THE FINAL WORD ON FAME – PLEASE OPEN UP THE VOTES!
by Vicky Vette
So most of you know that I was nominated for Favorite Star Website at the FAME Awards. I emailed you, bulletined you, wrote to you, messaged you, posted on boards, and I think got a ton of people to vote and visit the FAME website to vote. It is supposedly a fan based award and I was shocked frankly to be even named in a category when I am basically an industry outsider doing my thing on the internet with the support of fans like you.
The FAME Awards, like the AVN Awards were and are terrific opportunities for companies to push and promote stars of latest box cover DVD releases – relevant, fun and important if that is your thing. A funny thing happened has really put a kink in the adult DVD business model though………… the internet. As some of you know, I jumped from doing DVD boxcover movies to running my own website (and now website network) three years ago. I have extended my career in the process and taken the middle man entirely out of the equation – direct downloads straight to you. There is no production company behind me. I sit at my computer and hack out a living, shooting when I can, and putting it up online straight to the adult community. If enough people buy a monthly membership I stay in business. Luckily, my official site has never been more successful and we have expanded to a network of seven websites. So, it came as quite a shock that somehow my industry outsider website was nominated for an award at an industry run event such as FAME.
Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to be there (as you can see from this pic with Sunny Lane). I loved interacting with the fans and going to the awards. The awards were very well run. Stormy Daniels did a great job of presenting and all the winners are hot stars in their own right. Having said that, I left thinking that the voting should have been open. Before any of you jump up and down that perhaps I am a sore loser because TeraPatrick.com got favorite star website (not Vickyathome – my official site), I should tell you about some other industry scuttle.
I read MikeSouth.com from time to time, a nice read about the insider view of the adult industry. According to Mike:
"Belladonna posted the following From her Twitter:
# I do not support the award show that happened tonight, please do not mention it to me. I only want awards that are REAL!!
# Last year I was lied to and I would rather not have another award that means nothing. Staying true to my word feels good.
No word on why she doesn’t like the Fame awards or what they did to her…but damn that’s pretty harsh commentary."
I am NOT gonna say that anyone should not have won, or that so and so does NOT have the hottest body, or the best ass, or best boobs, that Pirates II was not the best movie. I can however tell you that you should maybe ask yourself why would a a huge star like Belladonna WHO WON TWO AWARDS speak out (since it is not in her professional interests to bag on the companies that hand out awards)?
I cannot and will not bash any girls in the competition. Of course girls like Tera Patrick, Teagan Presley & Stormy Daniels are smoking hot. My complaint? The votes should have been open to the world with clear rules. When this competition first got started FAME indicated that voting ended June 4. That link disappeared from the FAME website. Another fan read the voting ended the night before the competition, but fans wrote saying they were still voting the day of the competition. When you did enter your votes, there were no totals to see how anyone was doing.
When it comes right down to it what is so wrong with doing what other great competitions do? Post the vote totals as they happen? If the organizers were so interested in what the fans had to say, why not make it public so that the fans can get involved like they do for the All Star game? When the tally is open fans can rally and see if a particular star is gaining ground or not. I hate to think that the thousands of votes that were cast were in vain – particularly my fans on the net. One of my fans wrote saying that the mechanism to vote was a glorified email collector so that people around the world could be spammed for months to come with the latest adult releases for them to buy from the companies who run the event. This concern by fans could be avoided with a running tally so that fans can see the vote as they cast it.
I think the guys who run FAME did a great job of the event. I enjoyed being there and participating. I would however love to know how many votes it took to win Favorite Website….. as you guys know I love interacting with people and if I was close to winning the fan vote, I would have worked even harder for your votes. I would have rallied for votes day and night had there been a chance of winning.
Open up the voting FAME – the fans deserve it.
Beam me up Scotty – the organizers of FAME probably don’t like me now.
Vicky Vette
Vicky’s site is VickyAtHome.com