Your last blog entry is setting off my pregnancy pukes!

[M-theory]

The blog writer chose the adjective: "dear"

I think that's an important piece of context. it sounds as though the blog writer feels a connection to this reader as well.

I don't think her referring to pregnant lady as "dear" means much - she refers to people as dear, sweetie, etc. all the time. It's regional to that part of the country - she talks very much like many of my female relatives.

Actually, the website design has a huge main photo at the top, and it is a *slideshow* of past posts, so the photos shift through. If you wanted to see the pictures of the new posts (and on this blog, it looks like that's a huge part of its appeal), you will see those pictures at the top over and over again.

It was a side picture on the main page and something you would see everytime you opened the site.  They tend to stay up at least a couple of weeks if not a month or more.  Currently, if you go to thepioneerwoman.com, there is a picture of delicious looking rolls in that space (under the title Heavenly Recipes). 

Oops, I stand corrected about her blog format! It's fair to say that I'm wrong, then, and that the picture might have featured prominently for quite some time. However, I still think it was completely SS, even in passing, to ask her to take it down. I also think if I had strong food aversions, I'd be avoiding food blogs like the plague and tired literary clichés. I really don't see what's stopping pregnant lady from turning off images while she's reading PW's site - what's to say the next recipe that's posted won't make her feel ill too?

It may or may not be special snowflakey but if it didn't bother the blogger, it doesn't bother me (the fact that PW has had four kids may have given her more sympathy).  Which I guess leads me to a conundrum: are you a special snowflake if the person you are impacting isn't bothered by your action/request?

I'm very much different - I hate to see anyone else ill-treated, even if it doesn't seem to bother them. My SO is very easygoing and nonconfrontational, and I frequently have to bite my tongue to resist protecting him from the big mean world - never mind that he doesn't give a dingdangity himself. So yes, to me the pregnant lady is an SS.

[M-theory]

Asking may not be rude in and of itself; but it is definitely special snowflakey.

This very much.

[Dindrane]

I'm rather torn on this one.  On the one hand, I totally get what a lot of you are saying about putting up with content on the internet that you don't like/makes you feel ill/other negatives.  We all do it all the time, because the internet is a big place and nobody has any real control over it.

But on the other hand, here on Ehell and in at least a handful of other places, we do actually ask people to give us all some warning if their threads are going to be about potentially touchy subjects (TMI, death, and pregnancy are the most common thread-title warnings that come to mind).  It allows people who are particularly sensitive to certain topics a chance to avoid it, and I do think it's a nice thing to do.

I also got the impression, from looking at that particular website, that while food is a major draw...it's not all she's got on there.  I could see someone who regularly follows her blog wanting to see all the other stuff she has up there while avoiding the food-centric posts.  If her slideshow of images on the main page can contain a particular recipe photo for up to a month, that's kind of a long time to stay away.

I guess ultimately, I think this sort of thing has a very high potential to be special-snowflakey and/or rude, but I think there is a significant chance that it isn't.  So I'm not quite willing to throw the pregnant woman into ehell for her request, but it would strongly depend upon the circumstances surrounding it.

[jimithing]

I subscribe to the PW, but only her food blog. I think that this is actually a rather SS request. That's what she does. She is very well known for her food and recently came out with a recipe book. I think it stands to reason that if food makes you sick, you shouldn't read her blog.

I once got an email from someone, who had never commented on my blog and I had not heard of her before, who said that she found my blog and enjoyed it, but she didn't like that I had the RSS Feed set to partial feed. Meaning that in order for you to read my entire post, you have to actually click over to my blog. You can't read if from your email or Google Reader.

She asked me to change it to full feed so she didn't have to click over.

I emailed her back, and told her I had it set that way for a reason, but I hope she continued to read anyway. I thought that was a rather SS request. If she really wanted to read it, all she had to do was one more click. Not that hard.

[Bob Ducca]

I subscribe to the PW, but only her food blog. I think that this is actually a rather SS request. That's what she does. She is very well known for her food and recently came out with a recipe book. I think it stands to reason that if food makes you sick, you shouldn't read her blog.

Absolutely agreed.  When I was pregnant, several fast food commercials made me extremely queasy.  I closed my eyes when they came on, or sometimes watched a DVD during the dinner hour or changed my viewing habits so that stations that didn't run as many food ads became my night-time channels.  (I couldn't help but watch Lost, though. )

If the blog centers around food, I would be a bit affronted for her to ask that a photo of food be removed, even if it is just one particular photo.  It would have been akin to my calling ABC and saying, "Please stop running the Burrito Drum and Monarch of Milk commercials during Lost, but you can keep on running the other ones."  Perhaps not rude to ask, per se, but awfully entitled.  Whether it is offensive depends very much on the point of view of others, so that's hard to say.

[TootsNYC]

And what if she said, "I love this on your blog, and I had this thought. And boy I can't wait until you switch those noodles out, because it's making me nauseous, since I'm pregnant. I thought it would be Ok at night, when my stomach is settled, but it's every time. Isn't that funny?"

We don't know enough to be calling the lady a snowflake.

[Bob Ducca]

I went back to the link in the OP and noted that there were also several readers who apparently objected to a picture of a snake on her site, saying they were phobic.  Is that equivalent to the pregnant woman's objection?

I think if the pregnant lady, or, for that matter the snake-o-phobes, sent in an email requesting the pictures be removed, that is snowflakey, no matter how nicely it is worded.  Not rude to ask, perhaps, but entitled.

If it was mentioned in passing and PW inferred a request, then I'm not sure.  (Clearly PW feels there has been a request to have certain pictures removed, or else she wouldn't be apologizing for not removing them.)  In that case I suppose it would go from snowflakey to passive-aggressive if their intent was to get PW to take down the photo but they just didn't say it outright.

I would actually liken this to attempting to change the parameters of someone else's invitation.  "Yes, we'll come to the ice cream party, but we have to ask that no one serve dairy products, because I'm lactose intolerant."  This is, "I want to read your blog about food, but have to ask (however directly) that pictures of food that make me sick not be published until I feel better."  A blog is someone's personal forum, and I think it's like insisting you be allowed to set the tone for hospitality offered in someone else's home.

[M-theory]

And what if she said, "I love this on your blog, and I had this thought. And boy I can't wait until you switch those noodles out, because it's making me nauseous, since I'm pregnant. I thought it would be Ok at night, when my stomach is settled, but it's every time. Isn't that funny?"

Honestly, that would come across as both awkward and PA to me. The wording changes very little. It reads as "There's this picture of food on your largely-about-food blog that makes me queasy, but I don't want to come out and ask you directly to take it down, so I'm going to try to make you feel guilty despite having just insulted your cooking/photography."

[M-theory]

A blog is someone's personal forum, and I think it's like insisting you be allowed to set the tone for hospitality offered in someone else's home.

Exactly. This is what I meant by my analogy about a still-life of fruit in someone's house giving a pregnant woman the heaves: should she excuse herself or ask that they take it down while she's there?

[JamFly]

I vote special snowflake.

Honestly, I'm kinda flabbergasted someone would message anyone asking a photo be taken down for something like this. Most browsers have ad blocking ability, and it's not really difficult  to block pictures you'd rather not see.

[HushHush]

I've made those noodles.  They're delicious.

She's also one of my favorite bloggers and if I had to stop visiting her site because a picture was making me sick, I'd be sad.  A few days and I'd deal with it but like someone else said, her pictures on the main page tend to stick around for weeks/months.  I don't know if I'd call her a SS for asking.  After all, asking isn't rude as long as you're prepared to hear "no", right?

[M-theory]

After all, asking isn't rude as long as you're prepared to hear "no", right?

I really don't agree with that sentiment. I can think of plenty of times when asking would be rude.

[TootsNYC]

A blog is someone's personal forum, and I think it's like insisting you be allowed to set the tone for hospitality offered in someone else's home.

Exactly. This is what I meant by my analogy about a still-life of fruit in someone's house giving a pregnant woman the heaves: should she excuse herself or ask that they take it down while she's there?

I would think that anyone who was actually *visiting* me should ask me. It's not like it's a hard thing, and it's causing her distress.

And she is *VISITING ME*--perhaps that's the difference. The blog reader is a regular; she's not "walking past a storefront as a total stranger" or "glancing at the cover on the newsstand; she is "visiting" the blog.

[M-theory]

A blog is someone's personal forum, and I think it's like insisting you be allowed to set the tone for hospitality offered in someone else's home.

Exactly. This is what I meant by my analogy about a still-life of fruit in someone's house giving a pregnant woman the heaves: should she excuse herself or ask that they take it down while she's there?

I would think that anyone who was actually *visiting* me should ask me. It's not like it's a hard thing, and it's causing her distress.

And she is *VISITING ME*--perhaps that's the difference. The blog reader is a regular; she's not "walking past a storefront as a total stranger" or "glancing at the cover on the newsstand; she is "visiting" the blog.

I wouldn't ask. I'd excuse myself. Because it's your house, and no one should tell you what to do with your decor unless you've hired them to do so.

[TootsNYC]

It's temporary! it's not a permanent change; I'll put the picture back up after you leave, for heaven's sake. It's not "changing my decor"; it's "putting something out of sight for a bit."

I don't think it's all that much different than asking someone to turn the fan so it isn't blowing on you.

And I've invited you into my home. In *my* world, that means I actually care about you; I don't invite relative strangers into my house. So it's important to me that you be comfortable.

At the very least, I would hope the nauseous person would ask to sit in a different chair so they don't have to look at it.