The Lie that is the Kenyan Blog Awards – 2016 Edition

I have just received an email from BAKE, yes I am still a member, announcing the voting phase for the blog awards. The sham that we call Blog awards. How we are lied to friends…

My networks have all been nominated. And I am happy for them. I didn’t expect nomination since my site – the one most of you would know me from – is still small and receives only about 250 views a day. Plus I wasn’t interested in being nominated. The blogger girl just called. She was screaming that her personal site has been left out. I had to tell her there are so many fashion bloggers in Kenya, they probably have never heard of her. Told her to get a nose ring. Maybe that’d get her nominated next year. But she’s happy the site they formed as a group has been nominated.

I have gone through the nominations and can’t help but laugh. How stupid are we to believe that this is a serious process. The lie that there’s a panel of serious judges going through all of the sites people submit… Oh of course there are judges. But out of 4000+ submissions, the list of nominees we’ve been given looks like something done overnight.

See BAKE is peculiar. We are members but there are other members –special bigshots – who run everything and tell us when to meet, where to go, what to pay and how to handle ourselves. They are the special high ranking members. Like Greek gods. To be hallowed and adored and looked up to like the best bloggers. Like the clever people championing for others. They organise the awards and as it now seems, nominate themselves or their friends, or blogs they want to market out so that Ad agencies can notice them. Or so that they can sleep at night and be happy for their successes.

Hear me out. Let’s for example look at the technology blog of the year nominations.

First on the list is Techweez.com, a very huge tech media outlet. In fact this website is so big it is quoted on tech news outlets around the world. It is like nominating The Next Web, Android Authority, GSM Arena or even Recode for blogs’ competitions. Once again BAKE fails, and this is awful as they should know better, at differentiating between what blogs are and what news sites are. A technology news site isn’t a tech blog. And that Techweez is also in the run for blog of the year…

Third on the list is Droid254.com a site that is never updated. A site that lacks content and direction. A site that posts emailed press releases from corporates. A site with no sense of writing skills. A site with no beauty and no originality. It looks like some sort of abandoned test. Very rarely updated. And filled with spam comments. A failed project that BAKE is looking to revive.

Other tech nominations are:

1. mbuguanjihia.com – which has good content where you can learn new things and targets a particular niche of tech readers. One of those sites to subscribe to especially for tech business enthusiasts. Problem is the content by Phyllis can be found on other websites. And how original is that now…? I believe in content being unique to one site. And in people linking park only a portion. But who am I?
2. tech-ish.com – which to be honest and fair is a beautiful site with good content and a personal touch
3. moseskemibaro.com which is good, honest and very well personalised and relatable.

So from the tech nominations, mbuguanjihia.com, moseskemibaro.com and tech-ish.com are the only that deserve to be on this list. The other two slots are wasted! And do you know what this means? It means approximately 400 other prospective tech bloggers have been left out. Tech bloggers who love their sites. Who know what it means to create content, good content. Bloggers who take their time to give people quality. And to make it relatable, blog-like and all inclusive.

We’ve been played. For example for another year running there’s no girl nominated in the tech category. And who says girls don’t blog about tech? Who?

I personally nominated 2 tech blogs run by girls to this category! Where are they? Did they judges consider them? Didn’t they see that these girls offer better content than that stupid Droid site? Or is it that they don’t know these girls, like I assume they know Droid (who always gets nominated) that they decided to leave them out? Is it so?

Let’s look at some sites that should have been nominated in the tech category. Better technology blogs that I and my friends sat down and nominated:

1. E-TechAfrica.co.ke – one of the very best tech blogs in Kenya. Run by a beautiful and determined girl who does everything better than all the people nominated! Catherine creates content like no one else! And nominating her for best new blog waters down her efforts in the tech category. Plus she’s not new!
2. TechinPink.com – run by a girl, Gertrude, in Kenya and another girl in Nigeria. But that doesn’t disqualify it now, does it? It is still Kenyan. And beats by far what BAKE considers the best deserving nomination.
3. MobiTrends.co.ke – the biggest tech blog in Kenya. Nothing comes close. Run by Kevin Kimani. A site many tech bloggers will agree is better than all those in the nominations!
4. TechArena.co.ke – Lie to me now that you have never seen or heard of TechArena or MobiTrends. All of you visit these two sites. TechArena is immaculately done. Always updated. Very good writing. And Kaluka Wanjala takes time to make sure this blog competes with Tech News outlets!

I guess the last two weren’t nominated because they make more money than most of the nominated sites as they help sell stuff. I realised BAKE never curates smartphone reviews in their Social Media postings and newsletters. Why? Aren’t they deserving enough? If BAKE doesn’t recognise the tech blog smartphone reviews as blog posts, then they should kick out tech reviewers.

These above sites were nominated by not one, not two, but many people. They deserve to be in the voting phase. They are good sites! The judges didn’t look at them because the judges didn’t look at any nominations! The nominations are done helter-skelterly in order to meet deadlines and please the corporates that fund the process. Some corporates we members only hear of during the “Gala”. I mean a day ago we received an email that the voting phase had been delayed with no definite time frames. All of a sudden the judges – who we didn’t give the job – have gotten all psyched up and finally came up with a list.

Let’s go to the photography category.

BuoArt has been nominated again. Last time he won, yet there was no blog. This time there’s a website portfolio. You know what a portfolio is. Does a portfolio in any corner of the worldwide web, searchable or deep, qualify as a blog? I can hear a resounding NO. Everyone knows what blogs look like. And portfolios aren’t blogs! Another scam this is by BAKE to sell BuoArt, themselves, or to make money.

I only deal with creative writing, technology and photography blogs. And I’ll stop there. My photography blog will be nominated in 2020.

By the way Bikozulu can be nominated forever and ever. Because that’s how good he is in his category. If only we could break up the categories to show poetry, short stories, book reviews, plays etc., then we could really be seeing the many talents that fail to get nominations.

But when I say “we” my mind reminds me that there’s no “we”. There’s only “special BAKE members who make all the decisions”. And they are the ones who will see this blog post and trash it.

Congratulations to all blogs nominated, the ones deserving the nominations and the ones fixed for selfish motives.

In a parallel universe all BAKE members appoint the judges themselves and see the system Kachwanya always says tallies the votes. Well in a parallel universe BAKE also has meetings and elections and transparent sources and use of funds. But we all know the moment we walk down that road BAKE may be broken and forgotten forever.

Let the voting begin. And the “We’ve been rigged” claims.

Oh Kenya.