H.O.P.E. : not without detractors
You may wonder if we get a lot of negative emails. The surprising truth is no, we've gotten thousands of emails of support and only a handful of negative messages.
Despite our worldwide popularity, someone out there has started a parallel universe anti-H.O.P.E. organization. We just received this shot across the stern:
"You and your followers should be ashamed of yourselves. These are artists putting their feelings and opinions out there, it is not for you to judge the way they do it and what they sing about. If it makes you feel good inside to bash this girl, Ashley Simpson, then you are truly awful people. This website sickens me, and I will hereby start a ban on it.
Here is a link to my petition.
Despite our worldwide popularity, someone out there has started a parallel universe anti-H.O.P.E. organization. We just received this shot across the stern:
"You and your followers should be ashamed of yourselves. These are artists putting their feelings and opinions out there, it is not for you to judge the way they do it and what they sing about. If it makes you feel good inside to bash this girl, Ashley Simpson, then you are truly awful people. This website sickens me, and I will hereby start a ban on it.
Sincerely,
Samantha
McCrea
McCrea
of SGG Design
Here is a link to my petition.
http://www.petitiononline.com/1234586/petition.html
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A note in response, from our board:
As much as Samantha possibly has her heart in the right place, she's got us all wrong. We're not here to hurt Ashlee Simpson's feelings. We don't do what many other snarky entertainment sites do, which is bash at any celebrity that manages to make a misstep. We don't care if Lindsay Lohan is getting drunk in New Orleans every night, nor if Brad and Jennifer got divorced. These are their (and our) everyday rights.
The stars we profile are being used to promote substandard and usually awful entertainment. Or they're cashing in on previous successes to launch some new venture that is inexplicable. Or they're just creating vehicle after vehicle to deliver their own insipid and painful message to their audience. Most often they have simple made this choice : am I able to successfully get away with making this crap?
So do they have the right to do this? Yes. Do giant merged companies have the right to do this? Yes. Do those companies have legal rights that in the last fifteen years have been wildly expanded? Yes. Do they use these new rights to knowingly promote terrible movies, music, and literature because they think they can make a buck? Yes. Do they spend millions of dollars and hours in the pursuit? Yes.
We at H.O.P.E. and you reading this have those same rights, if not the same resources. We as an organization exist to highlight these terrible entertainers. We will never be against free speech, nor in favor of censorship. We will, however, give voice to everyone that does not have millions to go on an advertising blitz against Taxi. We will empower everyone that is sick of listening to Matchbox-20 but unable to secure time on a commercial radio station, and we will fight tirelessly against the government passing legislation that allows giant companies to abuse our public airwaves to promote their (not our) best interests.
-- Erik Illstorm
P.S. Our parallel universe enemy has received 2 signatures since its creation on 2/9/05. Don't think this is some abandoned project, though. We got the angry email just the other day.
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A note in response, from our board:
As much as Samantha possibly has her heart in the right place, she's got us all wrong. We're not here to hurt Ashlee Simpson's feelings. We don't do what many other snarky entertainment sites do, which is bash at any celebrity that manages to make a misstep. We don't care if Lindsay Lohan is getting drunk in New Orleans every night, nor if Brad and Jennifer got divorced. These are their (and our) everyday rights.
The stars we profile are being used to promote substandard and usually awful entertainment. Or they're cashing in on previous successes to launch some new venture that is inexplicable. Or they're just creating vehicle after vehicle to deliver their own insipid and painful message to their audience. Most often they have simple made this choice : am I able to successfully get away with making this crap?
So do they have the right to do this? Yes. Do giant merged companies have the right to do this? Yes. Do those companies have legal rights that in the last fifteen years have been wildly expanded? Yes. Do they use these new rights to knowingly promote terrible movies, music, and literature because they think they can make a buck? Yes. Do they spend millions of dollars and hours in the pursuit? Yes.
We at H.O.P.E. and you reading this have those same rights, if not the same resources. We as an organization exist to highlight these terrible entertainers. We will never be against free speech, nor in favor of censorship. We will, however, give voice to everyone that does not have millions to go on an advertising blitz against Taxi. We will empower everyone that is sick of listening to Matchbox-20 but unable to secure time on a commercial radio station, and we will fight tirelessly against the government passing legislation that allows giant companies to abuse our public airwaves to promote their (not our) best interests.
-- Erik Illstorm
P.S. Our parallel universe enemy has received 2 signatures since its creation on 2/9/05. Don't think this is some abandoned project, though. We got the angry email just the other day.