What Pushes My Buttons

The reviews are in...

My blog was just up for review on Humor-Blogs.com, which is a collection of best humor blogs throughout the land. The cool part about the site is the reviews, in which fellow bloggers who are members of the site review each others work and the blogs are "scored" based on those results.

The reviewers (including myself) are very opinionated and really look for blogs to be laugh-out-loud funny. And when they aren't, then the blogs get "thrashed" in their reviews and the scores suffer accordingly. Obviously I wasn't allowed to review my own blog, but without further adieu, here is my review according to the reviewers at Humor-Blogs.com:

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WhatPushesMyButtons got very consistent, if not overwhelming, scores from our reviewers. The consensus was that it was smart, well written and sometimes amusing, but generally not laugh-out-loud funny.

Category	Score	Points
Content	5.17	36/70
Writing	6.5	3/5
Web Design	5.67	3/5
Intangibles	4.5	2/5
Read Regularly	1.67	2/10
Frequency	10	5/5
Total		51

Percentile Rank: 25

Some quotes from our reviewers:

The blog author does deserve points for my being able to persevere through a review after the first post I encountered detailed her being the victim of a "shit and run" (complete with photo). That was just wrong. Having said that, I found some of the posts and choices of material covered original and pretty funny at times. The overall template felt a bit cluttered (that may have been my ADD-ishness kicking in). I think if he declutters a bit, posts no more pictures of feces, he'd be a bit more humorous.

This blog makes me wonder if the author has an unhealthy obsession with food.

This blog falls into a pretty common category; writers who post clever observations without making the leap to being funny. When I read a humor blog, I want to laugh. Or snicker...hell, I'd settle for a good smirk. 'What Pushes My Buttons' is smart, it has the clever observations and the rhetorical responses, but it just never gets funny.

Not bad, but nothing spectacular. I like the fact that the post subjects are not the "same old" topics that everyone seems to cover. No "lol" but some solid smiles. Really solid web design.

Well written and sometimes amusing, but certainly not laugh-out-loud funny.

I have a feeling that What Pushes My Buttons was the victim of reviewers who are getting a little tired of blogs that are almost funny. It's a good blog, but at this point it doesn't really stand out among the crowd of humor blogs. The real problem, in my opinion, is that the blog isn't personal enough to compensate for its lack of laugh-out-loud humor. Zoning Out Again is a good example of a blog that isn't hysterically funny, but got a good review because ZOA makes the reader feel like he or she is peeking inside the life (and somewhat crazy brain) of the author.

In contrast, I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if the author of WPMB was male or female. One of our reviewers referred to the author as a "she," which surprised me because I assumed the author was a guy. I finally found a reference to "shaking the snake," which confirmed that the author was either male or a sadistic herpetologist.

In my humble opinion, if you're trying to make people laugh you need to pick one of two paths: Either sacrifice coherency and accuracy to make as many jokes as you can (Sinister Dan, Pointless Drivel), or really let people into your life so they can see how funny things look from your perspective (Dorky Dad, Zoning Out Again). You can even veer wildly between these two paths as the mood strikes you. But a surefire way to get lukewarm reviews is to strike a compromise between the two paths where you relate mildly amusing, factually accurate stories without much of a personal touch.
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Ouch! I mean...granted last week wasn't my most funniest weeks of posts (and even Bridget said people are gonna be grossed out by the shit in the toilet pic). But I mean that's just me. Sometimes I'm funny and sometimes I'm not. But I guess I really wasn't funny last week because I got ripped apart in my reviews.


I was the victim of a brutal Humor-Blogs.com attack!

I mean people thought I was clever and original (which I definitely liked hearing) and that's pretty much all I can ask for. Some people will find me funny. Some will find me disturbing. And some won't find me funny at all. That's just a personal preference I guess and everyone has a difference sense or preference of humor.

But given the reviews above from the non-faithful readers of my blog, I wanted to ask my "adoring audience" for their thoughts. Would you rather me be more "personal" with my posts and give you an inside peek at my inner workings? Or would you rather me continue to be an irrational thought machine who I guess occassionally makes you chuckle or laugh (hopefully).

My goal with this blog is to make you laugh and give you a little break from the stresses of your work or personal lives. But according to the folks whose "job it is to be funny", I'm not even at a passing grade (51 out of 100 points).


As Pesci said in Goodfellas: "How the fuck am I funny? Funny how? Am I a clown? Do I amuse you?"

I personally don't care what other people think and I plan to keep on keeping on with the stuff I think makes you laugh. But if you feel like the consensus was right, and I'm not a funny fuck at all, then please speak up. Your voice matters too! Thanks!