Cool and Collected

Collecting pop culture toys, comics, and collectibles collections

By 22 Comments

This week’s assignment from the League: Cryptozoology

Last week, the League of Extraordinary Bloggers‘ was comparing and contrasting things. Honestly, I was trying to get more people to contribute with a softball of a topic, but I obviously haven’t figured out the formula yet! After several years of developing these League topics, I never know what is going to generate the most responses, so let’s try a more specific, obscure topic and see how it goes. Your assignment this week…

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Cryptozoology

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Once you put up a post on your site, add a comment below with the URL so everyone knows where to find it. Remember to include links to your fellow League members in your article, along with a League logo and link, so other bloggers can learn how to join in the fun.

Blog karma is a good thing — by cross-posting like this, we will help send each other new readers, and receive a few in return. If you would like to join the League, all you need is a love of pop culture and a blog. Come join the fun, and tell your friends!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I had to look it up on dictionary.com

    cryptozoology
    [krip-toh-zoh-ol-uh-jee]
    noun
    1.
    the study of evidence tending to substantiate the existence of, or the search for, creatures whose reported existence is unproved, as the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness monster.

    Reply

  2. I pretty much don’t contribute to the league for the following reasons;

    1) Most of the topics don’t fit into the formula of what my blog is about. Of course I don’t tend to blog on a “personal” level with people, but more so as an archive basis. You come, you see the pictures, read the history, and there is much rejoicing all around.

    2) A lot of times the directions given on topics are slim to none, and I really don’t have any interest to delve further into them. Case in point, I don’t know what a Cryptozoology is, there’s no specific instructions or directions beyond the word, and that’s as far as I’m going with it. Maybe I’m just being lazy.

    But again, it’s mostly because it just doesn’t fit into my formula of blogging.

    Not bashing your formula or topics. Just offering insight as to why I, and possibly some others, may not contribute as often as you would like.

    Reply

    • When the League was in its early stages, I gave fairly specific topics, but over time, the one-word topics led to some much more interesting blog posts that people interpreted in some unexpected ways. I feel that the less direction I give, the more open the topic is for interpretation. Someone could take this week’s topic in any number of ways: Bigfoot, loch Ness, Yeti, Chupacabra, etc. Whereas, if I said “Write about a Bigfoot sighting,” not as many people would be up for the task.

      Reply

      • You’re expressing frustration here because Brian isn’t spoon feeding us blog content. I take offense at that even though I should be following Brian’s example here and turning the other cheek.

        Brian provides us with a literal NETWORK of blogs that all share links to each other’s posts and a common topic each week. This is something he does completely out of his enjoyment of the blogging community. He might make it look easy, but believe it or not, it isn’t.

        Coming up with topics can be hard. Coming up with a topic that suits not only toy collecting blogs, but nostalgia blogs, and travel blogs, and food blogs and tech blogs and fan fiction blogs and video game blogs and horror movie blogs etc etc etc is even harder. (We have all of those in this little community by the way. We’re proud of how diverse we are. But diversity is hard to homogenize topics for.) Coming up with a topic that suits “The Toy Box” blog’s format, along with all the others, so that you can participate without putting in serious effort is impossible. Brian keeps the topics short and succinct so that we can all interpret the topic in our own ways. He’s done his part. We do ours. we don’t like the topic, we don’t participate. We try not to whine about it.

        Your formula for blogging is talking about toys. There is a veritable horde of toys out there related to cryptids. If you choose not to participate because you don’t want to google the word “cryptozoology” or because you can’t find pictures of toys that have to do with Bigfoot or Chupacabra or The Moth Man, that’s a shame because I genuinely feel like you’re cheating yourself. The rest of us in the League pick and choose what to put our efforts into just like you can. The LEague is not here to service any one of us specifically. That’s part of what makes it great.

        I have to respectfully and honestly agree when you say you’re being lazy. You are also being a bit insulting and passive aggressive. I don’t agree that your sense of entitlement makes it okay to tear down what Brian has achieved here, along with the bloggers who choose to take on the challenge he puts forth each week.

        Brian doesn’t need me to defend him. He answered your question adroitly, politely, and without stirring up ire. I’m not as good as he is at being the bigger person. But I felt I had to speak up.

        (By the way Brian, I totally understand if you don’t publish this. I just felt like I needed to speak up)

        Reply

        • I appreciate it Derek, but I didn’t take too much offense at the comment. I think any and all comments about the League are always welcome — good, bad or indifferent.

          (And, yes I wasn’t too eager to hit the “publish” button on your post, but again, open dialogue is good.)

          😉

          Reply

  3. This was a good one. Last week was too broad and I was lost at sea. This week is right up my alley and something that I enjoyed.

    As for anyone talking toy blogs, it’s easy enough to talk about Street Sharks or TMNT. It falls into the same category and someone needs to do the mythos of Raph in a Trench Coat in NYC.

    http://adamnori.com/tloeb-cryptozoology/

    Reply

    • Hmm, TMNT as subjects of cryptozoology. An excellent idea!

      Glad you liked this week’s topic Adam — you might be the only one. 😉

      Reply

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