First of all, this is by no means an acceptance speech. DrDevience started the tradition of us constructive criticism award winners NOT giving a speech, and therefor I'm continuing it. Besides, it's like, four months later, and you're still waiting for my acceptance speech? Aren't you lovely and devoted fans! But alas, I shall disappoint you, yet again. That is the curse of being worshiped.

Second of all, I thought I'd just say what everyone has been thinking-- the 2009 Fanpoppies were cold. Ice cold. Actually, that's a little unfair. Ice cold implies that there was effort that went in to making it ice cold. No, I'd say it was more... lukewarm. There was the minimal effort required... and no more.

Shocked, are you, that I dare say such a thing so boldly, and without sugarcoating it? Though I am known for being diplomatic, I'm channeling the spirit of the good doctor here, and she insists that I speak my mind. She would if she were here.

Now, I don't think this is any particular person's fault. It takes a community to make an event fail, after all. I am partially to blame, as I was not around so much during the event. And I feel like the whole "fanpoppy spirit" wasn't really captured by the crowd this year as much as it was last year. The anticipation, the rabid-pick-making and photo-posting from fans excited about the event, none of that was as present this year as it was last year. And because of that, we can't just do the easy thing and blame it all on the committee. We should thank them for inventing this event in the first place. A year later, the three of them had moved on to bigger and better things, and returned as a courtesy to us to continue the new tradition, and for this, I give them my deep gratitude. And, to their credit, they gave it... well, they gave it some effort, I'll give them that. They tried.

Kind of.

We tried to be excited.

Kind of.

As a result of kind-of planning plus kind-of enthusiasm, we had the Fanpop equivalent of the average teenage girl's first sexual experience-- We kind of just lied there and waited for something to happen, but by the time we realized it did, it was already over.

Now, I don't want to get everyone down, so let's look at the 2008 Fanpoppies. What made them special? What made them sparkle? I'll give you a hint-- it wasn't Edward Cullen.

Last year, we had link and link and people getting their link. We even had link! Four out of the five link are dedicated to the first Fanpoppies, which means we had an 80% decrease in pick activity this year!

We were STOKED people! What happened to that this year?

As far as procedure goes, last year we had at least a week for voting. I remember that, and though I can't find literal dates (except Feb 23rd when the ceremony took place), the amount of picks posted between the time nominations went out and the time voting closed far exceeds what would have gone out in a 24 hour time period. Also, it says "the last day to vote," implying there were multiple days. This evidence leads me to believe that, for some reason unknown even to blisslikethis herself, the voting period was severely shortened this year. When asked why, bliss said "i'm actually not even sure myself why the voting period was so short" (link).

Because of this severely shortened voting period, several fans missed out on voting, and lost what little steam they had. Out of everything, this very short voting period was probably the biggest contributing factor to what let the air out of the '09 Fanpoppies balloons.

On top of that-- and this is a purely selfish comment-- No new placards were posted on the trophies this year for the winners. Because of this, I've been forced to carry around Doctor D's hand-me-down award with her name crossed out. Do you see the kind of indignity I have suffered? Do you see?!

So what are we going to do about this, my fellow fanpoppers? We can't lay blame. Not only is there no point, but the blame lies with all of us. So now that we've got the blame game over and done with, what next? I know.

We have to make a promise. We have to make a promise that the third Fanpoppy Awards in 2010 will be JUST AS AWESOME as the Fanpoppy awards in 2008. Fanpop's Got Talent has proven that this is a possible feat, we just have to want it bad enough and try hard enough, and put more than minimal effort into the event. We have to upload images, make pics, heck, make videos! Look at how many videos we have-- two! And none of them specifically related to the Fanpoppies! How awesome would it be to have fan-made fanpoppy videos? If we can do it for FGT, we can do it for the Fanpoppies!

And to our committee members-- you guys rock. All your hard work in 2008 really made it one hell of a show, honestly. You all deserve medals. Big shiny medals what you can see your reflection in. If I wasn't broke, or if I owned some sort of gold medal factory, I'd give you all a hundred medals a piece for all you've done for us.

That said...

Should you feel that you cannot give the Fanpoppies 2010 your all, do not feel ashamed to give up your spot on the committee to another, more obsessed user. We love you-- but honestly, this is supposed to be fun. If we can't make it as much fun as possible, then it's going to be a flop.

I will say one thing about the 2009 Fanpoppies that was pretty cool. The amount of ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES that were posted! It was quite amazing, and really, with all those thank-yous, it's not like you really needed to hear mine anyway, did you? Fabulous job, guys! Hope you keep it up next year too!