Sarah Morgan
Edith Meyer is a specialty baker in San Francisco. She makes wedding cakes.
So what, you ask? I don’t live in San Francisco and I’m not getting married. Why do I care? Is this going to be another of your weird tie-ins to some social media thought?
…You know me so well.
So okay. Edith has a blog about her cake-baking. And she decided to harness the power of the blogosphere (what an awful metaphor, and even dumber in the context of baking, but you get the point) – and she offered to send a dozen cookies (ginger molasses or chocolate chip, your choice) to everyone who registered and voted for her in a city-wide contest, and emailed her to tell her that they’d done so.
A very popular blogger, LA comedy writer Pam Ribon of Pamie.com, picked it up, because she had bought her own wedding cake from Edith a couple of years back. And Pamie’s post seems to have been the tipping point. That post about it is gone now, although you can still see the link if you Google “pamie edith meyer”. But Edith is ahead. And if you look on the voting site you see some complaints saying she’s not playing fair.
I don’t know if Edith asked Pamie to take it down because she realized she now had thousands of dozens of cookies to mail out. Or if Pamie found out that Edith wasn’t going to send anybody any cookies. Or if the contest owners told Edith to stop it. Or if Pamie thought it was cheating. Or for another reason entirely. No idea. But it’s interesting. Shows the power of individuals asking help of other individuals. (Also shows the power of cookies. Which, in my experience, is not to be underestimated.)
So what do you think? It’s bribery, yes. (Fair disclosure – yes, I did enter. Because one, I checked it out and she really does gorgeous work. And because two – free cookies!) But do you think it was cheating?
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