It is finished, Ladies and Gentlemen. The Golden Klog Awards voting period has expired, results have been compiled, and it is time for awards to be handed out. More than 900 people voted on the different parts of the survey, some categories were blowouts, and some were excruciatingly close, a lot of people found out about a lot of blogs they hadn’t heard of before, and a lot of bloggers got some much deserved exposure. There has been a lot of good blogging in 2008, and to me, recognizing that is much more important than having winners in each category… but since everybody likes finality, here goes:
(to more accurately simulate the excess and self-congratulation of other award ceremonies, you are free to imagine thirty minutes of commercial breaks, dance tributes, musical interludes, and bloated victory speeches between each announcement.)
What would you vote is the K-Blog Story of the Year?
Brian in Jeollanamdo Attacked by Netizen Bullies
E2 Visas: Headache after Headache after Headache
Economy (and Exchange Rate) Tanks
Expat Community United By Tragedy (Bill Kapoun, Mike White, Nerine Viljoen, etc.)
Kim Jong-Il: The New Elvis, and World’s Worst Photoshopper
Korea Grinds To A Halt Over Mad Cow Paranoia
Police Not Doing Their Jobs
This category was no real surprise: Korea Grinds to a Halt over Mad Cow Paranoia took the prize by over fifty votes. Well, after a hundred days of protesting, at least that was accomplished.
Best Korea Blog 2008, Overall
the nominees were:
Frog In A Well
Gord Sellar
Gusts of Popular Feeling
Korea Beat
The Marmot’s Hole
ROK Drop
The winner was (drumroll please): Korea Beat, in another rout. Whatever they put in the water over at Korea Beat, it won them more votes than the second and third place blogs combined! Good job, KB!
Most Thought Provoking Korea Blog, 2008
the nominees were:
The Grand Narrative
Gord Sellar
Gusts of Popular Feeling
Scribblings of the Metropolitician
Seoul Searcher’s Blog
This one was a close race, with the lead changing several times, but in the end… Brian in Jeollanam-do put a little distance between himself and his rivals. Good job, Brian.
Most Current and Timely Korea Blog, 2008
the nominees were:
DPRK Studies
Korea Beat
Korea Dispatch
Marmot’s Hole
ROK Drop
Yet again, it was Korea Beat, with a comfortable distance between itself and the second place. I guess several posts a day straight out of Korean dailies will do that for a blog.
Most Helpful Blogs to Expats, 2008
here are your nominees:
Foreign/er Joy
Galbijim
Gyopo Wife
Hub of Sparkle
Korea Gig Guide
Korea Law Blog
OK Korea
SeoulSteves
Zenkimchi
KoreanClass101
This was an interesting category, and while I usually won’t, I’ll tip my hand a bit here and mention top three blogs, all of which could have walked away with the prize without any complaint from this writer. Galbijim jumped to an early lead, but somewhere along the line, the more-popular-than-I-ever-realized Eat Your Kimchi took a fairly decent lead, only to face a late charge from Korean Class 101. In the end, Korean Class 101 came in second by a single vote, with Eat Your Kimchi taking the prize, but when all the above blogs are helping expats make it in Korea, there are no losers.
(do I sound like a little-league soccer coach? who cares)
Funniest Korea Blog, 2008
your nominees were…
Chubbo Chubbington
Dokdo Is Ours
Eat Your Kimchi
George Goes Korean
I Got 2 Shoes
Stuff Korean Moms Like
A White Man In Korea
Your winner, by about ten votes over the second place contestant, was Stuff Korean Moms Like. This category was a revelation to me: there were some seriously good laughs in here, and four or five of these blogs are now on my blog feeds, where they weren’t before.
(Special mention here: glaring ommission/unintentional snub goes to Party Pooper. Sorry, bud. See you next year.)
Happiest Korea Blogger, 2008
here are your nominees:
Expat Jane
Going Places
Kimchi-Ice Cream
Roboseyo
Seoul Patch
Staypuff
Zenkimchi
Once again, Eat Your Kimchi represented in this category, with only one other blog coming within 30 votes of their total. Bloggers of Korea take notice: Eat Your Kimchi has arrived!
Angriest Korea Blogger, 2008
your nominees for Angriest Korea Blogger:
Brian in Jeollanam-do
Korea Rum Diary –
Richardson (DPRK Studies)
The Commenters (pick your location)
Brian in Jeollanam-do pulled off an interesting twofer here, by winning both Most Thought Provoking and angriest blogger…two categories that would seem at first to be kind of mutually exclusive. I guess anything is possible in Jeollanam-do.
Best Blog About Korean Pop Culture, 2008
your nominees…
Dramabeans
Feetman Seoul
Korea Pop Wars
PopSeoul
Seoulbeats
YeinJee’s Pop Channel
The winner in this category, in a landslide, was Dramabeans, which coincidentally, was one of the blogs which linked to this survey and told its readers to vote. In another coincidence, the number of votes for Dramabeans almost exactly coincided with the average number of “skipped question” entries for most of the other categories in this part of the survey, and in ANOTHER coincidence, the amount by which more people participated in this part of the survey than the second part was ALSO almost exactly that same margin. Which is fine: it’s the internet, after all.
Way to represent, Dramabeans readers!
(Glaring ommission/unintentional snub for Best K-pop Blog: several commenters mentioned that CoolSmurf Domain deserved to be nominated in this category, and after taking a look around their site, I agree. Sorry, CoolSmurf. See you next year, too.)
Best Blog about Korean Culture in General, 2008
your nominees were…
Frog in a Well
Gord Sellar
The Grand Narrative
Gusts of Popular Feeling
Gypsy Scholar
Seoul Podcast
The Western Confucian
In my opinion, this was one of the strongest categories in the entire survey, and I was frankly surprised at how lopsided the voting came out, but in the end, there could be only one, and Ask A Korean! waltzed away with the prize, making it look easy.
Apologies are in order here: Steve Thoughts was nominated in this category, but was accidentally left off the ballot in the final survey. Apologies go out to, Steve Thoughts, and the person who nominated him for Best Culture Blog.
Best Korean Food Blog, 2008
nominees for Best Korean Food Blog:
A Food Journey in Korea
Crazy Korean Cooking
FatManSeoul
Homebrew Korea
Korean Food Blog
Maangchi
Seoul Eats
Wine Korea
ZenKimchi Food Journal
Congratulations to newcomer FatManSeoul, for edging out a two vote victory in a very competitive category. The frequency of posting, the on-the-ground immediacy of living in Korea, the tight food focus, and the humorous tone seem to have sealed this category away for FatMan. Well done.
Best Korean Photography Blog, 2008
nominees for best Korean photography:
Drifting Focus
FatManSeoul
Mike Hurt (FeetmanSeoul, Metropolitician)
Hermit Hideaways
Robert Koehler (Marmot’s Hole)
Here, Mike Hurt beat out some very talented competition, mostly for his fashion photography work with FeetManSeoul. All the photographers featured here are worth a look, but congratulations, Mike, for taking another competitive category.
Best Personal/Diary Blog, 2008
the nominees are:
Big White Barbie does Busan
Chosun Bimbo
The Constant Crafter
Foreign/er Joy
Geek in Korea
George Goes Korean
Gyopo Wife
Idiot’s Collective
Lao Ocean Girl
The Joshing Gnome
Roboseyo
This category featured some of the most balanced voting in the entire survey, with every one of the blogs listed garnering respectable totals. In the end, Roboseyo beat out the others, but not without having to scrap for it. Some of my favorite blogs were listed here, as well as a couple new ones which I’ll be checking from now on, and you should, too.
Most Interesting Comment Board, 2008
the nominees in this category are:
Ask A Korean!
FeetManSeoul
Hub of Sparkle
The Grand Narrative
Ask A Korean! once again proved its mettle in this category, taking the prize with a strong showing, and collecting a second prize in the contest, joining Korea Beat, Brian in Jeollanam-do, and Eat Your Kimchi as multiple Golden Klog winners.
Craziest Comment Board, 2008
nominees:
(not really a blog, but…) Dave’s ESL Cafe
Dokdo Is Ours (this one’s more wacky than crazy, but…)
The Marmot’s Hole
Scribblings Of The Metropolitician
The Marmot’s Hole took this award, after nearly grabbing a handful earlier in the survey. While the writers can’t take credit, the readers and commenters will probably be proud.
Best New Korea Blog, 2008
The nominees for Best New Korea Blog are…
Foreign/er Joy
Gyopo Wife
Hub of Sparkle
Naked In The Sauna
OK Korea
Rate My Hagwon
This and the next were my two favorite categories, because finding cool new stuff was the main point of this survey, to me. Because the location of the survey may have skewed results in favor of The Hub Of Sparkle (even though all the nominees were free to link the survey), we’ll mention that Naked in the Sauna got the most non-Hub Of Sparkle votes, just so this whole thing doesn’t become too self-reflexive.
Up And Comer: Blogger to Watch in 2009
here are your nominees:
Dokdo Is Ours
Eat Your Kimchi
Fatman Seoul
George Goes Korean
Seoul Patch
White on Rice
White Man In Korea
After pulling off strong wins in a few other categories, Eat Your Kimchi made way for another newcomer in this category. Congratulations to FatMan Seoul for taking this category, and promising more good material to come next year.
Best Post or Series in a Korea Blog, 2008
here are your nominees for best post or series:
Brian in Jeollanam-do – I’ve Attracted the Ire of Korean Netizen Bullies
Gord Sellar – Defending the Wondergirls -
The Grand Narrative – Why Lee Hyori’s Breasts are a Metaphor For Korean Celebrity Culture
The Joshing Gnome – What is Jung and How Can We Kill It?
Korea Beat – Most-Read Naver Stories of the Week (Weekly)
Metropolitician - Ajussis Ruin Everything
Popular Gusts “Protests, public space in Seoul, and cyberspace”
ROK Drop – GI Myths – The 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident
Samedi: Korean Temples Series
Gord Sellar, Roboseyo, The Korean, et. al.: Why Do Expats Complain So Much, and Why do Koreans Get So Defensive?
This was another extremely competitive category, with only five votes separating first and fourth place, and it was also our only tie: Gord Sellar, Roboseyo, Ask A Korean! and all the other bloggers involved in “Why Do Expats Complain, and Why Do Koreans Get So Defensive?“, tied with Korea Beat’s ongoing “Most-Read Naver Stories of the Week,” after trading leads with each-other and with a few other contestants, several times.
Korea Blog Most Completely Taken Over by Obama’s Run To The White House, 2008
the nominees in this category are:
DPRK Studies
Expat Jane
Marmot’s Hole (’s comment boards)
Scribblings of the Metropolitician
ROK Drop
This category saw the lead change more times than any other, with the Metropolitician finally winning by a nose on the last day.
Best Korea Tech Blog, 2008
your nominees for best tech blog are:
The Chosun Bimbo
KoreaCrunch
Korea’s Information Society
TechnoKimchi
Technonomad In Seoul
Waiguoren’s Weblog
Web 2.0 Asia
Y for Yendetta
TechnoKimchi took this category by a thin margin: congratulations, TechnoKimchi, for beating out your rivals.
A few observations about the survey and the voting: first of all, blogs that linked to the survey, obviously, fared better than those that didn’t. Secondly, of course, blogs with higher readership generally topped more obscure ones…any time winners are decided by surveys, it becomes a popularity contest — a panel of judges might make more objective calls about quality, but then, who’s qualified to be on that panel? Other than that, funny generally trumped scholarly, and while in some categories, infrequent posting hurt a blogger’s chances, in others, it didn’t make a whit of difference. The Hub Of Sparkle writers were well represented in voting, partly because the survey was hosted here, I’m sure, but also partly because those same writers earned their invitations to join the Hub by producing excellent content. Some of my favorite blogs didn’t win the awards I thought they deserved, but some other blogs’ strong showings convinced me to look at them more carefully than I had up until then.
It seems to me that 2008 was a year that saw a continuing trend in Korea Online: the number of worthwhile, interesting, readable, insightful and/or entertaining blogs really increased this year. At the same time, a lot of the “same old blogs” which I remember seeing (with frustration) on the sidebar links of every Korea blog I visited back in January 2008 or June 2007 (because why weren’t they linking MY blog too, darnit?) have started either dropping off the sidebars once they stop updating, or have found themselves in the company of a lot of new guys.
While I’m not quite ready to declare it a “changing of the guard,” because the “old guys” who are still around remain the reference points for a lot of the newer blogs, I do think that a lot of the interesting stuff being said is coming up on the newer blogs, in part because the older bloggers may have already said their piece about some of the recurring themes that pop up in Korea-land, while the new ones have not.
I hereby formally call upon anyone whose blog is more than two years old, to go through your sidebar links and delete any Korea Blog by a blogger who is no longer in Korea, or who has not updated in two months…or at least to move them to repatriated/defunct/archival lists, rather than having them steal hits from people who ARE in Korea, who ARE updating, and might be frustrated with a lack of results in trying to get their words out to an audience.
A drawback to this increase in new blogs, as The Big Hominid, Kevin, one of the old guard bloggers, who is no longer in Korea, wrote in a comment at The Party Pooper, is that sometimes the newer blogs are “a sort of “second wave” of Koreabloggers– people who were essentially repeating the blogging of the first wave without having read the first-wavers (very little in the second wave seems new to me). . . [and] the second-wavers have no “institutional memory” regarding the Koreablogosphere as a whole.”
Sure, we don’t all know what was being written about Korea in 2004, and it would probably be interesting to read it…and maybe Korea blogs of certain kinds have a sort of shelf life, after which they’ve said everything they really have to say (though a news-based blog like Korea Beat would never run out of material, of course)…but one of the nice things about the Korea Blogosphere is the way, as we’ve seen with the ballooning of the Korean Blog List, Korea Blogs will continue to renew themselves, whether the salty old readers from previous years care to read yet another rant about psycho hogwan mothers, baffled reflections on yet another Dokdo flare-up, or not. In the meantime, some blogs HAVE proven their staying power and continuing relevance, for various reasons, and I see no reason to think Korea will stop providing blogworthy material, nor that the expat community will run out of people like myself who feel compelled to hold forth upon it, hopefully for the edification or entertainment of others, but not always.
To the winners and the nominees: thanks for making 2008 a great year for K-blogs, and here’s looking forward to an even better 2009.
06/02/2009 at 2:28 am Permalink
Re: Korean bloggers no longer in Korea – One thing I have done in anticipation of this is used the categories feature in my blog to create a way to filter my blog to where, if the reader wants, they only have to see my Korea posts. When I return to the states, my blog will go back to being mostly personal, rather than mostly Korea, but by having that category at the top, it will allow people to still read my blog from Korea in the future, after I have returned, and it will keep me from having to abandon the blog as a whole, like I see many folks do with their Korea blogs when they are done. Wow, that was a *very* run-on sentence…
06/02/2009 at 2:32 am Permalink
If I ever end up living outside of Korea, I’ll probably use tags in a similar way to what you have done.
I do think, as Amanda (of Amanda Takes Off) mentioned, that repatriation is another important part of the Life In Korea experience, but I haven’t been keeping track of bloggers who leave Korea, but if I had more categories on my sidebar, that might be one of them.
06/02/2009 at 2:42 am Permalink
Thanks to everyone who voted for me (and to those who didn’t), and thanks to Rob and the others who organized this. I’m sorry I couldn’t get my nominations in, as I was enjoying vacation.
I’ll do a post on the blogosphere in a couple of days, but I want to echo what you just said at the end of this post, Rob, about a changing of the guard. Actually, I think I said it first back in May, but whatever. Yeah, maybe what’s being said now has already been said . . . but I doubt it. You look at the top blogs now, and many of them weren’t even around in 2007, and many new ones made names for themselves in 2007 and 2008. More importantly, you have more people doing quality work. And by quality I don’t just mean scholarly . . . I mean getting out there, taking photos, looking around, compiling information, and trying to make Korea seem like less a foreign place . . . all without taking away Korea’s foreignness. I agree there’s a lot of negativity in the teaching community, and that’s a resolution I have to make for 2009. I and others. But when people long for the glory days of 2004, that basically means they’re jealous that nobody cares about them anymore.
06/02/2009 at 2:48 am Permalink
Yeah, Brian. I think you called the trend in May; my closing comments echo your comments in May because I think the trend has continued since then.
So now who’s echoing whom?
Congrats on the wins, and I hope the “thought provoking” award serves notice that you do more than rant at B in JND; if we had a category called “most helpful to expats outside of Seoul” you’d have a strong case to take home another prize, after all the jeollado coverage you’ve put in this year.
06/02/2009 at 2:57 am Permalink
Thanks for holding this Best Of awards! I’m honored to be a winner, though a little abashed to have sent my readers on such an apparent voting rampage. But flattered all the same.
Coolsmurf is indeed an informative blog; glad to see him mentioned. I predict there will be a lot of additional Korean pop-culture blogs popping up in the future as well.
It’s interesting to see so many Korea-related blogs out there, although there seems to be a fairly wide disconnect between the pop-culture sites (which command quite hefty readerships) and the other, more serious blogs. I wonder if we’ll see the gap bridged at all; I enjoy sites like The Grand Narrative that do this somewhat, but he’s the only one I can think of. I must speak up for the pop-culture blogs out there — some are crap, sure, but some are really good and a lot of work goes into them, and I sense a sort of condescension and “looking down” on them by some. But I think we serve an important function — aside from just being fun — in demystifying kpop and entertainment and bringing it to an international audience. It speaks to an excitement out there about Korean pop culture that people are willing to devote so much of their efforts to making it accessible, and I don’t think that is fully appreciated. Hallyu isn’t just a result of Korea making movies/entertainment and the world responding to it — it’s exactly this sort of Web 2.0, user-generated, sharing culture that cultivates that interest.
Sorry, Grand Defense over. Thanks again for this recognition, and for giving this space for me to vent!
06/02/2009 at 3:23 am Permalink
Woo hoo!
And congrats to everyone else who won or was nominated. When I first came to Korea in 2004 I don’t remember there being such a high number of Korea blogs that were worth reading every day. And there’s still plenty of room for more.
06/02/2009 at 3:41 am Permalink
World Peace!
06/02/2009 at 6:14 am Permalink
Great contest – it allowed me to partially revamp my personal blogroll, which had become a bit stale..
thanks!
06/02/2009 at 7:04 am Permalink
All…this…echoing…! Aaaaargh!
06/02/2009 at 7:37 am Permalink
Im a loser
06/02/2009 at 7:39 am Permalink
On behalf of KoreanClass101’s blogging team: 고맙습니다!
Thanks to all @ the Hub for organizing this!
06/02/2009 at 10:33 am Permalink
What?! Ask a Korean won “Best Blog about Korean Culture in General, 2008″?!
Well, don’t look at me — I voted for the other guy.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
06/02/2009 at 12:56 pm Permalink
Fatman is really, astoundingly surprised and happy, but also quite humbled by the wonderful blogs out there both familiar and new. Many, many thanks to the Hub of Sparkle, the voters, and to Roboseyo for setting this up (and burdened us with new expectations, which will probably lead to a vast increase in our waistline as we try to eat our way into deserving this recognition)
06/02/2009 at 2:52 pm Permalink
Now it is time to have the “worst” K-blogs … pickled clog award.
06/02/2009 at 6:18 pm Permalink
I demand a recount!
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
06/02/2009 at 6:23 pm Permalink
Recount . . . or else I burn down Namdaemun! What? Too late? Okay, I’ll take a sledgehammer to a lovely wooden door in the National Assembly! Oh . . . already done? Well . . . lemme see. I’ll protest for months in front of the American Embassy. Surely, that’s never been done before. Uh . . . it has? Well, I give up. What? That’s never been tried? Great! I give up! How do you like them apples?
I await your humiliation.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
06/02/2009 at 6:34 pm Permalink
Joy: 1. a lot of other blogs would have loved to be nominated; you’re not a loser for not winning a category. It might just mean that you weren’t pimping your readers out to vote as aggressively as some of your rivals, and for all you know, you missed the podium by a single vote in each of your categories.
2. rather than put together a “rotten klogs” award system, I would rather forget and ignore the worst K-blogs, and hope they fade into obscurity and disappear, than draw attention to them.
3. HJ Hodges: if you want to put in the 15 hours it took me to ask for suggestions, compile nominations, create a survey, publicize the survey, poll and then summarize results, I’ll vote in your contest.
4. Javabeans: I think a lot of the K-bloggers DO check the K-pop blogs regularly, even if they qualify for some of us as guilty pleasures, and we would be just as loath to admit it as if we regularly checked up on TomKat and Suri Cruise; I know I’ve gotten a lot of good material for my blog from the K-pop blogs, but I don’t usually comment there because my thoughts would probably be lost on the very busy comment boards.
Finally: to every nominee, and every winner: congratulations. It’s good to see the best K-blogging celebrated.
In that vein, I accidentally deleted a comment by this guy, who, ignored on the Golden Klog ballot, created some awards of his own, which are funny and well-written.
06/02/2009 at 8:24 pm Permalink
Well done to everyone, and especially to KoreaBeat… You had my vote at every turn…
06/02/2009 at 9:58 pm Permalink
Its true I didn’t pimp out my readers…hehe… thought i could win naturally…so much for the hippy way of doing things. hehe
True I would not want to commemorate rotten k-blogs…they just make the expat community stinky.
06/02/2009 at 10:09 pm Permalink
Thanks for the awards. We were totally shocked to win anything whatsoever. It helps us have more motivation, and our parents finally have a reason to be proud of us.
07/02/2009 at 11:47 am Permalink
Roboseyo, I was hoping to get something for nothing, but that seems out, so I’ll be satisfied with nothing for nothing.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
07/02/2009 at 11:50 am Permalink
Mr. Hodges:
We like to keep expectations low at The Hub Of Sparkle.
Any time you’re looking for nothing, come on over, and you won’t be disappointed.
07/02/2009 at 8:54 pm Permalink
Congratulations to the winners!
I was simply happy to be nominated
It’s a great way to go out.
13/02/2009 at 12:26 am Permalink
I was burgled, I say! This farce has driven me to direct resumption nuclear testing!