Blogfest 2010 Turns into Bashfest

Last night was the Brooklyn Blogfest, run by the event’s organizer, Louise Crawford of Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn and sponsored by ABSOLUT Vodka. We attended a few in the past and met some cool people but we didn’t go to last night’s event. However, for full disclosure, we did participate in the “Stoop life” project by posting how stoop life takes place in Dumbo, kind of. Feel free to bash us. But we did find relevance because we’ve started to partner with community non-profits to donate so they can stay in the area. We liked that Spike Lee and Absolut, or whomever is making a donation to the community (though Spike doesn’t live in Brooklyn, but in a ridiculous UES townhouse, according to blogs). We were offered one of those flip cams, but we declined it. Yes, we were sent a bottle of ABSOLUT Brooklyn vodka, and shared with some people in the neighborhood. The bottle is a cool nod to Brooklyn.

But is this type of PR appropriate at Blogfest? Evidently not. Atlantic Yards Report calls it a shillfest for a drink rather than a meeting of bloggers, which is too bad since the point of the blogfest is to get the Brooklyn blog community together to discuss whatever topic is on our minds. Brownstoner says the event has “run its course”. Brooklyn Heights Blog requested access to interview Spike Lee and Brooklynite Lemon Anderson, but never got a response. Found in Brooklyn probably says it most eloquently:

“was so shocked at the corporate branding and the blogs being secondary to the whole event that I just had stay to watch this corporate love fest. In the past the actual bloggers were given a face to their blogs and that was the whole point, you got to finally meet the people behind the blogs. At this year’s blog fest, an actor did the “shout out” and if you didn’t know the blogs, or were into hip hop style poetry you wouldn’t really know what the hell he was saying.”

It’s too bad that the core reason for Brooklyn bloggers to get together is to meet, but will no longer be at the Brooklyn Blogfest.

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