Say it with Cheese
Written: Dec 10 '01 (Updated Dec 10 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Cheesy, prepackaged sentiment, appaling poetry, amatuer-looking artwork... quite horrendously sappy. And please, someone make that midi stop, I promise I'll be good.
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| Full Review |
I used to really like Blue Mountain cards; I used to send them all the time to my online friends. I used to spend ages on the site choosing cards and personalising them, I used to love receiving them. I thought - still do think - that ecards were a lot of fun. But it is worth remembering that I was a sixteen year old girl, I lived in England and couldn't afford to send real cards to my American friends, and my interest in the site quickly waned when I discovered that some sites let me send ecards without a character limitation and that I could send my own choice of images with them, at which point my interest in Blue Mountain Arts quickly waned.
Does anyone out there really like sub-Hallmark amateur poetry? I have a big problem with this site simply in that I am the kind of elitist weirdo who sends supposedly 'edgy' (read: rather bizarre, occasionaly handmade) cards to people on special occasions that have no pre printed message inside them. I like to make things personal and one of the things I absolutely detest in a card is poetry, which Blue Mountain supplies in abundance. Bad poetry at that...
'I want you to know
that I am here for you
in every way
and remember that though
things may be difficult now
tomorrow is a new day.'
Thank you, Susan Polis Schultz, but please, dear God, no. As someone who's actually going through a tough time at the moment, I'd find receiving an ecard like that more dispiriting than anything. See, I'm the kind of kook who likes the personal touch. I'd rather have my friends send me sentiments expressed in their own words rather than someone else's halting poetry. Okay, that's just a personal opinion, but it just goes to show you've really *got* to be mindful of the recipient when you send an ecard.
Then there's the graphics. I'm an artist, in a small way, and I find the graphics offered by a lot of the cards (childish 'kooky' cartoon scribbles, clipart, the occasional photo) to be a little bit... well, nauseatingly winsome is part of it. Again, not a lot of scope for originality and something which some recipients could find quite horrifically cheesy. If someone forgot my birthday then sent me a Blue Mountain ecard to make up for it, I'd be afraid for what they'd do for an encore... come over and poison my cat?
Finally, there's the Midi files. Allow me to state my position on these little pieces of purgatory: Midi files are to music what a gas station hamburger is to cordon bleu cookery. There's just no comparison. If I was a composer I would be turning in my grave at the butchering meted out to my life's work. The midis are the metaphorical topping on this oversickly web confection; they make the whole thing just that much more unpalatable.
Apparently now most of the cards are restricted to paying members only. Well... that's one small mercy, I suppose. I certainly won't be signing up for this service any time soon... But what do I know about this sort of thing? I'm a twentysomething (almost) slacker rock chick.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
kaochan
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Member: kaoru kun
Location: Somewhere in England
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Fangirlchan, geek and part-time Goth who likes listening to Japanese cross dressers sing.
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