Saint John — In a shameless attempt to self-promote, Manatee co-founders Alex Vietinghoff and Shauna Chase were caught posting on their own Facebook pages this morning asking for votes toward the upcoming Salty awards being held in Saint John on Thursday evening.
A handful of the site’s volunteer writers also had the gall to beg for votes on their personal social media outlets of choice, but they were unavailable for comment this morning, probably because they were sitting around thinking up more lame story ideas for the site.
The Saltys are awards given to prominent social media presences in New Brunswick. The Manatee made a risky move by hounding its fan base for nominations, and finally crossed the line by asking directly for votes at this web address under “coolest blog”: http://thesaltys.com/vote-now-2015.html
One former Manatee fan, Denise Alward, said the unabashed ploy for fame led her to unsubscribe to the blog. “I will definitely not be voting for The Manatee as ‘coolest blog,’” she explained sadly. “Where do they get off? They think just because they put countless hours of work into this thing trying to make me laugh, that I’m going to click the link to the Salty page AND click once to vote? It’s always take, take, take with these people.”
Another frequent reader of the site, Ken Thibideau, said he’s had enough of the jerks at The Manatee always wanting support for their free service. “Sometimes those guys go an entire weekend without posting a single story, and then I’m forced to read CBC and just check the weather for entertainment. I already took a minute to nominate them a couple of weeks ago; now that they’ve been nominated, they want me to vote, too? Get a life, guys — talk about self-indulgent.”
Many former subscribers have been posting to social media about their chagrin, using words such as “betrayal” and “unprofessionalism at its finest.”
Neither Manatee co-founder could be reached for comment this afternoon, as they were both shamelessly threatening their friends and family to vote for them, or else.