In a way, I feel sorry for the owner of swimchick.net (“Jessica”). Of all the “crap site” nominations I receive, swimchick tops the list. It is also one of the most searched for terms by people looking through my reviews/previous pants awards. In fact, feedback on swimchick is so much in demand I feel I’m caving in to peer pressure just writing this.
Of course, any pity is generally overcome just by looking at Disclaimer in the side bar: “Everything you see here is rightfully Copyrighted to Jessica at swimchick.net unless otherwise stated.” — because of course, stealing celebrity photographs is all right as long as you credit the site that stole them originally, yeah?
I was originally going to review swimchick but according to the full disclaimer she doesn’t take advice unless she asked for it, so I don’t see the point wasting several hours writing an in-depth review only to have it ignored (oh, wait, isn’t that what usually happens..?) Talking of the full disclaimer, Jessica says: “My site is my site. I will do what I please with it and I do not need your permission for anything.” and thus by that logic: my site is my site, and I don’t need her permission to do anything with it (including mocking her in my blog) right?
Jessica is another one of these people that spends so much time talking about how her “CSS is crap” (don’t even get me started on the unnecessary written abuse of the poor styling syntax we know as CSS :( ) that she has neglected her content pages. Her side description tells us that she’s “17 years old. 18 on September 25th.” (is that Sept 25th 05, 06, 07…?) but her “More About [..]” page states that she’s 16. The page is, as well as inaccurate, very poorly worded. Take for instance “But it would keep you here forever and then you’d have absolutely no life” …now I’ve heard of being bored to death, but I always thought that was a figure of speech. I didn’t realise that one could lose your life just by reading. I am wondering if it’s commonplace in America to bring your teachers home too (“No one at home really calls me Jessica. Unless they’re trying to impress their teacher or something.”)
The obvious need for visitor attention and hits is demonstrated in multiple ways: an advertising link before the important introduction, and the fact that “visitor” and “tutorials” are linked higher in the menu than “me”. Don’t get me wrong, I maintain a healthy obsession with my own statistics and monitor them every second of every day (did I just say healthy?!) but if you own a personal website, it makes sense to keep it personal first and foremost. Cookie-cutter generic reads and badly cropped stolen celebrity photography are rampant in the visitor section (and they’re not even that great).
Tutorials. Ohhh, tutorials! Apparently the tutorials were written by Jessica and we’re not to steal, redistribute or edit them in any way. Ha ha ha. Sorry, that wasn’t a joke? I was really looking forward to seeing the Adding Music tutorial but the link was broken. Woe. This is more than made up by the “Animated Title” tutorial in which a bit of Dodo’s dodgy JavaScript is being redistributed. Hold on a cotton-picking minute, didn’t we just get lectured on how these tutorials belong to Jessica? Tut tut, shame on her.
“Auto Favourite” is another broken link, “Bg Colour Change”/”Blocking IPs” seems to have some coding issues (apart from the two sets of <body>, I mean). “Custom Bullets” is stolen from pixelfx and has been mangled making it even worse than the original (I didn’t think that was even possible). Not only does she fail to point out that list items need to be placed within an unordered/ordered list tag but she also fails to offer the more sensible solution of customising the actual list instead of the individual items. “How to Css” is another broken link, but that’s OK because I’m happy just laughing at the name of the tutorial (“How to cascading style sheet”?) The iframe tutorial is missing an equals sign between the name attribute and its value, and it contains superfluous styling. (Has anyone else notice that I make a habit of including the word ‘superfluous’ at least once in my reviews/pants posts?)
Got to love how she’s teaching people to break various laws by redistributing default Windows fonts…
Jessica: for offering stolen reads, tutorials and resources; creating tutorials based on other people’s code; chucking around the word “respect” like it’s something we owe you; being generally ignorant of the point of validating your code; and various other crimes to humanity, you win the 6th Pants Award.
Feel free to direct link :)
17 Nov at 8:06 pm
Jem FTW!
17 Nov at 8:10 pm
That is a terrible site. The header graphic is massive, and it takes up the whole page – as well as the terrible coding.
17 Nov at 8:20 pm
LOL, a well deserved award. Here’s the adding music tutorial (I can’t beleive I tried to find it :( ) http://www.swimchick.net/visitors/tutorials/addingmusic/addingmusic.php
17 Nov at 8:25 pm
YES! I have been waiting for this. Awesome, Jem.
17 Nov at 8:56 pm
“How to CSS”? Does she even know what CSS is? I highly doubt it somehow… And OMGZ0Rz I wanna add m0oz1k 2 mah w3bbie!1! *Goes and does it* (Not really, heh)
17 Nov at 9:24 pm
Absolutely absurd. That image took at least 20 seconds to load on my work T1 connection.
17 Nov at 9:46 pm
Yes, she needs help…a lot of it, especially with that image. This is only the sixth pants award? There are so many crappy sites that should be destroyed!
17 Nov at 9:47 pm
Literally, for the first couple of refreshes, her header graphic did not load at all. Then the third time it was half way loaded and stopped. It was ridiculous.
17 Nov at 10:08 pm
i couldn’t have put it better myself jem. What a waste of a domain name and I’m sorry but that site doesn’t even deserve to direct link to the award. :P
17 Nov at 10:16 pm
Psh, just another sad excuse of a site…I’m sure you’ll find some more terrible sites…but at least she didn’t use < / align > like on outspoken kate…
17 Nov at 10:26 pm
stfu ho!!!! u dont no jesica!!!!! Heh, I’m surprised there are no comments along the lines of that. :| Ha ha, I love your pants award. Very creative.
17 Nov at 10:33 pm
YES!!! I was waiting for this one – swimchick.net is most certainly pants!
17 Nov at 11:07 pm
I visited that site not long ago, and the thing that most struck me was that the owner lectured her visitors about copyright, theft etc., yet was selling layouts featuring celebrity images for money.
17 Nov at 11:08 pm
Have I been living in a hole or something? I’ve never heard of this site until today… And then of course I had to go visit out of curiosity. It saddens me how she seems to have a lot of visitors even though as you pointed out, her content is pants.
17 Nov at 11:08 pm
Oh my god her header image is taking forever to load. It’s taking minutes. ‘How to CSS’? LOL. Okay, my computer just gave up on trying to load the picture.
18 Nov at 12:06 am
Haha I was reading her comments and found this one: woo hooo! HEy Jessica…i love the css it matches well with the new layout.
18 Nov at 12:40 am
Eek,I’m guily of saying things like “I didn’t think the CSS was that great.” *must change* I loved this line:
18 Nov at 1:22 am
I have also been apparently living in a hole, for I have never seen that site before. But because of your review, it persuaded me to visit the actual site for a well deserved laugh. Absolutely nothing made sense. “Psh, just another sad excuse of a site…I’m sure you’ll find some more terrible sites…but at least she didn’t use < / align > like on outspoken kate…” LMAO
18 Nov at 4:38 am
WOW!! You just like opened up my eyes to the real Swimchick.I used to love that site,ugh.. Now that I read all of this…well,yeah. Thanks this was awesome!
18 Nov at 5:45 am
Oh come now Jem. This site is almost TOO easy to criticise, why not choose one a little more challenging? :P
18 Nov at 8:32 am
I’m going to be nitpicky and bring up how she mentions she likes the word vacuum and then misspells vacuum. GAH. I’ve never heard of the site before now either. Sort of glad I hadn’t.
18 Nov at 10:44 am
Ha! I love your pants awards Jem, you always manage to find some really crap sites. I’ve just eaten my breakfast and drank a cup of tea, and that header image still hasn’t loaded.
18 Nov at 3:27 pm
Any suggestions..?
18 Nov at 3:53 pm
hehe, I’m starting to enjoy reading these posts more and more. I just hope I never come under fire like this ;D
18 Nov at 4:16 pm
Ha! I love it! Your post are hilarious! Swimchick.net = die. Hehe!
18 Nov at 6:25 pm
Heh, I wonder when she’ll discover this post. I’m sure when she does, she’ll send her wannabe minions over here to defend their silly Queen Bee…
18 Nov at 6:28 pm
As much as I enjoy reading your reviews of other sites, they still scare the crap out of me… Excellent review none the less.
18 Nov at 8:59 pm
I’d never heard of that site before. My bad?
18 Nov at 10:02 pm
This just pretty much made my day :) I wonder how she’ll react to this…
18 Nov at 11:49 pm
She also can’t spell “Evanescence” And she hates oranges…I’m offended! And why wouldn’t one do homework at HOME??? Oh, I was cracking my fingers when I was reading the hates section also…haha… She also mentioned that she had five siblings, including herself…then farther down…SIX??? I still see why you gave it a pants award…
19 Nov at 1:54 am
@Jem: About the comments–I have to say, it’s kind of hard to see when one comment ends and another begins. I’ve also never been to this site. My bad, too.
19 Nov at 4:33 am
lulz she removed all the HTML/CSS/Java tutorials with the exception of one and she left the tutorial count (27) on the heading, she can’t even do that right. I think you can still access everything through /tutorials though. http://tinyurl.com/y5cphc is the link to the “How to CSS” tutorial, she mentions in it that she uses… *snicker* DIV Tables.
19 Nov at 4:54 am
Div…tables?!? HA! That’s as bad as < /align > !!!
19 Nov at 6:36 am
My teenybopper friends would love that site. :P Div tables? Ahahaha… xD …d00d.
19 Nov at 7:03 am
You know, once I read your reviews, I really start worrying. There are so many crap/pants sites… so where are the good ones? But um… considering your other reviews, I think this isn’t that bad. Then again, I’ve yet to see the site, but I’ve heard about the site a great deal. Oh as for “How to CSS” that was brilliant… even though I got a brief image of making pasta with a “pinch” of CSS =P, after reading it.
19 Nov at 7:07 am
Jem, this is the same idiot that flamed me awhile back for pointing out that using celebrity photos is copyright infringement… haha This made my day :) I’m sure she’ll send her merry band of n00bs over here soon to try to “call you out”, as she did to me. I’m sure if you continue using superfluous in your entries, though, they won’t even make it past your index page… @ Retti: Funny, teenybopper is the exact same word I used to describe her as well.
19 Nov at 7:14 am
Oh on second thought: I DID see this site: Becky (of Babblative) had a few issues with her. They even had a nity flames war *grins*
19 Nov at 8:13 am
Well technically she avoided the topic (like she did when she banned a person from her board for having secks) and sent minions after me to call me a “cow”, “fat” and “completely and totally (scarily obsessed) with Jessica”. So I’m willing to bet the most Jem will see of her is a minion or two calling her names over and over again and telling her she needs a date (but really meaning that she needs to get laid). That is if they get past the rly big words Jem is so fond of using (for example “unnecessary”).
19 Nov at 8:14 am
Hahhahaha, brilliance. Pure brilliance. I need to get out my proxy, go to her site, and have a good laugh. (I’ve been banned for a while.) To think, I used to honestly be friends with her. Ugh, bad memories.
19 Nov at 10:20 am
A very well-deserved Pants Award, if you ask me. It never ceases to amaze me that website owners attempt to claim everything on their website even though half of it is stolen/ripped/recycled stuff from other sites — celebrity photograph theft ftw (er, not really) — and the other half is utter generic crap that’s not even worth claiming to begin with. And don’t tell me you forgot to mention the pay-to-advertise scheme at the top of her side column… No doubt she’ll find this soon enough and act the “hormonal teenage girl” about it, but it would really show some good qualities if she were to take it in her stride and — God forbid — try to build on some of the criticism you’ve offered. *cough* Haaaaahaaaaahaaa…
19 Nov at 2:51 pm
Which is why I don’t want to say anything because if I come under the “pants genre” I want to freely be able to defend myself. Heh.
19 Nov at 4:48 pm
She did, I believe :)
19 Nov at 6:07 pm
Ooh, they posted comments on her cutenews. Apparently Jem’s the ‘queen bee’ and we’re following her like high school groupies. That same person mentioned before that Jessica was coding HER way…oh, what language? CrapperTextMarkupLanguage?
19 Nov at 9:34 pm
Haha, nice one Jem! Uh. She’s an idiot. Her visitors even more so. Have you seen them; “Ooh. Let’s worship Jess.” If someone dares to comment saying the disagree they get attacked by idiots.
21 Nov at 1:36 am
lmao. She made a youtube video about this review = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1RSEipgyE
21 Nov at 1:39 am
I started watching the video she made in reply, but I didn’t even get halfway through. I think she was trying to pretend that she doesn’t -really- talk like that… ? I don’t see the point in this post, though. There’s much, much worse online that deserves your attention more than the site of a little girl who doesn’t even know how old she is : P
21 Nov at 5:21 am
She makes herself look like an idiot on that video. I love how she keeps saying “like omg” and all that stuff when you never mention anything like it on your review. I don’t think she fully understood what you said. And obviously she’s the one spending her Saturday nights doing that insightful research for her cool video.
21 Nov at 6:05 am
*is laughing hard enough to tear up* I can’t believe she actually believed that your family WAS indeed for up for sale. Oh and there is “God forbid anyone coded the site they want to”, because of course W3C are crap, they had absolutely no idea what they were talking about (the fact that they actually created said code is highly irrelevant DUH!) As for the respect issue… maybe this is just me, but doesn’t it take a bit more than “RESPECT ME!” thrown around a few times, for that to ACTUALLY happen? You know… as opposed to ACTING in a respectful way? But yeah… I’m just rambling. Oh and another thing: we can safely assume that she would never actually read a book, because UGH… who DOES that these days?! I’d comment on her site, but just reading the comments on this issue gives me a headache: can’t anyone write in normal (i.e. literary) English these days?
21 Nov at 6:06 am
sorry, type too fast. That should’ve been: anyone coded their site the way they want to.
21 Nov at 10:22 am
Reading books is a waste of a Saturday? What have I been doing with my time? I think her accent is the funniest thing about that video. I do a better English accent than that. Really Jem, I would be so flattered if someone made a video about me, imitating me (imitation is the best form of flattery, so they say…) Forget people blogging about you and reviewing you, this girl made a video for you! You’re really in the “online popular group” now! (Yay for the pants award, she deserves it!)
21 Nov at 1:33 pm
I increased the spacing, can you let me know if it’s made a difference for you? :)
21 Nov at 5:04 pm
@Video: Ah yes.. because mine, yours and all the commenters on this site have the exact same style and “coding” lololololz. “Okay you guys, I passed my year six S.A.T.’s I’m like one of the smartest kids in like the world.” (src: Becky’s transcript) .. eh, aren’t you suppose to do them regardless? :-/ Someone’s obviously done their homework.
21 Nov at 5:07 pm
Obviously has no grasp on British education standards…
21 Nov at 7:25 pm
DEAR GOD. I love it. All she ever blogs about is crap. And then lil Neopets groupies come and kiss her arse. It amazes me, it really does.
21 Nov at 8:04 pm
I’m going to have to agree with you on that one. It’s like, she’s the ugly witch, and all her minions are flying monkeys. :(
21 Nov at 8:55 pm
Psh. I was just thinking over and looking at the tutorials she had. Yeah, I could’ve copied and pasted my tutorials to, WHEN I WAS 8. My gosh, >_>. For one, I’d not be selling my “layouts.” She probably took the images from another website, which was covered by Jem before: you’re not supposed to just take stock photos… and sell them! Secondly, can we even call those layouts? They look like… She got a bunch of brushes, slapped ’em on, then type in some random font. Wonderful… your talent is great! You know how to use brushes and the font tool! .___. When I first saw the name, I thought it was Swim Hick, O_o. Her youtube vids make me laugh SO HARD! Her little accent… is just so funny. And then she tries to talk about a correct Halloween. How old is she now? I’m not sure, she doesn’t even know her own age, >_>. Dumb… Dumb… DUMB. I’m 12 years old… I could do better than that… when I was 8 years old! I kind of feel sorry for her… but not really, because there are things called tutorials (real ones, >_>) that can actually teach you how to learn CORRECT markup for creating webpages. Cutenews is retarded.
21 Nov at 9:01 pm
Lets hope she leaves the internet for awhile and learn a few things. Then come back. If she ever decides to do that she should put on her site somewhere “I am Jessica, and because of Jem I grew up.” If I didnm’t have the flu I’d be pissed I couldn’t see her fantabulous video she didn’t make for you. I am not great at coding my site (I needed to use a tut on how to make my ‘own’ wp theme), but at least I am willing to learn and try. If we knew everything about coding it wouldn’t be fun anymore.
21 Nov at 9:02 pm
Sorry for the typos. I suffer from typosis.
21 Nov at 10:55 pm
I srsly agree with you with the tutorial name “How to CSS”. Srsly. I was looking through her tutorials one day, and I came across that one, and I was like. o_0?
21 Nov at 10:56 pm
You have a nice layout here.. Yeah, first time visitor (directed here from swimchick, actually) But more to the point- you definitely have valid statements there. I am, and probably still will be a regular visitor there (I like to see the perspective of another Muslim girl), though. I think the problem is that Jessica’s kind of… proud. She doesn’t take to advice well, from what I can see. But I do like her new layout, if the whole http thing is a bit.. odd? The things you look at certainly reflect your profession. Do the little things like the order of the links matter THAT much, though, if it’s a personal site? :/ I also had some curiosity questions: If someone put a sign up or a notice that said that his/her site was going under a revamp, and there were incongruities as noted or problems like missing pages, would you find it as much of a problem? (That sounds funny, but I can’t think of a better way to word it) Finally, if it’s a personal and graphics resource, would the order be as much of a problem if the site was meant to be more graphically oriented and less personal? I think that if I was a website owner, I’d definitely just end up asking for reviews from people like you, because they’d be harsh and informative. Plus, if someone just got downright rude, it would give me pleasure to fix things, in an odd kind of way x)
22 Nov at 6:07 am
Your Pants Awards brighten up my day. Thanks. :)
22 Nov at 9:48 am
@Sumaiya, thank you for your concise and interesting comment :) It’s not necessarily my profession that makes me point out issues on sites like swimchick, but rather my passion for “properly done” websites. Of course, this is objective, and what I think is a “proper website” other people might find ludicrous – the fun part is exactly that.. getting to know other’s opinions. Anyway, it was the fact that Jessica’s site is supposed to be personal that made me question the order of her links. Surely if her was truly personal she’d want the personal content first? This is not some sort of rule in web design, it’s just something that has always struck me as odd. It gives me the impression that Jessica values her visitor-related content than she does anything else, making the site LESS personal. If a person had a website live with a revamp sign I’d probably not even bother browsing (that said, I didn’t really bother browsing Jessica’s site beyond a few pages deep to get a general impression). It is very easy to develop a website offline, so I feel there’s no reason to only upload ‘half-pages’ of content. It would be much easier to prepare the content, get everything finished and then upload it all at once. If a site was graphics-oriented, I wouldn’t expect it to have personal content at all so as to clearly define the website type, but that’s just me being incredibly picky.. I’m glad that if you owned a website you’d take a review from me – no point beating about the bush and pretending to like something if you clearly don’t, and I was brought up to be honest. It’s something I live by.
24 Nov at 7:40 am
I think the best part was that she was trying to act like you were wasting your time and she was too cool to care all the while… making a… video… in reply.
03 Dec at 6:38 am
Some thoughts: 1. Can’t she get in trouble for selling layouts with images that she doesn’t hold the copyright for? 2. Why does the word “conceitedness” make me think it’s made up, when it seems that it isn’t? 3. I wanted to read her comments posted in the cutenews thing, but I can’t for the life of me find her archives. 4. I was hoping that the video would provide adequate entertainment, but it’s apparently been removed for violated terms of service or some nonsense. Pitty. 5. I find the bias against Elphaba of the West to be very upsetting.
03 Dec at 6:43 am
Urg. Stupid auto-formatting nonsense. I apologize. I thought I had turned that off.
06 Dec at 2:28 pm
Kay, I see your point, and i agree to a certain point. But you shouldent be going about her website layout. Her layout atleast looks nice.
06 Dec at 4:41 pm
Please feel free to point out where I was “going about her website layout” because I don’t remember mentioning it…
06 Dec at 6:45 pm
I’ve read this so many times and failed to comment. I happened upon Jessica’s site again today and found a tutorial called “How to Layout”?! She’s so clever that she doesn’t make sense. And I was intrigued on how exactly you DO layout [according to J] and I found she had stamped one of Henri’s [http://funeralmonster.net] brushes and tells her teeny-bopper army to create a brush from it – when in fact you need Henri’s permission to use his copyrighted material [an I suppose even then he would say no] and turn it into a stamp or image pack. Pure stupidity at its best.
06 Dec at 7:48 pm
As much at I laughed at this, I’m just glad that I didn’t get the pants award this time around.
06 Dec at 10:12 pm
Well, that made my day. XD By the way, I’m sorry I haven’t kept in contact with you about that interview! I’m such a ditz, I’ve been so busy with getting into college. Would you mind if I emailed you this week about it? Even though I don’t think I’ll keep up with monthly interviews like I had planned, I’d be honoured to have yours.
06 Dec at 11:19 pm
JEM’S NOTE: this person was a big chickenshit and left a fake e-mail address, but her comment was bringing up some interesting points so I let it through. Okay, I’m not on Jessica’s side, but I’m not on your side either. I just think you shouldn’t do this (the whole pant/crap award thing), I think it is kind of rude to do it, if you don’t like that site simply stop going into it (that’s for everyone who ‘hates’ swimchick.net). It is true she claims this and that about copyright protection, and that she breaks it’s laws herself, and everything. I actually agree with Jem in that, but she is the one making that mistake, not you, I don’t really understand why would you care so much about a person you’ve only read, and that you are suposed to dislike. All you guys (the commenters) seem to hate her so much but still get into her files, and search for her broken links, and happen to notice every little thing she does, it seems like you go all around her site looking for her broken links, and spelling/grammar mistakes or anything, just a quick reminder: She is human, as you are, she makes mistakes, as you do, and she has her own way of expressing herself and her own way of thinking, as you do, maybe to some of you, her way of thinking/expressing may seem ridiculous or stupid or whatever you want, (honestly, sometimes, to me it is) but that is they way she is and I don’t think you should critize like this for being the way she is. I don’t really think she even gets to see this, and if she does, I don’t really think she would care, I think it is just a waste of Jem’s time to take so much time criticizing a site. If you want to continue doing it go ahead, I’m just stating my opinion, as you all are.
07 Dec at 11:15 am
Hi Jenna, thanks for the comment. I understand your point of view, but you’re defeating your ‘argument’ with your own comment. “I just think you shouldn’t do this (the whole pant/crap award thing)” … “if you don’t like that site simply stop going into it (that’s for everyone who ‘hates’ swimchick.net). ” – surely if you don’t like the pants award, you simply stop reading it? “All you guys (the commenters) seem to hate her so much but still get into her files” – I can’t control what my visitors write, nor would I try to. “her way of thinking/expressing may seem ridiculous or stupid” .. ” but that is they way she is and I don’t think you should critize like this for being the way she is.” – maybe this is my way of thinking/expressing myself, doesn’t that mean that you shouldn’t be criticising me? “I don’t really think she even gets to see this, and if she does, I don’t really think she would care,” – oh, she saw it. She even created me a special video in which she tried desperately to look funny. In the end she only looked like a prat, and the video was removed from YouTube for violating their terms and conditions. Again, thank you for your comment and trust me – I will continue doing it :)
08 Dec at 6:11 am
This sh*t is funy… Im not on anybody’s side,as a matter of fact I don’t really care, but I like to comment! hah! when your “pants” awards and your “great” coding, and Jessica’s layouts and “great style” gets me a billion bucks I will probably care a bit… but for now, while you guys are not doing anything great for our humanity/planet/world/anything.. I will just keep laughing about it… so keep it up, it’s funny sh**t…! (and this is just my opinion..don’t mean to offend anybody..don’t take it serious guys!!)
09 Dec at 12:59 am
Wow. I’ve made so many of those mistakes. My links are in alphabetic order, so it just happens that “Tutorials” and “Visitor” appear right at the bottom. I have little content for the visitor, though. I’m too lazy and it is my site, I got it to have a blog, not make stuff for other people. I read your comment policy before posting and laughed at this. I just thought it was funny because I get too many of those e-mails in my inbox.
07 Jan at 11:09 pm
I’m going to have to agree with this review. You got in depth & told us the truth, & I find that just great. I use to like that site, as well. But as you pointed out by stealing things such as readings & such, I dislike it now. –Lindsey.
09 Jan at 1:30 pm
well, you guys! Stop talking about her behind her back! Its not good you know! If you think someting is not right, just inform her rather than writing this article for everyone to see. You embarassed her and that, you did something not good. I’m not one of her friend okay. She didn’t even know me! I’m muslim and its not good to talk behind someone’s back!
06 Feb at 1:05 am
Well I don’t hate swimchick.net but I don’t love it either. I go there sometimes to veiw the tutorials. She has an okay site going, but I think she needs to get her facts straight about copyright though. Also just awhile ago she said she might shut the site down and she clearly stated she wasn’t looking for money. Then she stuck the paypal button up shortly after and is asking people for donations.
09 Feb at 12:02 am
i’ve been to lots of personal sites and they’ll have windows fonts and celebrity images too. and btw, what gives you the authority to judge everyone else’s website anyways?
09 Feb at 5:33 am
I’m not going to put my site on here because I too don’t want to come ‘under fire’. x) I admit I do not know what the true meaning of CSS is. Someone explain? And I am a regular attender of SwimChick.net. Kill me. But oh well.
11 Feb at 5:53 pm
Oh my gosh. THANK YOU! I went on her website ONE time- and the only reason for htat was because my FAVORITE html/css site had been closed because miss jessica over there had said that the site had ‘stolen her work’ etc. etc.and look there- almost everything on her site was stolen, ironic, no?
16 Feb at 5:10 pm
I’m not sure I completely understand the relevancy of this comment…What do those two things have to do with one another? Especially the fact that you are muslim; Jem never said anything about Jessicas religion or culture, so why does that make a difference? Further more, it is hardly “talking behind her back” since this website is easily accessible to anyone, including Jessica, with internet. Jem, you presented alot of very good points, especially about the tutorials. If she wants to code against W3 standards thats her business but she really shouldn’t be teaching people incorrect code; it’s hardly fair to the people who use and believe those tutorials. A youtube video? That seems a tad juvenile to rant about this review using youtube. However, that is my personal opinion. ALEXIS RAE- CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. :)
16 Feb at 10:34 pm
she completely deserved that, but i think it is time for another pants award jem… give us all something to laugh at! NOTICE: I didn’t say “WITH”… I said “AT” There are sooo many crappy sites! *cough, cough… PICZO*
17 Feb at 9:36 pm
I dont know why you are all hating on Swimchick.net. You all need to get a life, and stop browsing the internet for ‘hate’ reviews on website your jealous of. Its a tutorial/content website. What the hell are you guys bothering it for? “Oh, the tutorials sign is before the me button, omg burn the website!!” LoL. I bet you all are white people. You guys are so stupid. You all need to get off your fat asses and go run some laps on the treadmill. *Oh why are YOU on the computer* Its my damn buisness and Ill stick to that. you guys are just Hatin’ because, you couldnt make a better website. Yes everysite has flaws, and dont even try and fix my grammar or puncutation. LoL you guys ARE the true american nerds. Kudos and keep doing what your doing, Everyone needs haters.
28 Feb at 11:53 pm
Seriously go on with all your comments. They dont mean anything. Like other people are saying, if you dont like her site, why do you even talk about it. Im not saying that my site is good or anything, but she has put years of work into makeing a site that people love to visit! So you can go and have fun with attempting to make fun of other people, even though it doesnt mean a thing.
01 Mar at 12:15 am
Ok, first, I don’t think you really have a life yourself, I mean please writing what seems to be about 2 full pages on how badly Jessica’s site sucks, then I’d say someone has some serious problems. No one is perfect, and I’m sure you aren’t either, or would you like to prove me wrong? You are probably just jealous, have you SEEN how many people visit her site and give her comments ../.(GOOD comments) so just go get a life and stop putting others down just to make yourself feel better.
01 Mar at 8:39 pm
“So you can go and have fun with attempting to make fun of other people, even though it doesnt mean a thing.” Zack, she is not “making fun” of Jessica. This is not a bully squad, mind you. (Or is it? :0) Jemma is stating a fact: swimchick.net DOES violate terms of copyright and positions herself above others, as if she is some superior being everyone has to pay respect for, worship, etc. There are several other issues “Jess” happens to have, as do other teenage bloggers (or ‘web designers’ as they call themselves). It’s not really a matter of “making fun of people”. I loved this one the most: “How to CSS.” Quite impressive. You’re right, Zack, I do love visiting Swimchick. It’s just oh so ridiculously funny. :) I think your entries are brilliant, Jem; humorous and clever at the same time. It’s good to know that the internet isn’t flooded up with mediocre newbs, after all. Keep it up, I’d love to see new Pants nominations!
01 Mar at 9:33 pm
“Ok, first, I don’t think you really have a life yourself, I mean please writing what seems to be about 2 full pages on how badly Jessica’s site sucks, then I’d say someone has some serious problems. No one is perfect, and I’m sure you aren’t either, or would you like to prove me wrong? You are probably just jealous, have you SEEN how many people visit her site and give her comments ../.(GOOD comments) so just go get a life and stop putting others down just to make yourself feel better.” Ridiculous. You’re absurd, deary. Talk about “wannabe minions”!
02 Mar at 2:38 am
I can’t believe that there’s still Jessica-obsessed people still bombarding this site with “OMGZ ur JELOUS!” comments… @Dom: “LoL you guys ARE the true american nerds.” Jem is from the UK. “I bet you all are white people.” What does being white have to do with anything? When you have to resort to making such stupid comments it just proves that you hardly have a point and just resort to things similar to Kindergarten name calling. When you put stuff on the Internet it’s where everyone can see it. When everyone can see it, they have opinions about it. Jem has every right to critique a website as she would to critique things like restaurants or music, which are also public. Besides, Jem hardly gives pants awards to any site, they have to earn it – as I know Jessica has. People have mentioned her copyright problems in the past – IN PRIVATE – and she just acted like she was better than copyright law. I’m sure there’s other reasons but you know, I just think this is hilarious and I’m glad does these things, even if one day my site ends up the recipient of a pants award because I know my site is by no means perfect. But oh… I didn’t mean to be “hatin'” on you…
03 Mar at 2:22 pm
@ Mohammad “…and btw, what gives you the authority to judge everyone else’s website anyways? Posted on Feb 9th 07 at 12:02am.” Who needs authority when you have autonomy? Feel free to Google that word. @ Dom “…LoL. I bet you all are white people. You guys are so stupid. You all need to get off your fat asses and go run some laps on the treadmill. Its my damn buisness and Ill stick to that. you guys are just Hatin’ because, you couldnt make a better website. Yes everysite has flaws, and dont even try and fix my grammar or puncutation. LoL you guys ARE the true american nerds. Kudos and keep doing what your doing, Everyone needs haters.” Wow, Dom. You’ve made hateful statements about white people, fat people, nerds, and Americans all in one comment, and you’ve managed to do it while misspelling every other word in your comment. Add that to the fact that you think you know what everyone needs, and I’d have to say that you’ve just won the “Most Hateful, Arrogant, Illiterate Person on This Thread” award. BTW, I’m not white, but I still think that if Jem’s review can keep visitors to that site from “learning” how to do things the wrong way from that person, I say more power to her.
03 Mar at 3:41 pm
And furthermore, if Jessica had an ounce of sense, she’d read Jem’s criticisms about her site and ask herself if there’s any validity to them. Obviously, the answer is yes. Her next move would then be to come over here, apologize to Jem for being an arse, and thank her for giving her something for free that most people pay for – professional advice.
03 Mar at 9:01 pm
“Her next move would then be to come over here, apologize to Jem for being an arse, and thank her for giving her something for free that most people pay for – professional advice.” Professional advice? You’re kidding, right? I’d rather not take advice from someone who’s website looks like the default theme off wordpress. Thanks for the suggestions, though. :)
03 Mar at 9:19 pm
I’ll take that as a compliment – the guy who coded the kubrick theme is a popular and experienced developer. If you’re so unwilling to listen to what I had to say it begs the question as to why you removed your shitty tutorials and updated your pages to remove the English mistakes I pointed out. More to the point, why the repeat visits to my site? Three and a half months is a long time to keep watch here, don’t you think?
03 Mar at 9:31 pm
“More to the point, why the repeat visits to my site? Three and a half months is a long time to keep watch here, don’t you think?” Three and a half months is also a long time to continue obsessing over a site and a dead article, don’t you think? Having to keep referencing back to this pants award only shows your thirst for more drama and attention. Have fun reading your books.
03 Mar at 10:01 pm
If I’d wanted drama I would have picked someone actually popular to blog about; I would have also approved the comments that your little sheep left when they were added, instead of waiting to allow the heat on you to die down. (I would have also approved the petty anonymous ones.) It’s interesting to see your definition of obsessing though. If my one reference to a particular person relevant to my mood at the time of writing a particular blog entry constitutes obsession it’d be interesting to know how you class your constant stalking of this ‘article’ and my website in general. Or does stalking about sum it up? Thank you though, I will have fun reading my books. And in the mean time, perhaps you can answer my question about why you chose to follow my ‘advice’ despite the statement you made to the contrary.
04 Mar at 8:13 pm
“I’d rather not take advice from someone who’s website looks like the default theme off wordpress.” I think she needs mental therapy. You’re wasting your time, Jem – she’s not worth it. Let’s see another pants award, please!
09 Mar at 3:23 pm
I’m a near-frequent visitor of the site but I’ve never made a comment – this is my first one here. I was going through your previous posts and came across this one. Jessica’s comments are just so funny I felt I had to post a comment. If she had half the intelligence of Jem, and could just code her own blogging script and layout (along with, of course, the CSS styling), the world would be a better place. :) And oh, if you don’t happen to know I just love conceited people who contradict themselves! :)
02 Apr at 4:22 pm
Even that award is to good for her, she goes around acting like she’s the best and everyone should be bowing down to her… She should smacked with a half melted fudge popsicle stick…
08 Nov at 10:21 pm
Sure swimchick may not be the best site in the world but it is not the most crap. She may have some issues regarding copyright but so do loads of others. Why target her out? Tha’s ridiculously mean. What gives everyone the right to judge her personal site? If you don’t like it, just ignore it.
18 May at 12:23 am
Haha, this is so pathetic!
You guys who don’t like Jessica are simple jelous because your sites could never be half as good/popular as hers.
Jeezz, the internet really is turning into a bitchy place isn’t it?
It makes me laugh how pathetic this is!
20 May at 4:55 am
my goodness. i loved that article…you ripped her to shreds….and it was great XD Maybe after reading this she’ll find out that her website isn’t the shit…
Anyone who disagrees with this article can go suck a dick, because as you can see, nobody flippin’ cares =]
23 May at 8:23 pm
People shouldn’t waste their timing bashing others.
You’re so arrogant. The tone in which you write your blogs and reviews is more condescending than anything else. You put yourself on a pedestal and assume others are automatically below you.
OH MY GOSHH SHE HAS BROKEN LINKS LIKE OMG SHE’S ACTUALLY NOT PERFECT????????!!!!!1
Everyone makes mistakes. She never claims to be perfect or have a perfect website.
Most of these comments are just praising you and bashing Jessica, neither of which are healthy for a human being.
I can understand from your tone also that you’re well educated. I respect that. But I don’t respect how you apply that educated mind of yours to damaging someone’s reputation.
And how can some of you just automatically be “enlightened” by this article? It’s just ONE PERSON’S opinion. Allow yourself to think beyond someone else’s words and opinions.
This is all internet junk anyway.
You might not actually be this much of a jerk in person. Anyone can be anybody online.
Final thought …..let’s all stop internet hate junk.
26 May at 2:58 am
“And how can some of you just automatically be “enlightened” by this article? It’s just ONE PERSON’S opinion. Allow yourself to think beyond someone else’s words and opinions.”
we all obviously feel the same way.
your opinion is that Jessica is wonderful, blah blah, ect.
mine is that shes the arrogant one, and that she looks down on people, thinking that its alright.
I look down on people, and i know its not alright, she looks down on people and finds it amusing.
what you’re saying won’t change peoples minds, all that does, is let us know, how you feel.
everyone has their own views.
if you don’t like it,don’t indulge yourself in them, that way, you won’t be bothered by it, and other people will be satisfied all the same.
26 May at 3:00 am
also, saying that someone is “jealous” and thats why they’re hating. that excuse is so played out. come up with another reason…saying were jealous is too easy, and most of the time, it isn’t true
31 Jul at 5:46 am
You’re such a dumbass.
I think you looove swimchick. [:
I mean fully-attention to actually spend many of your time criticizing it, there has to be some strong feelings, dude.
You might erase this, but you know it’s true.
Anyways, good luck with your page, and I’m not coming back to see if you answered or stuff.
(Jem’s note: I had to edit this — originally anonymous — comment to include the user’s genuine e-mail address, which she rather stupidly left in ‘real’ comment right after this one.)
16 Aug at 8:06 am
Rofl. Funny thing was, I just found swimchick, right, and I was like, omg! This site is so awesome, so I’ve downloaded all the brushes and ya-dee-dah, and then, I look at th em, and my other brushes.. and oh, some of them are the same as the ones I’ve gotten on sites that arent so famous.
21 Sep at 9:04 am
swimchick.net is an awsome site. i have a crappy computer, yet it loads fine.
maybe get some more bloody download gig you losers or stop complaining./ either she makes a stunning layout or something made on paint that your computer can handle.
i would call myself self-taught. except for jess’s tutorials. without her, i would still be using the effects menu and no colouring. i know heaps of the graphix sites out there. hers. are. real. FOR PETE’S SAKE SHES A GRAPHICS MAJOR. i think she can write her own tutorial. get a life. and if i were her, i too would be spending more time on making good content then updating my “me” page, and if she updated it alot, YOU’D BE CRITICIZINGF THAT! if you use your eyes, you;ll she she states sometimes “i did not make these,,” blah blah. your default layout doesn’t comare with hers. if she wrote this huge blog about you, you’d feel hurt, yes? you are not a great person, and shouldn’t ever waste tim e lie this. let people judge for themselves!
21 Sep at 4:31 pm
Wowee, people are still commenting on this?
Some hints for you, if you’ve just dropped by:
1) This entry is 2 years old in November. Jessica’s website has changed since it was first posted.
2) Read the entry in which Jessica accepts her award, specifically this comment from Jessica.
3) Yes, my site is ugly. No, I do not care. Yes, I’ve heard it a million and one times. No, my visitors do not care either. Yes, I get lots of hits despite this.
:D thanks!
25 Oct at 7:29 pm
Wow, your articles really inspire me to improve my site. I used to look up to Jessica’s site but then when I realised her content was stolen I stopped visiting it.
13 Nov at 12:43 am
LMAO I LOVE IT! even tho its 2 yrs old, its very funny =P
13 Oct at 4:30 am
Wow, do you people stop and take notice of what your write before you write it, I had never heard of that website before but I went to it and it seems ok.
Leave the girl alone, not everyone is website building ‘know-it-all’ nerds like y’all. Everyone starts of somewhere, not at the TOP like y’all seem to have, gahhh what gives you the right to RATE other peoples sites?
23 Oct at 10:31 am
Only about 3 years late, eh "Emzzzz"?