to be “freshly pressed” (FP) is cool. it means that someone, somewhere, for some reason, thinks that what you wrote is relevant, witty, visually outstanding, poignant, provocative, or any combination, but not limited to, those nice words. it means your thoughts or product will be posted to be seen by the entire wordpress community, or at least those who know about it. i was probably using wordpress for close to half a year before i knew FP existed. as cool as it is, and as cool as i may or may not be, i will never be FP, unless FP stands for “f#cking pr!ck.”
1. i am not female. my research has shown that 94.88% of all FP are female. further, 67% of all female FP are hot. the remaining 33% that aren’t hot, are really hot.
2. i’m not big with photography. it seems 70% of all FP have a landscape or artsy/city theme with pictures that i could never take with my kodak whatever-it-is that shoots great pics outside but has trouble in the dim light of my kids’ dance recitals and school plays. and of those 70%, 95% of those have to do with international travel. i’ve only left the US twice, and that’s if you count a carnival cruise to the caribbean. the one time i went out of the country, to italy, it was only for a weekend. don’t ask.
3. i’m not a “foodie.” i don’t know what a foodie is, but i know i’m not one, and the only reason i know that is because i have only written two posts about food. from my calculations, 49% of all FP are about fabulous recipes that would add another ten pounds to the ten pounds i gained in the past month since i retired from teaching.
4. i don’t write about kids. although i have kids, i’ve only written about them in 4 of over 200 posts. since 43.9% of all FP are about the wonderful, cutsey, annoying things that your special little cherubs did during playtime, i will never be FB because i don’t think my kids are so special that their every juice spill is subconscious art.
5. details, details. i will never be FP because i include too much detail in my writing. just this morning i read FP about the perils of something called “pinterest.” not once in the post did it explain what the hell pinterest is, but the story said it will ruin my life. although i suspect that it was written by a disgruntled pinterest user, i’ll probably follow the advice without ever knowing what i’m avoiding.
6. details details. i will never be FP because i don’t include enough details in my writing. There’s a blog i follow by a guy named frank. while i think i’m skilled at essays, his attention to detail makes my work look like i might get 2nd place in a 6th grade essay contest when the rest of the class is out with the chicken pox.
7. pick a theme. if 63% of all FP blogs consistently stick to a theme, then they are going to find a greater following among people who are also into that theme. i’ve been blogging about 6 years, and it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that i even knew what a “tag” is. i was using “categories,” not “tags,” but i don’t know the difference, so i probably don’t deserve to be FP if i can’t understand how the damn thing functions. as for themes, i’ve seen blog titles like “interesting things to do with blueberries.” really? can there be more than six? how do you make a whole blog theme about that? and then, how do you have enough entries to be FP? i know blueberries are a powerful food and fight cancer, but a whole theme? i could understand if it were apples, but not blueberries. and i hear the little dark blue bastards are starting to call themselves “indigo” just to be different.
8. i’m not funny enough to be FP, and the stats say that 103% of all FP have a “humor” tag. there’s a blog i follow by this girl, three actually, won’t say their names, but they’re damn funny. and they all hit item 1 about being really hot. i feel bad because i’m reading how one’s husband was cheating on her, but i’m laughing because she makes it funny. one of them has a picture of her legs in her banner. holy christ. but that isn’t why i read her blog. or the other one who occasionally…never mind.
9. i’m not into tributes. i admit i’m not a fan of famous people dying. but if one does, there will be a gutload of FP to honor that person, and i don’t honor anyone, except the few blogs i follow. and my sister who knows more about football than me, and i know a lot. anyway, i don’t wish anyone (except…) to be dead, but i hate phony tributes. i wasn’t happy that whitney houston died, but i was less happy to read about how she was a pioneer in the music industry for black women. really? have you not heard of diana ross? aretha franklin? natalie cole? etta james? gladys knight? donna summer? dionne warwick? ronnie spector? lena horne? well, i’m blacker than lena horne, so scratch her off. fair point. i also wasn’t happy to read that whitney put a national spotlight on newark, nj. i thought murder had already done that, but maybe i’m wrong. and i’m not saying she wasn’t great, and maybe she was above all those i named, but she wasn’t a pioneer.
10. i don’t capitalize consistently. film critic roger ebert once asked me if i am a fan of poet e.e. cummings, who also used capitalization sparingly. exactly 100% of all FB have absolutely zero errors in capitalization. zero. not one mistake. ever ever never, but not me. i have many but on purpose. follow me on this – i was aware of and using e-mail a long time before most people. when i started e-mailing people, i realized that there was no reason to put my name at the end because people would see my name in the e-mail address and would know it was from me. and there was no reason to put their names at the beginning because they didn’t need me to tell them who they are. once i stopped putting my name at the end, almost all rules were off the table. but i don’t mess around when it comes to punctuation. never had a semi-colon jammed up your ass? keep it up with the lazy punctuation, and you’ll be crossing that off your bucket list.
ps. i also don’t have the word “musings” in my description or banner of my blog. that seems necessary.
brainsnorts inc. 
Oh crap … Outstanding! I’ve been thinking the same thing and you captured it for me!!!
thanks sir. i had been thinking about it for a while, but i needed to try to make it fairly funny so i didn’t look jealous or bitter but still make a point.
One more usual FP posts I noticed are about pets. Nice observation on FP posts. I think this deserves to be Freshly Pressed.
thanks dude
I agree, this does need to be freshly pressed. Ya know, wake up the WordPress community. You are a good writer. You kept my attention and that is hard to do. Because of that, I am now following you. Thanks for sharing this. You seemed to have done a lot of research. Great job!
Ain’t you sweet! Thanks miss.
I’ve wondered the same thing many times. At first I chalked it up to less than a year’s blogging experience, but then I noticed that many of the FP blogs had fewer than 10 posts. Those all followed your astute observations about who gets a good pressing…except the female part. Maybe I don’t notice because I’m a woman, but the blogs I follow rarely have a profile photo, hence I can’t jdge the “hotness”. I read a few of your entries and thoroughly enjoyed them! BTW, the reason I came here was because you nominated Michael Douglas in An American President as one of the best film presidents. Agreed!
thanks. my ten reasons were intended to be funny, but funny – usually – had elements of truth. if anyone actually did the math, they could see that part of the “funny” was that the percentages i made up are not possible because they’d add up to well more than 100%. as for the “hot,” i would even have to question how often people use a real picture of themselves.
I think this is hilarious enough to be freshly pressed. 🙂 I recently read another blogger’s rant about not being freshly pressed . I think us bloggers put too much pressure on ourselves though…I’ve read some freshly pressed blogs that I didn’t think were anything outstanding. Or maybe I’m trying to make myself feel better! 🙂
i don’t mind not being pressed. i’m not one to deserve attention or recognition for anything. my complaint is more that there is a boringly consistent trend of what gets pressed. and very often what gets pressed is worthless. a picture of cats or cars. throwaway comments about nothing. occasionally, i read something great about someone’s recovery from an illness or opinions about education. those are great but not seen enough.
thanks for stopping by.
I followed a link to your blog after I read your comment on one of the posts that was fresh pressed. You wrote (no caps) “a picture of a pier.” I thought the exact same thing, although I mentally added “really. are you serious.”
(:
I always check what gets fresh pressed, some stuff is really amazing. But about 50% of it makes me want to stop blogging..
Then you must be damn smart too!! Thanks.
I think there is a FP committee that needs to wake up and grab some “Fresh Presses”..
this is a great example of what SHOULD be FP..
well that is extra special. thanks!
I’m thinking that there might be some algorithm working to choose Freshly Pressed. But I also noticed that some FP posts are obviously handpicked.
They gave their tips on how to be freshly pressed here: (http://en.support.wordpress.com/five-ways-to-get-featured-on-freshly-pressed). I wonder if it does it work.
I’ll check that out. Thanks.
aha! i think i have it! one of their suggestions has to do with typos. considering that i rarely use capital letters, they probably consider my posts to be full of errors. that could be it.
Where do I even begin? I don’t know whether to cower in shame — dare I admit I have a category entitled “Musing Mind” — or stand up and start cheering, pumping my fist, or maybe old-school it with an Arsenio Hall “Woo-woo-woo-woo”.
You nailed this, absolutely murdered every stereotype, cliche, and overly-done trend. It’s an epidemic: food, photos, and themes. I am guilty of all three, mind you, and still I cannot resist lauding your cleverness.
Seriously, I can’t decide what made me laugh harder: Perils of Pinterest, Hot girls, or Foodie.
So how does one become “Freshly Pressed” ? More important, how would one go about seeing this post Freshly Pressed? If this option is unavailable, I would like your permission to Reblog.
Whaddya say?
Well done, my friend, well done.
Blessings,
Cara
you reblog anything you wish. have your way with me. i’m at your mercy. take me as you wish.
as for how to get this freshly pressed – no clue. so, i’m clueless, as usual.
Ha! Careful now; you’ll give an impression that you’re easy. 😉
Clueless . . . I think not.
Thanks for the go ahead. I’m looking forward to sharing your thoughts.
i could be easy if i weren’t so … no, that won’t work.
Reblogged this on This Little Light and commented:
A fine article, filled with the cleverness, humor, and truth that most writers only hope to capture when seeking to purport something witty. I read the entire thing, then read it again. Brains — you’ve got some pretty stellar brains.
This is hilarious, and absolutely true. I find most of the FP choices just bland. Even stunning photography starts to blur together in my mind because there is just so MUCH of it on the blogs.
Also, I don’t know what the difference is between “tags” and “categories” either!
Thanks!
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I have actually seen a lot of typos and really bad grammar in some of the FP posts. Now I’m even more confused! Funny post!
in the wordpress guidelines, they say they avoid offensive language in FP, but one of yesterday’s FP had about 5 obsceneties.
Love this brains! And if it helps… I’ve never been Freshly Pressed either. And I’ve been on wp for three years!
Outstanding observations Brains, especially the ‘little blue bastards.’ You won’t find one of those lurking on my blog, anywhere. Lots of blue, but mainstream muffins, er…No!
Best wishes Brains.
Keep on Snarking. 🙂
Talia.
thanks miss! ;]
What the hell is Freshly Pressed?
It’s about ten blog posts each day that are featured on a special page, chosen by an editor as being the most clever, relevant, informative, humorous, picturesque, or something like that.
I referred to this post, but I forgot where I got it. My post about your post and the ensuing message from WP set off a discussion that I did not anticipate! Lots of people get FP’d apparently. Two very worthy people whom I follow were FP’d more than once. Hmmm….. YOU should be, by the way.
George
thanks. ‘ppreciate it. most of the people i follow i have found from FP.
Now I know who’s the one responsible in picking the Freshly Pressed articles:
http://automattic.com/work-with-us/story-wrangler/
Out of all that, I think that my only qualifying asset is being female but, as I am now elderly, the “hot” bit doesn’t apply, so no luck there either.
I popped over from George Weaver’s blog after finding your blogging identity from your comment there. I’m glad that I did.
That’s a subtle way of saying an amazingly nice thing. Thanks.
Found this by way of She Kept A parrot & Cara. Great post & blog. I think tags are like categories, only more so. The trick of course, is to figure out what target audience WordPress is trying to attract with FP. The better choice is to keep producing pieces like this. 🙂
wow. that’s a super nice thing to say. thanks!
Once, I saw a photograph of a window with some raindrops on it on the FP page. I kept thinking, “Is that what I’m doing wrong? Am I not taking enough photos of the mundane details of my life and posting them, sans description, on my blog? Is THAT it??”
Then I decided to take an up-close-and-personal photo of the carpet at my office, and then talk about how I love the angles. “That oughta do it”, I thought to myself.*
And then, as I was winding my Kodak disposable camera, the windy wheel thingy broke.**
It seems I’m destined for failure on WordPress.***
* Some of this may not be true
** None of this is true
*** This? This is probably true.
Awesome post, Brains!
thanks miss. that post was meant to be mostly funny but with an element of truth. a careful reading shows the math is impossible.
well now i know what i am doing wrong. thanks for clearing that up and making me laugh.
hey, i like this no capitals thing. rather liberating!
yep. liberating is how i see it too.
So funny!
Aww. Thanks.
Sho nuff 😉
damn straight.
and that is why you are funny. i am so glad i found your blog. you are a mess and i am down with that. 😉
i’ve been called “a mess” more than once. but this is the first time that it was a good thing. thanks!!
i like your brains, style. uhm, i mean, i like your style, brains! 😉
that’s funny. thanks!
I now know what freshly pressed is. I admit that when I got to the end I did a quick double take to check if I had musings in my title. My blog was briefly Phoenix Ponders. It continues to haunt me as I don’t seem to be able to wipe it completely from the settings. I wonder if your salad dressing post has increased your chance of being freshly pressed 😉
doubt it! oh, maybe. hmmm…
I think this post deserves to be FPed
thank you sir.
If this doesnt make to Freshly pressed then i dont know what will or should. It so funny and hey you have their pic too 🙂
Ok here it is, I am a female and do write ‘humour” and about kids too!but no freshly pressed or whatever….hmm i am not hot,no photography..Queen of typos.
oh man so many things not going in my favour….
P.S what is pineterest?
Great post.
Have a wonderful week 🙂
Thanks. It wasn’t freshly pressed, as I knew it wouldn’t be, but I’m glad you saw the humor of it. Have a great day.
Rich,
First, you are funny. A bit dry, but I happen to think that’s good. I’m not hot either, rarely talk about food, and have very hairy legs. Call this empathy, but I doubt I’ll get Pressed anytime soon… and am not the least bit worried about it either! Write on bro, tags or no tags, we’ll hardly notice.
thanks. that’s kind of you. i’m curious how you found that post?
this is great!!
thanks. i had fun writing it. glad you enjoyed it.
This wasn’t FP’d? Is there still time? It should be! I don’t really get the Fresh Pressed because most of it the posts are horribly mundane. Check in with Sweet Mother, I know she would Decently Iron you.
sweet mother? iron me? sounds kinky.
Oh it is….and gratifying for those of us who aren’t getting the attention of whoever is behind the WP curtain.
Wrong, you are very funny and just pressed enough. FP sounds too juicy for me and they are all so fresh. I visted once and felt pastel. I got out quick.
felt pastel and got out quick. that’s funny.
I was initially intrigued to read this, but having just finished it, I gotta say, it sounds pretty bitter. Second, as someone who did get Freshly Pressed just recently, I kind of resent the implications here. I’m not a pretty female, I don’t write for kids or about food. I don’t do photography, and I don’t do tributes to famous people (aside from bashing the ones I don’t like!) And I ramble on terribly. Yet somehow, I got FP’d for doing a piece of literature. Go figure!
it was not meant to be serious. it was a joke, with a hint of truth.
Great! Now I feel dumb 😉
You would only know it was a joke if you did the math of my percentages. In one it said something like “105% of all FP involved blah blah blah.”
Can’t have that percentage.
I want so very much for this post to be FP’ed 🙂 This is a treasure and you should use the humor tag..often!
i only recently learned about those tags about a month ago. it’s a wonder i’ could have had anyone reading before then.
I had 40 followers on January 31. It is only these past 3 months that I have been learning how to do this and mostly thanks to the wonderful people I have met here 🙂
Same here. Rock on.
indeed!
i just looked back. in january, i had two followers.
nice work 🙂
i bet many of them can be traced back to your blog.
Very funny!! Thanks for the laugh I needed it. I will never be FP’d either and it’s ok with me!
What I love about the few viewers I’ve had, is they are from all over the world, It just blows my mind.
i’ve noticed that. i have a few in australia, israel, phillipines. it’s interesting.
Cool
I thought this was hilarious and who decided on the term foodies? I guess they weren’t wordies or they would have come up with a better name.
Thanks.
amen for lowercase…i am a fan of e.e. & submitted my grad school app in all lowercase, some didn’t like it, but i still got in 😉
atta girl
okay, but I am a woman, I try to write with humour, I write about my kids, I am a journalist so I capitalize, I am into tributes of people who die that I really liked, I include details to a point but not past that point. I am not a foodie, do not really have one theme, do not have photos–so there you have it – I think it is the luck of the draw unless I am chosen – then of course I will think it is because of pure talent (lol)
i’d go with the talent.
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In the midst of composing the ‘requisite’ post after being Freshly Pressed last Thursday, I happened onto your post. It is way too funny. I especially enjoyed 5 and 6, (details repeated). Since I am now following you ,there will undoubtedly be trackbacks in the future on my site to yours. Cheers!
cheers and thanks back at you. looking forward to seeing your FP too. thanks again. glad you enjoyed it.