rebuttal

(update: i decided to remove the link to the thread to protect the posters.)

there was a thread that was brought to my attention recently that i felt necessary to respond to.  here is my rebuttal to the issues brought up.  since i am no longer linking to the thread, i will paraphrase the issues that were brought up.

ISSUE: racing shouldn't be considered art.
1) we consider artists to be anyone that meets certain minimum requirements in the following fields: film, music, fashion, sports, performing arts, and visual arts.  while some may debate sports as being an art, we felt that a high level of skill at any sport qualifies (think michael jordon for basketball, david beckham for soccer, gymnastics, wushu, etc).  as far as i know, racing is considered a sport.

also, if you've followed our site for a while, you'll see that we try to be more loose with the definition of artist rather than keep things too strict.  we want to create an inclusive community, which is why we accept artists of all types, from all regions, of all races/nationalities, famous or not.

ISSUE: i have a company, so doesn't that make me an artist?
2) companies that we list as "official partners" are either ones that we have worked with, OR arts organizations, OR companies that official artists on our site are involved with.  we're not just haphazardly adding companies.  and down the road we will probably break out companies into "groups" once that feature is built.

ISSUE: all alivenotdead cares about is celebrities.
3) our site is not just about celebrities.  if that were the case, we'd probably have less than 100 artists on the site, not 600+.  and those artists would probably be concentrated in the actor, singer/band, and model categories and very little else.  if all you pay attention to and fan are the celebrities, then of course you'd think that we're just about celebrities.  try doing what i'm doing and fan every artist and read all of their blogs/photo albums/videos/music ... you'll see very quickly and clearly that our site is much more than celebrities.

ISSUE: alivenotdead is just trying to bring celebrities on, get a lot of users, and sell and make money.
4) i don't feel there is anything wrong with trying to build value in something that you are working on.  but our goal isn't just to build up the site and sell it off.  we're trying to build something that we feel has a positive benefit on society, and at the same time we're happy working with good friends, having fun doing it, building something cool, and watching it grow. 

if you're doing something for the sole purpose of making a quick buck, that's a recipe for failure.  if you build something good, that will have value.  and that remains whether or not it's eventually sold.  i'm obviously biased, but i think rotten tomatoes is a good example of this.  or youtube.  or skype.  or too many examples to list.  and when we were doing rotten tomatoes, because of the dotcom crash, there was a long period of time when we thought we'd never sell the company and we were fine with that for the same reasons i listed above.

ISSUE: alivenotdead is just making their friends into artists.
5) our site is also not just about friends.  most of the artists on our site i have never met; and i have probably met more artists on our site than almost anyone else.  the reason why it seems like it's all friends is because: 1) artists can refer other artists (and they often do); 2) artists will interact with the artists they know; and 3) if you can't tell, it's a friendly site!


on an unrelated note, if you live in new york, please go check out kenneth bi's film, the drummer, which is playing at the ny asian american int'l film festival on july 19th!

more info here:
http://www.alivenotdead.com/kennethbi/NEW+YORK+ASIAN+AMERICAN+INT%C2%92L+FILM+FESTIVAL-profile-199094.html#comments

Add a comment