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Paul Nelson, KSL NewsradioThere is a bitter and hurtful war of words going on over the Internet among a certain group of people. You may be shocked to hear who it is.
You walk into the scrapbooking store Treasured Memories in Salt Lake City and the atmosphere is pretty calm.
Owner Michael Mellen said, "All of my customers are just happy. They're coming in to preserve their memories."
Mellen says scrapbooking is about the joy of memories and sharing wonderful times, and all that. He says part of the fun is the diverse artistic expression each person has.
"I've got stuff in my store that I think is as ugly as sin, but people buy it, and there will be something I think is awesome and they'll pass it right by [saying], ‘Oh, that's stupid,'" he said.
That why he's surprised at some of the hate-filled comments scrapbookers are throwing at each other online."That anybody would care enough to go attack somebody else's designs, or whatever, is just stupid. These people should have better things to do, like spend money in my store," he said.
For example, the Web site scrapsmack.blogspot.com has entries questioning the parental skills of a woman named Heidi Swapp. They also call a woman named Jeanette Herdman the b-word. One of the most bitter chat threads is over a woman named Kristina Contes, who was stripped of her Hall of Fame honor. She's called things like, well, I'm not comfortable even telling you which letter it starts with.
Rusty Pickle Sales and Marketing Representative Nanette Hanks said, "People in the industry get, I think, to where they want it and they want it now, and they get mean and ugly, and it's kind of a turn-off."
Hanks says these people represent an extremely small portion of scrapbookers. Still, she says there's no reason to call a woman stripped of Hall of Fame honors a name that would make a sailor blush.
"I don't know. Maybe the people complaining about it and calling her bad names should maybe spend some more time making cuter pages. They might be there, too," she said.
Some bloggers compare the stripping of the honor to the Barry Bonds steroid scandal. Other people say there's a growing rift between regular scrapbookers and digital scrapbookers. Who knows? Maybe we'll see a rumble.
