TIME Is Not On My Side

I was very happy to read yesterday that A Hamburger Today — the renowned food blog for which my friend Damon is a contributor — was voted by TIME Magazine as one of the Best Blogs Of 2011. Damon’s the Los Angeles burger correspondent, and he and I pretty much see eye-to-eye on this city’s sundry hamburger offerings. I think the only thing we’ve disagreed on is Umami Burger, and he admitted to me last week he hasn’t been there since 2009. So congratulations Damon and everyone who contributes to my favorite food blog.

Alas, as I scrolled down the list published by TIME yesterday morning that — although praise was heaped upon blogs with silly names like “Cool Hunting” and “Dr. Orly Taitz Esquire” — Swan Fungus did not make the cut. It was not voted one of the Best Blogs of 2011, nor was it voted an Essential Blog or a Blog We Could Do Without. Hell, I wouldn’t have even minded the last category. Sometimes I could do without Swan Fungus in my life, too.

Listen, I know magazines aren’t relevant anymore in the year 2011, and those which have been around for almost a century — much like TIME has — are run by old farts who know very little about the darkest, most-entertaining corners of the Internet. So I’m not surprised that Swan Fungus once again missed out on a Best Of The Internet list. I like being underground. And as much as I love lists, I can’t fault the people at TIME for forgetting about me. To be honest, if I was writing a list of news magazines with the name TIME in the title I might forget about TIME because what the hell use for it does anybody have anymore? Maybe in 1923 it was a big deal, but this is 2011. A Hamburger Today is a more important news source and their biggest stories usually revolve around the science of a sandwich.

I guess my point is, if you’re going to award a prestigious title like “Best Blog Of 2011″ to a website which contains a “stream of photographs in which random strangers inventory what they keep in their pockets…” or a website that isn’t even operational (it’s *scheduled* to debut in the fall)…you could at least honorably mention Swan Fungus as one of the Best Blogs of 2011.

Okay, maybe 2011 hasn’t been my finest year yet. I took a month off because I was busy wallowing in my own retarded self-pity and then sport-fucking my way around the country. My readership dropped drastically during that time period. People might have thought I was hanging up my MacBook Pro and calling it quits. It’s understandable. When a person blogs every day for 6 years, several weeks without an entry usually signals the end (or death, but I have been assured that if I meet an untimely demise someone from my family will let you know). But that’s not the case. Swan Fungus is very much alive, very much in a transitional phase, and very soon will be a completely new beast. A beast with a potential revenue stream and a T. Rex’s cock. So, like, if TIME Magazine wants to award a Best Blog award to a website that hasn’t even launched yet, they should also give one to a blog that is evolving.

Perhaps the most insulting (and oh-so-meta!) inclusion on TIME’s list of 2011′s best blogs is Listverse. A blog about lists on a list of the best blogs of the year!? Oooh. Sexy. Oh, wait. You mean it’s just a collection of reader-submitted top-10 lists compiled on one easy-to-navigate website? Fuck you, TIME. I’ve been creating my own (almost!) unique weekly top ten lists for SIX FUCKING YEARS! When do I get my comeuppance!?

What’s that you say? Comeuppance is a bad thing? Well then what’s the good-thing equivalent of comeuppance? Is it “just reward”? I don’t really care. I made my point. Swan Fungus is the greatest Evan LeVine-centric website on the entire Internet and if TIME Magazine doesn’t want to recognize me for that then it can continue to be another sad and irrelevant weekly newsmagazine with a circulation of 3,000,000 old people who probably don’t even own or understand the concept of computers. I don’t need their stupid award. I’ll go win some other award. Just watch me.

…So, I guess I should cross Time Warner off my list of companies to whom I might one day send my resume?

Joy Division – Means To An End
Black Flag – I Don’t Care