Here at the Big Bad Blog, we have a tendency to use the blog to sound off about things that bother us. We are not alone in this — other blogs do it too — and, in some respects, it is an important service to others. While the Big Bad Blog might not have ever had a real impact, one person voicing their concerns publicly can cause change if there is enough resonance out there to make the story go viral.

But there is another side of the coin.

That other side consists of the people on the other end of those diatribes. Individuals who are working hard and doing their best, creating the work that we bloggers are tearing down. It can be difficult separating the professional from the personal, and it could be considered a bit cruel to denigrate the work of others when it is not necessary to the point being made.

Last week, I fear the Big Bad Blog may have crossed the line. We came across a contest from the good people at the Framed Show, and wanted to enter it … only to find that it was precisely the type of contest that drives us crazy when people we know enter them.

In order to win the contest, contestants had to drive traffic to the show’s Facebook page.

We have unfollowed people on Twitter, unsubscribed to blogs, and blocked friends on Facebook for such behaviour. Become somebody else’s marketing stooge? Not going to happen. We leapt to our keyboards to chronicle the decision.

The end result, however, was something that was aimed at the Framed Show itself, rather than at the practice itself. That was our mistake.

In our effort to launch a diatribe about a contest that we wish we could enter, but couldn’t stomach, we missed out on an opportunity to write a decent, funny, engaging article about people who pimp out their online connections for a remote chance at a prize which they could afford to buy themselves if they thought it was actually worth the money.

Shame on us.

(By which I mean me, being the only one here. But I’m all royal-like, or something.)