots of our community members don't have the same steel-trap mind (I know I don't—I had forgotten about a lot of the content we covered this year). Moreover, we've grown so much over the year that much of what we've covered is new to a lot of readers.
Look, I know it can be frustrating. I was watching CNN last night while they did a 2008 campaign wrap-up. I was totally all, "SEEN IT!" and changed the channel.
I wouldn't go so far as asking you to tune out until Monday, when we'll be through all the retrospectives we've got in the works, but I just took some time to make you a special feed using Yahoo! Pipes. Here you go: Serious Eats "The Year That Wasn't". You can go to that page and add the special feed to your Google Reader.
Since you're clamoring for some new material, I'll see if Kerry is available at this hour to mix you up one of her New Year's Eve Champagne cocktails. Look for it in two and two, then have a sip, and relax.
Seriously,
Adam
For Lovers of The Year That Was
Nagging Questions
Food Photography
Ed Levine's Serious Diet
Rest in Peace: Obituaries
Food Video Games
TYTW in Burgers
Stop-Motion Food Videos
Pizza
Food as Other Stuff
TYTW on Serious Eats New York
Movies
Food in Space
Food Media
Food Shortages, Scares, and Rising Costs
Videos
Science
Starbucks
Bacon
The Top Talk Posts of 2008
The Top 10 Posts on Serious Eats
The Top 8 Posts on Slice
The Top 10 Posts on A Hamburger Today
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39 Comments:
Seriously awesome reply Adam. Now, go to bed!
PerkyMac at 12:26AM on 12/31/08
I do approve of all the swearing, though.
greenolivemedia at 12:26AM on 12/31/08
Dear Holli,
Vacation, hmm? Get the fuck off your computer...also, stop swearing at me.
Love,
Philip
Prairie at 12:27AM on 12/31/08
I agree with PerkyMac... that was a great reply, Adam!
Steen at 3:16AM on 12/31/08
Holli Golightly...away.
NorthernBBQer at 6:08AM on 12/31/08
I found Holli's comment hilariously stated. It could have been less amusing = the ones with the same sentiment that weren't posted.
And to Adam, a helpful, albeit long-winded, response. This is coming from the queen of dissertation-like responses to Yes/No questions.
Happy New Year to all!
Cassaendra at 7:22AM on 12/31/08
Holli,
Are you a sailor? Cab driver?
Perhaps anger management classes are something you should consider. Or Cymbalta.
smallkitchen at 7:40AM on 12/31/08
Someone get Holli some Kona Coffee and a catfish farmer.
juliebugsmama at 8:34AM on 12/31/08
Thanks for all the wishes. But the reality Adam is you are posting new content like Cook the Book only I have to wade through shit I've already seen to get it. Here's an idea, be happy with a light week, and let us all enjoy it. -- Holli
memphish at 8:51AM on 12/31/08
Holli is just posing the questions, someone has to pose them. Otherwise we go back to WAY OR NO WAY and last year with the I eat ______ with ______ posts.
Holli come on now pose a question. Adam needs a rest.
JerzeeTomato at 8:55AM on 12/31/08
i heartily approve of both sides of this discussion and wish everyone a happy new year.
z911empire at 9:06AM on 12/31/08
Off with her head.
bessfour at 9:11AM on 12/31/08
Looks like Holli missed snack time! That is extra bad when you are on vacation!!
izatryt at 9:14AM on 12/31/08
Stop talking a put some food in your mouth Holli....!
BigWoollyMammoth at 9:19AM on 12/31/08
Holli ya made me laugh.
bobbob at 9:22AM on 12/31/08
OK! Let's not call for Holli's head. She expressed something a lot of folks are probably feeling. I like z911empire's take on it. At first I was angry but then sort started laughing at Holli's cantankerous email. Sounds like something I would have written to one of my favorite sites.
Adam Kuban at 9:25AM on 12/31/08
Holli, i'm totally with you.
Adam, great response... you may have calmed both Holli and me down. :)
mh330 at 9:31AM on 12/31/08
Now that I have given this a little thought. Not all the Serious Eats readers have been participating this entire year. I'm newer to this site and PERSONALLY, I have enjoyed reading the the year end reviews. Some of them even gave me a second chuckle.
So, Holli ~ It isn't all about you sweetheart.
izatryt at 10:04AM on 12/31/08
my hands are sweating from all the tension.
or because i'm hungover.
($5 pitchers of guiness! can you believe it?)
i think we could all use a little bacon in here.
gastronomeg at 10:14AM on 12/31/08
@hungover ~ simon's looking for you.
@Jerzee ~ holy crap, felt like a slap. you really hate them that much?
PerkyMac at 10:18AM on 12/31/08
well played, both of you
sloppy at 10:57AM on 12/31/08
I have achieved non-RSS reader zen and visit SE at least twice a day. ^_^
Zelnox at 11:09AM on 12/31/08
I agree with Holli. Annoying.
daemon at 12:02PM on 12/31/08
HAHA!
Let's find another reason to complain about a perfectly-good blogging commnity; shall we?!
Way to go Adam--and dammit! Relax and enjoy the well-deserved holiday!!
:D Christel
hungrychristel at 12:18PM on 12/31/08
PS @gastro - Bacon covered with maple syrup and a side of breakfast sausages cures my hangover, you should try it ;)
hungrychristel at 12:19PM on 12/31/08
Holli Rocks! Thank You!
UncleVic at 12:55PM on 12/31/08
I've always found that swearing at people I don't know about something I get for free is incredibly useful and productive. (Hey, I get at least one or two of these a week on different things I'm doing wrong.)
cybele at 2:26PM on 12/31/08
Excellent and hilarious post, Adam! Love it.
Joy Manning at 2:42PM on 12/31/08
Holli - thank you! right on the $$
Adam - i appreciate that you want a vacay too but we read you BECAUSE you're different than the regular media, not because you are just like other publications... I'm sure you can come up with stuff in advance that's not recycling of older stuff.
feeedme at 3:35PM on 12/31/08
Seriously, mercy! I love some well edited best of posts, but this is just too much. I find myself scrolling past all of them looking for something worth reading! Please, in this case, less is more!
jackiecat at 7:22PM on 12/31/08
The Year That Wasn't
Adam Kuban at 8:59PM on 12/31/08
No matter how annoying anyone finds it - it is still infinitely LESS annoying than anything on Chowhound.
f650gsd at 9:41PM on 12/31/08
I would never slap you. I want Holli to get involved.
JerzeeTomato at 12:01PM on 01/01/09
@Jerzee: I bet Holli is involved. Perhaps she produced that rant under a pseudonym and commonly uses another one . . . or two.
Unrelated: Do others ever wonder if SE posters attempt to bolster their crumbling cybercred with their own veiled comments?
Susquehanna at 2:23PM on 01/01/09
I often know I am talking to a crowd of people and they are speaking to me.
They can call themselves anything they like. They are still community members. Like Chelley says we don't have to read everything.
(Checking off my OCD-did I read everything post list)
JerzeeTomato at 1:37AM on 01/02/09
OK. Again, please don't pick on Holli. She expressed an opinion here that a lot of people were too shy to do themselves. I've heard privately from other readers that, yes, enough is enough with the year-end posts. That's why I ended them yesterday with the food porn series.
If left to my own devices, we would have gotten into The Year That Was In:
Crime
Overexposed Persons (Ramsay, Adria, Pollan, Achatz, Chang)
Animals Eating
Cuteness
Weird Food
Pigs
Politics and Politicos
Food Factory Tour Videos
Robert Irvine
So Holli and others spared the rest of you that much!
Adam Kuban at 4:54PM on 01/02/09
ding! ding! everyone back to their corners. lol. i love se..
dearrie at 4:57PM on 01/02/09
I'll have to ask but I get the distinct impression Holli is DocChuck's new moniker ... ;-)
LunaPierCook at 9:39AM on 01/04/09
I like the year-in-review posts. I only became aware of Serious Eats about 4 months ago, so this is not all old stuff for me. Holli's angry post was the first sign of incivility that I have seen on a food site. Even if she was expressing an opinion shared by many other people, she didn't have to be so nasty about it.
minonda at 7:31AM on 01/07/09