Regretsy or When Thinking Too Highly of your own Opinion Turns you into a Bitch

Oh Regretsy. For some reason, every couple of months, I run back across this online embodiment of misplaced grammar-schoolesque self-esteem issues and petty puffery.

I wish I didn't have the words to describe my feelings about this blog but unfortunately, I have so many words that I'm having trouble forming them into coherent dialogue.

If you're not familiar with Regretsy.com, it's a blog run by a gal named Helen whose sole purpose is to poke fun at Etsy listings. Only poke fun might be too soft- it's really more like watching snotty popular junior high girls trash their nerdy classmate.
Regretsy scours through Etsy's listings, finds a few that they think are appropriately "lame" and then posts the listings to their blog accompanied by thinly disguised bitterness posing as clever wit.

Now, maybe this is just me being a boring old adult with human emotions like empathy and shame but I read a few posts and think to myself....
Really? You are a grown ass woman and this is how you choose to spend your free time?
I can't help but wonder who hurt this girl so....
Was it some cold-hearted art teacher that overlooked 16 year old Helen's submission to her school's art faire?
Those stuck up Grammas who would let her join their quilting bee?
Did her Mom laugh at her macaroni and glitter collage?
Just what happened to make her so hateful and angry?

I don't understand this level of unnecessary negativity. You don't like the crotchet socks or print of sunflowers or feathered hairband?
No problem, you don't have to buy them.
But to go out of your way to hunt them down and them blast them (and with such seeming glee) comes across kind of sociopathic.

It's sad really- behavior that used to be reserved for children and pre-teens is now shifted over to the middle aged. It takes a special kind of pitiful to ridicule someones creations, unprovoked and in such a public manner. And I realize it's much safer to do so while posted up behind a keyboard. I seriously doubt these people would have the balls to go to a craft faire or farmers market and be so snarkey to the sellers face.

So, well done Regretsy, you've managed to turn me to the darkside of passive aggressive rants about others via the internet. But before you go off patting yourselves on the back and reviling in your cleverness, here's a few bullet points from the rest of humanity.

*Snarkyness is never flattering. On anyone.

*If you are going to pass out judgment, hiding behind a computer to do so makes you seem cowardly.

*As much as you dislike the end product, these people you ridicule are making something, trying to do something positive. All your site does is tear things down. And your type of destruction is useless.

* All the clever, funny taglines in the world don't change the simple fact that you're being a bitch.

I doubt Helen and the good folks at Regretsy will ever read any of this but if by some magic happenstance, it finds it's way to their nest of bitchery- I say this...

Helen, we live quite close to each other, a few hours drive at most. Maybe we can meet up someday for coffee and you can tell me all about how the world crushed your crafting dreams and I can give you that hug you so desperately need.

All my Love and Pity,
Erin