Best. Gay. Year. Ever! Happy Holidays!

YOU THINK THEY TALK ABOUT GAWKER THIS WAY?
Well, Christmas is almost upon us and I have to say this week I received just about the nicest gift I've received in a very long time. Actually, it was a gift for the whole staff and we got it from ... you guys!

TigerCub started a forum thread he titled Merry Xmas AE Staffers that was all about saying thanks for the site and the work we do. And he even did caption pics for it! (Of course, picture captions are my turf, but I'm willing to make an exception this time.)

Reading the comments you guys left on the post about the site, well, it means a lot to all of us here. Writing for the online world can be a rough and tumble experience as folks are usually not shy about sharing their opinions. That's mostly a good thing as it keeps us honest and makes for a vibrant discussion. But just like in the offline world, folks are more likely to speak up when they disagree with you, especially when they think you are part of a global conspiracy to hide the truth about Torchwood, don't love Adam Lambert, Glee or "insert pretty much anything else here" enough, or just want to impugn your motives in general — than they are to say something nice.

So to have Tiger Cub start such an amazing post and to read all the comments, well, I'm just ... verklempt! And I'm being completely serious here. Of all the nice things to have happened over the years, from the GLAAD awards to having a whole slew of actors, writers and so forth say, "Oh, I love AfterElton!" when interviewing them to seeing the site get so huge, this is truly the most special. You guys, rock!

BTW, Tiger Cub isn't the only AE member to do a little something for us. Check out the video Wendyc put together to help us celebrate the holidays (just scroll down to "Video"). It's both touching and ... vaguely unsettling.

NOW THESE ARE PROBLEMS I'M GRATEFUL TO HAVE!
This week saw us post the results of this year's Visibility Awards and naturally, there were some unhappy campers. While I understand how frustrating it is to see a show you love not win an award (or a show you hate win a bunch), I thought I'd share one thought I had about the whole process: Namely, how cool is it that we even get to gripe over who won Gay Man of the Year or which show had the best gay content?

Ten years ago, there wasn't even an AfterElton where we could talk about and vote on these things. While we did have Will & Grace to watch on TV, otherwise there were only a handful of gay characters on network television and even cable wasn't exactly the promised land. And if you think the bitchy gay sidekick and dead queer characters are bad now, it was much worse then. In terms of out celebrities to write about and celebrate, well, let's just say the list was a whole lot shorter and less notable.

So the fact that we can now argue about whether Glee is more deserving than Modern Family for Best Comedy (both of which are two of the top-rated programs out there!), or if Kevin and Scotty are a better gay couple than Jesus and Lafayette, or whether the moment one gay guy sang a love song to another gay actor on primetime television is the best moment of the year or not, well, I think that's just fricking amazing!

Several folks noted in the comments that due to the, um, fervor of the Gleeks, it was likely anything Glee-related is going to win any poll between now and when the sun finally burns up that last hydrogen atom. While I get it is frustrating when a passionate fanbase skews voting, all I can say is such is the nature of life and we saw this before with Torchwood and even Queer as Folk. Someday Glee will no longer be the "It" show. Of course, it will be replaced by something else half of our readers hate with a passion!

Next page! Maybe they should make Spartacus: Blood and Sand required viewing!