First, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has sent in applications throughout February for theBME World Tour Intern Contest. I appreciate the effort that all of the applicants put into their videos and for taking the time to help me get to know each and every one of them as best as I could through their videos! Some were really fun to watch and others were a bit painful!
With Jen’s help, I’ve compiled a list of the finalists. I’d like you to watch their videos and then vote at the bottom of the videos. Vote for your FAVORITE 4 applicants! You’re only allowed to vote once. This will help me to figure out who the readers of BME want to see out there on the road with me. The winners of the poll won’t automatically be the winners of the contest but it will definitely help to show who the BME community wants as well as who can get the most people over to BME and voting for them!
I have been working on the logistics and may possibly end up choosing two teams to go out with me because it’s been too hard to narrow down just to four interns! These are the cream of the crop. They’ve either got great talents as writers, photographers or video editors or they just have some supremely awesome quality about them that came through in their applications or video. I really wish I could take them all! Help me to narrow it down because lord knows I can’t fit 18 of us in one suitcase!
Voting closes March 1st at 12:01am PST. I’m hoping to announce the winners on March 1st so we’ve only got a couple days to get those votes in! This will get reposted daily until then!
Ed
Thaddeus
Megan
Chez
Richard
Darah
Kaelahbee
Alberto
RobW
Timothy
Ari Oh
Kristen
Ferg
Adrian
Stewart
DeseRae
Jens
Nae
Now that you’ve watched the videos, VOTE for your favorite 4 applicants. Pick the 4 people you’d want to see out on the road together! Help them get out there by casting your vote! Remember, voting closes March 1st at 12:01am PST so get your friends voting for you!
Comments
158 responses to “The real FINALISTS are..”
“If this was a popularity contest or a vote for the prettiest, quirkiest, most awesome person, I’d be the one with no votes.” Now that’s very far from the truth. 🙂
i really hope richard gets picked. you go, man! <3
Wow, there’s a lot of people around who are far too sensitive and a bit self-important considering it’s a HUGE COMMUNITY…muchos chilling-out, reading other posts properly before commenting and thinking about what you say before you say it is needed!!
Otherwise, this is a great project and will be even greater when Rachel and the BME team can just get on the road! Good luck all.
I read the comments before I even watched the videos and voted, and am really glad I did. Some people left really eloquent responses to a barrage of comments, and some people sounded whiny. You are applying for a job, people. It may not be the most conventional job out there, but maintain some form of professionalism please lol.
Hi Timothy,
Good to see that you are enjoying yourself. When I was your age I treveled the world and also had the luck to travel with many music artists tours in the music industry. All the best of luck and I vote for you and hope you make it.
Good luck,
Cheers,
Bob Johnston
I am casting the largest vote ever for Timothy. I have known Timothy for 13+ years and know what an amazing man he is. He is incredibly intelligent, honest and fun. He is an amazing writer and this opportunity would be absolutely PERFECT for him. Good luck Timothy!!!! xoxoxox
I have to say, I’m with Amy on this one…
“Joke” or not posting a comment like “Norm wants me to put together an all girl team, or apparently a “no model lookin’ dudes” team..” doesn’t seem to reflect the level of professionalism that you are looking for. What was even more alarming is your response to people’s cirticism: “My SO would clearly not want me to be romping around the world in a van of “hot dudes”…He would simply rather see me out on the road with a crew of girls than a bunch of hot guys. Duh.” That doesn’t sound like a joke to me – I wont make any assumptions about your relationship because I don’t know either if you, but that comes off like “I’m not secure enough with our relationship for you to take the most qualified people because they may be more attractive than me.” and THATS what is alarming.
Not to say the finalists you have chosen wouldn’t do a good job – some of these finalists have an amazing array of qualifications and I think would do an awesome job, but the insinuation that some people weren’t chosen because they were “model lookin’ dudes” comes off in a way that would understandably rub people the wrong way.
Jen – I get this now, but it is somewhat discouraging that I’m getting such defensive feedback because I haven’t been an avid reader for that long. I’m new. Is it my fault I didn’t know? Should I stop voicing opinions about vaguely misleading statements that are on a public forum because I didn’t research every post she’s made as a resource first? Like I said, sorry I didn’t get “the joke” but even still, I feel like it CAN potentially sully whatever professionalism there is to something like this. I’ve never been hired by someone that mentioned their SO’s opinion on the matter… hence, once again, why it was a misleading statement for new readers.
I’m merely voicing my opinion on what we’ve been shown – the videos. Which, I think, is the point of sharing them. You can’t get too angry about people wondering why certain people weren’t chosen, which is the huge double-edged sword of only sharing a portion of the applications. I’m sure you were aware of this. If you’re relying on us to vote based on video submissions alone, then you SHOULD be aware some people may have preferred other submissions to these. If we’re not getting the full story, naturally we are operating on WHAT we are getting.
Amy – That wasn’t defensive feedback. Only the first paragraph of my response was for you and I was just pointing out that Norm has been mentioned many times. Perhaps, if you had no idea who he was, making a comment that wasn’t all that nice wasn’t the wisest choice? Either way I was just pointing out where you could find more mentions of Norm and a photo if you wanted.
Obviously some people would have preferred themselves or their friends to have been finalists. That wasn’t the issue and we’re well aware that we’re disappointing people. That sucks, it really does. That’s the drawback to something like this. My comment was merely to the suggestion that we’d somehow just chosen these finalists out of a hat. No one was overlooked. I think it’s important for all the contestants, their friends and the readers of ModBlog to know that. This wasn’t a decision made lightly and we appreciate the time people took to send in applications. A lot of people have offered to help any way they can, even if they’re not chosen and that just speaks to how great this community can be.
As far as posting all the videos, it just wasn’t logical or feasible. There were too many! Too many is great but we just couldn’t post them all. People complained about the relatively small number (compared to how many we received) that we did post. It would have been all out mutiny if we’d posted 100 or so videos.
Hopefully the people who end up going have a good sense of humour because Rachel jokes around a lot and clearly her joke about Norm was completely missed. If the best candidates were all “hot dudes”, she’d take them, period. I guess it’s hard for me to understand why those comments are being taken seriously because I know Rachel too well and I just laughed right out loud when I first read it.
In any case, people can rest assured that candidates are being chosen fairly. This has been a long process and it’s been very hard. I know that the chances are the vast majority of the people who applied could probably do this job, it just comes down to who will do it best. It’s a lot of work. I won’t lie, I would have loved to be going to but the reality is, I couldn’t do it. My health isn’t up for it and while I’m still slightly jealous, I know that without a doubt I could not handle the schedule that is going to be maintained on this tour. Hats off to those who can and I hope the winners think of me languishing on the east coast of Canada while they’re off seeing the world and meeting cool new people. 🙂
Ugh… grammar errors. Sorry.
Jen – “Perhaps, if you had no idea who he was, making a comment that wasn’t all that nice wasn’t the wisest choice?”
Similarly, for new readers, it might have been a better choice to give slightly more context. If my comment was seen as mean, I definitely apologize, but I suppose the same could be said for the remark of “Duh.” Rachel gave me thinking I knew who Norm was when I clearly did not. Perhaps it was my humor that was lost with the Charlie’s Angels remark, haha. This is one of those endless cycles, though, because I feel as though you’re not understanding my intentions weren’t bad and that I had a fair assumption to make. Had she said “the boyfriend/my boyfriend/my boo/my one and truest love of them all” I may not have given it a second thought. So I couldn’t help but wonder if Norm was a team member of BME. Rachel said she found my comment demeaning which is unfortunate, but a new reader would have to go back several pages to see any mention of Norm and his standing.
I also made a comment that I felt others were being overlooked.
However, I really am wondering about the intention of the public voting. Is it actually the deciding factor? Or is it just for fun participation? If so, I don’t think some people are that far off with the popularity contest comparisons… like I said, we’ve only been given face value video auditions. Someone might choose the endearing boy over the girl who has a killer portfolio, no?
Rachel mentioned, I think, that it isn’t the deciding factor but rather another factor she is taking into consideration. People are going to choose those they feel are “attractive” or their friends whether they’re qualified or not, it’s the nature of the ‘net. But hopefully there are others who actually put some thought into who they choose. I know, personally or online, several of the candidates, both in the finalist round and some who didn’t make it. It’s hard but in the end it comes down to a very small group who can go. Any online poll will be part popularity contest but we are watching and reading and taking lots of things into consideration.
There are some things that I think I’d like to mention as far as videos go, if there is a future contest but I’ll save it until a more appropriate time.
I think that this post has certainly affected who we’re narrowing it down to. I had given Rachel my picks and reasons why I thought they should go, prior to this and have sent her a new list since then based in part on the discussion that’s gone on here. So it isn’t all for nothing, that’s for sure.
Lovely misplaced comma. I’m just full of grammar errors today!
See, I don’t think it matters who made the comment that Norm did – had he just been some random mod who had said it, it still would have been equally as bad. The fact that its someone who is in a relationship with the person running the trip is inconsequential – I personally probably wouldn’t have posted it at all.
And Jen don’t worry about the grammatical errors – I actually think they lend to the personality of people’s writing on the internet, for better or worse, which can actually lead to some keen insight of their personality overall 😛
Jess – It matters when you’re an English teacher! 🙂 It just glares at me like a beacon of shame.
HAH! Ok well then in your case: “HOW DARE YOU?!?!”
I thought that Norm’s comment was hilarious. I guess I forgot that the internet is serious business.
Thank you for your support! A few people above have said some very nice things about me and it feels good.
I woke up today to see that I’d jumped up a bit in the voting. Thanks again! <3
I’m glad I don’t have the final casting vote on this. I don’t think I’m in any specific way qualified to comment on who should go, but I appreciate the invitation to express my opinion. Frankly, the best I can do is put a cross in the box of those who had seemed to give off the best “vibe”, and I think that’s all anyone can. How you get to a selection is your opinion, and my thought process was in many ways quite cynical. I suspect the same will be said for a substantial number of the people who vote. Fundamentally I’d like to say well done to everyone who was courageous enough to sit in front of a camera and expose themselves to the judgement of the world!
On a slightly different note – I think this has been a great idea and I’d love to see more like it. I think that the challenge laid down by a contest and posting the applications could be a driver to some really high quality content in the future. I don’t know what that would necessarily entail but I find the format intriguing.
I would also just like to say that, if I don’t get picked, I’m flying to Kansas to hang out with Megan cos she’s hilarious and I could use some hilarity in my life.
OMG my relationship must be so horrible because my SO made a joke about preferring I be on the road with a team of girls over guys.. Wow that’s so hard to believe and it certainly isn’t humorous!!
It’s such a horrible comment that I shouldn’t have posted it and now I’m making it worse by being unprofessional!! Finalists don’t follow my example and screw up as badly as I did. Give me a second to take my foot out of my mouth before I choke on it! Oh Nooooooo! Such serious business!
For the record, a lot of extremely attractive women applied but unfortunately not very many “model lookin’ dudes” applied. Clearly the ones that did are in the finalist round though because I only hire 10′s.
i have returned.
i would just like to let you know that i plan on taking it to 11, rachel. just sayin’.
I like to think I’m one of the “model lookin’ dudes”.
rob, you look good.
that would be funny if you could hear the voice that goes along with it.
i have a lot of comments.
@Ari… You are so welcome in Kansas it’s ridiculous. Seriously. I can show you all of the natural splendors Kansas has to offer…such as pastures and ghost towns.
@Rachel…If you, in fact, choke on your own foot…does that mean that there are FIVE/SIX spots on this tour…just curious.
@des!…Is your website headline from “Perks of Being a Wallflower”? If so…I wish I could get a fist bump from you right now.
@irene: fist bump it is, then!
“I’m German. I’m good at organizing.”
Bwahahahaha.
You definitely want Jens on your team. He’ll keep you in line. He’s got my vote.
*starts sending in applications for male modeling positions and practices his blue steel*
Rachel: I know you said votes don’t mean shit and people can only vote once anyways. I actually voted for a certain person SEVERAL times and the number continued to go up as I reclicked and reclicked. Just sayin’.
Megan- I grew up in Indiana. I know pastures and ghost towns. Maybe not to the extent of Kansas’, but I’ve been there. Come to LA and I’ll show you the sights and sounds of a city that never dies. Literally never. Haha!
I would believe that I would be a “10″ because I’m in the finals… Adrian… FTW
It honestly doesn’t even matter if people are trying to “game” the voting system because it doesn’t matter.
Even if someone got 100,000,000 votes, it won’t change their standing with me.
I think I should come up with one extra credit assignment from the finalists to make this easier on me. I wish I could take the entire set of finalists. I have it down to 6 people in my mind. Part of me wants to give up my own spot on the tour just so that I don’t have to choose between the last two people!
Rachel, I understand that it’s much easier to get snarky and ~LOLz~ your way to the next day about whatever is posted online… but the defensiveness about it is just silly. I explained why I commented the way I did, apologized for it coming off the wrong way, and tried to move on. I’m not trying to push buttons. Getting responses like this just kinda blows… where’s the concern for readers? The sarcastic comments are just as unnecessary as if I had continued to make remarks about Norm with the new knowledge it was your boyfriend. Seriously. It’s fine. Please don’t take the fact that SOME people (honestly not myself! I am about as indirectly involved as any other reader) may find it asinine to even hear that kind of stuff in something determining the next 2-3 months of their lives/their friends’ lives/etc. Liek omg wtfbbq amirite?
So, I still wonder, what is the point of voting outside of a popularity contest if it has no final standing on the last decisions? Like I said, it’s cool if it’s mere audience participation… but at the same time, if it really doesn’t matter… why do it? Better yet, why get so miffed people aren’t 100% behind it?
Amy – I’m guessing because those behind BME/IAM have always aimed to make this site as inclusive as possible – the more involved people get, the more successful it is. It really shouldn’t be as much of an issue as it seems to be. I think the parameters have been laid out properly, and I just don’t see what the cause for concern is here.
I think it’s interesting to see who’s got “Fans” by this voting system. And to see who is capable of not only capturing interest of those who are un-decided through their videos, but also who can market themselves online through blogs, facebook, twitter pages etc and having non-BME people come here to vote.
As someone who’s worked with a lot of bands who try to win online contests for free trips/recording time etc… it’s definitely an important skill to have!
having spent most of my college career in classes with kristen, i know that she will produce the highest quality products, be the hardest worker, and the most gung-ho and on-board member of the group if (when) you choose her!
I think Alberto shows signs of having a good, honesty personality with a subtle sense of humor. His jokes don’t sound canned. I think he’s the closest one to being a “10,” but it would be nice to see some modifications since this is a BME contest. I’m guessing he has some, but didn’t expect the videos to go up on Modblog? Request: Could he sell himself a bit more?
Saoirsa – I can totally understand that. I’m not as much concerned as much as I’m simply curious. There was a dismissal of the whole “popularity contest” accusations some people have made, so I couldn’t help but wonder what supported the argument against that. This was a pretty interesting task to give the applicants, and I’m intrigued by how it’s proceeding.
Rob W is vote whoring at fark.com. BOOOOOOO
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=5059781
“So I’m calling on the power of Fark to vote for me, RobW.
Now seeing as how you get 4 vote choices, feel free to vote for whoever else you like (although Timothy and Chez are good peoples). I really appreciate any and all votes. Thanks!
Also, I realize the site may be blocked at work for you. If that’s the case, just click the link below. It will cast a single vote for myself and won’t trip any work filters.
Click here to vote instantly. (new window)”
I said this on my IAM page, but I’ll say it here too. I feel extremely lucky and honored to be nominated as a finalist for the BME World Tour. There are great people on this list with so many skills and I’m really glad that I now have a reason to shoot them an IM (‘hey – good luck and congrats!’ suddenly turns into new friendships) and start talking to them. I feel even luckier to have such a huge group of friends and supporters who have gotten the word out and sent people to the site to vote for me. I’d like to say a sincere ‘Thank you’ to everyone who has voted for or supported me in this as well of course to Rachel, Jen, and all of BME for even making this possible.
I also have to say that I’d absolutely hate to be in Rachel’s shoes right now because I would not want to make the final decisions about this at all!
Good luck everyone and again, thank you for all of the support!
ARI FOR THE WIN!
Of the people in this group of finalists, I’ve met Thad, Chez and Timothy. I kind of think I met Ferg once in person too. I’ve been talking to Nae for years and know of Darah, Rob and Jens from IAM/BME. Seeing all these great people (and many people I knew that didn’t make it this far) is both great and also a bit torturous. I know Rachel is having a hard time narrowing it down and even when I gave her my thoughts and opinions, I was a bit all over the place. (Except for 2 solid “you really have to take these people” suggestions.)
Amy – Rachel has said from the start this is just one factor. The votes don’t mean anything in that they will not decide the winner but she’s said a few times that this is being done to see who the readers like. Like Saoirsa said, this site has always tried to be inclusive of the community and this is one way the community can get involved. We aren’t ignoring the votes completely, we’re just not using them as a deciding factor. This isn’t American Idol and our concern is for who actually has the right stuff for the job, first and foremost.
Honestly I think the discussion in this thread has been the best part. I know I said it before but this discussion (and those in previous video threads) have really done a lot for me in throwing my support behind certain people that I actually didn’t really have strong feelings for to begin with (and in a few cases, taking support away from some people).
I think that this contest has attracted some new readers to ModBlog and that’s awesome and I think it might benefit to click Rachel’s name and read some of her previous articles, especially any contestants who aren’t really familiar with Rachel as a person and maybe don’t realize how driven she is. She’s hard to keep up with, trust me! (and if you really want to, you can read my articles too, I don’t mind)
Oh I should probably add, the reason I mentioned these few that I know is that it’s hard because even if I know them or consider them a friend, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be chosen – same with Rachel, just because they’re a friend doesn’t mean they’ll get chosen which adds an extra layer of difficulty in the task. I’m not envying Rachel’s position right now.
Also, there are several contestants that I don’t know, who I’d really like to get to know because I think they seem great! 🙂
# 143 Might I say that I am extremely flattered with your kind words… Especially the whole closest to a ’10′. I remember when I was in junior high, I lost to Susan Betterman in the Princess of San Diego competition. Today I feel justice has been served…(she had rigged the election by agreeing to go to the dance with Jason the class president)
I’ve had a sales job before so I’ll give it a shot at selling myself.
The great thing about casting a vote for Alberto is that with every vote an angel gets it wings, an butterfly is hatched from a cocoon, a flower blooms, a Toyota gets fixed, a pot hole is filled, and a Sham-Wow! will delivered to your home*
*While supplies last.
In all sincerity, I can really express how grateful I am for the opportunity. I’ve done alright in my field of work, but as a freelancer, days that I don’t have work, people always remind me that I may have not made the right choice, career-wise. That I should buckle down and get a ‘real’ job. But even when I probably should have given up, I pushed on and landed some pretty interesting gigs. Some not so interesting. But I stayed true to myself and did what I had to do to get better in my field. I know I still have a long way to go, but being a finalist makes me believe I’m doing something right.
If I am lucky and skilled enough to go on this adventure, I cannot wait to tell all the people that told me to get a real job (most are my friends, so I wouldn’t mean it vindictively) that for the next three months, I’ll be cruising around the world, while they have to stay in the city that Forbes magazine names 2nd most boring city in America.
If anyone is still curious about what I do, then you are more than welcome to check out my site by clicking on my name in red.
Finally, I just wanted to say that if Rachel wants to throw in an extra credit assignment to spice things up even more, I am game. It should be fun, even with only around 24 hours to go.
Jimmy: Not sure why you would think that I would be upset with you posting that. Part of the voting is bringing new people to BME, so of course I would bring this to the attention of a community I’ve been involved with for 10 years. This is the social networking portion, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that Fark is somewhat of a social website. Fark gatherings, valentines card exchanges, and many more things bring the community together. Which is also part of what’s happening here. The community is coming together to show their support for those they feel would do well on the tour.
Given that you took the time to come here and post tells me that even if you didn’t vote for me, you still took the time to give the site a glance, and contributed to the voting. Whether you voted for me or not isn’t the point. As for the second link, yes I did provide a link that would cast a vote for me. Why? Because I know that BME is filtered as an adult website from many workplaces, and the vast majority of people on Fark post during the workday. That was the only place I have used that link, as everywhere else it wouldn’t be necessary. As well, I had hoped that people would get curious as to what they were voting for and would come to the site later on the check it out.
Amy: Despite having taken the time to explain the point of the “Voting process” several times, you still don’t “get it”. I don’t see any reason to continue to waste my time explaining it to you. You don’t see the point but that really doesn’t matter because it’s not our job to make you understand. I know why I am having people vote and that is the only thing that matters because I am the one who put together the contest!
As far as Rob “whoring on Fark”, good for him. He’s trying to win a contest. I don’t see the point of “tattling” on him. If you also didn’t know this, I can see when anyone posts a link to modblog, it’s a function of wordpress so I’m not sure if you want me to go “do something about it” but then I’d have to go talk to everyone who has posted all over the internet about their becoming finalists.
I’m about to post an “extra credit” assignment right now as well as narrowing it down to 10 contestants so that everyone doesn’t have to do the extra credit assignment if they’re not on my top 10 list.
As soon as the video uploads to youtube, I’ll post it here on Modblog!
I watched all of the videos and read every single comment here. Not that my comments mean a whole hell of a lot if anything at all, I am going to comment on a few things.
1. It really bothers me that certain individuals want to be chosen for the internship that will documented and presented via the Internet, however, the individuals can not take criticism. Criticism on the Internet can not be avoided, nor should it. It is a valuable tool the find out how an individual responds to criticism whether the criticism is deserved or not is irrelevant, it is all about how the person handles the criticism.
2. Shannon’s comments were insightful and with his experience and involvement in the community, I am sure he could put together an amazing team of interns.Although, I am not sure why people are fretting over his comments, like Rachel has said it is her tour and her interns and it is her opinion that matters. Actually if my memory serves me correctly Shannon also mentioned that these were only his opinions although he would like his opinions to be taken into consideration. How many times does Rachel have to repeat herself on that issue?
3. I think it is fantastic that some of the finalists are putting it out there on other blogs, websites, social networking online communities, telling friends, etc that they have been chosen as a finalist and linking them to modblog. Many things are accomplished by this action. The finalist becomes more known to outsiders of the site, it shows the finalist can broadcast and draw people in to a certain website or article, the finalist displays that they are enthusiastic about the internship by putting extra time into putting it out there and most importantly it draws more people in who may have never heard of modblog or bmezine before this contest/internship.
4. I think for the most part this is a great group of finalists. I like some more than others, but everyone has their own personal opinions. I liked some of the applicants more from their video before I read through all of the comments they have posted here.
5. I wish I would not have had certain issues come up in my life that prevented me from completing my application, however, after seeing the great group of applicants that Rachel has to chose from, I am just excited to see the soon to be chosen official group of interns out there and doing a great job. This is literally the opportunity of a lifetime and I hope the chosen interns really know how truly incredible this opportunity is! Good luck to all of the finalists!
( My votes went to: RobW, Timothy, Darah and Chez ) Although I think Nae would be an excellent choice as well.