There are many blogs that exist on JetPunk. Alot of them are really good! The blogs released in 2024 are no exception. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that 2024 was one of the best years for JetPunk blogs in terms of quality. So many great blogs were published this year, and I think it’s only right that we honour them in some way. And what better way to honour everyone’s hard work and passion than by forcing them to compete and find the one true best blog!

So, I had an idea. An idea for a three part blog meant to celebrate the best blogs of the year. The first part is to have the blogging community nominate their favourite blogs (and blogmakers) across 5 different categories. The second part will have them vote on the best blogs (and blogmakers) across each category from a selection based on the results of the nominations. The final part (the blog you're reading right now) will be the announcement of which blogs (and blogmakers) received the most votes, and earn the title 'Blog of the Year'. Or whatever.

That's the general gist of the idea. I'll explain the specifics of each part in their respective blogs, but hopefully this should give you an overview of what I plan to do here. Hopefully by the end of this we can really see the best of the blogging community!

Ladies. Gentlemen. Magisters. The day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived: it's the Blog Awards! Over the course of the past year, hundreds upon hundreds of blogs were uploaded to JetPunk. And while there are alot of really good ones, tonight is about celebrating the absolute best of the best, the cream of the crop, and the something of the something else! You guys voted (some of you even nominated!) for your favourite blogs across five different categories - Best Story Blog, Best Informational Blog, Best Creative Blog, Best Blog Author, and Best Overall Blog - each representing five different aspects of JetPunk blog creation. I've finished tallying up your votes, which means only one thing - that we have a winner! Five winners, in fact. And that means that this is the blog where I announce the winners! But before we begin, I'd first like to issue some apologies for some errors I made on the voting forms.

I accidentally listed Why Does Quizmaster Hate Belgium? as being solely written by McKenzieFam, when it was actually a collaborative project between both McKenzieFam and Fianchetto. The blog was posted under McKenzieFam's account and I just didn't bother to check if anyone collaborated on the blog with him. So I would like to apologize to Fianchetto for not including your name where it should've been originally.

I would also like to apologize to both FreeStater and Nickelz. On the Best Story Blog category I had listed My JetPunk Journey by Freestater on the voting announcement blog, but The Mole by Nickelz on the voting form proper. While I'm not sure how the error occurred in the first place, I do know why I didn't catch it. I was sorting each of the nominees in alphabetical order (excluding 'the') and to do so I had recorded the first letter of each nominee in a text document. I assumed that this would be good enough to catch any discrepancies but since both blogs started with the letter 'M' I didn't notice anything. This was entirely my fault, I should have been more thorough in checking for errors, and this has undoubtedly had some impact on the voting results. My apologies to both Freestater and Nickelz, as well as the people who voted, for any confusion I may have caused. Please go check out both blogs, they're both great.

I made some other, smaller errors (like not setting the voting form to public), but these were the major ones I felt like I had to address more formally. So with that out of the way, let's get on with...

Starting with our first category, Best Story Blog. Story blogs are one of the oldest types of blogs on JetPunk and have been a staple of the section ever since the blogging feature was first added back in 2019. Series like Life of a JetPunker and Dawn of the JetPunk Empires are among the most beloved and iconic blogs on the site. But despite the everlasting popularity of story blogs, there was still a huge surge in the amount released in 2024.

It takes a great amount of time and care to make high quality stories and is much more difficult than most users give credit for. The Best Story Blog category recognizes users who used exemplary storytelling techniques to construct an engaging narrative. As a reminder, here are the nominees for the category:

And the winner of Best Story Blog is...

Congratulations! This was very well deserved. As stated previously, Dawn of the JetPunk Empires was one of the most iconic JetPunk blog series, and a sequel series certainly had alot to live up to. While I admittedly never kept up with the original Dawn of the JetPunk Empires series, reading through the revival was actually alot of fun! The semi-collaborative nature of the series gives it a very unique feel to other stories planned and written by a singular author. The fact that everybody is playing themselves makes the dialogue very natural and reads like something I could actually see them saying. And I'm sure everybody actually contributing to the events of the story are having a blast, too. I'm glad this revival happened since it gave me and many newer users a chance to experience something we missed out on the first time, while older users get to relive the rise of their empires. Congratulations, McKenzieFam!

Next up, the informational blogs. If you thought story blogs were popular, then you haven't seen anything yet! Informational blogs are perhaps the single most popular type of blog to create. With JetPunk being a trivia site it's only natural that this would be reflected in the types of blogs people make. Much like the rest of the site, geography reigns supreme, though you'll find plenty of informative blogs on other topics like history, sports, movies, and even some blogs about JetPunk itself!

The Best Informational Blog category recognizes users that have done a stellar job at educating others on a particular topic. As a reminder, here are the nominees for the category:

And the winner of Best Informational Blog is...

Congratulations! Once again, very well deserved! Many have tried to prove that the Earth can't be flat, but none have been able to triumph over the strategy of... sticking your fingers in your ears and continuing believing the Earth is flat. And while cathlete probably isn't convincing any flat-Earth truthers, the approach he takes here is one of the most unique arguments for spherical Earth I've ever seen. He uses mathematical arguments to deduce the topology of the Earth which prove that the Earth must be a sphere, and the cool part is that most of the arguments he makes are simple observations you can make by just looking outside! Even though he uses somewhat obscure mathematical concepts, the blog is super approachable and easy to understand. Depending on how you look at it, the blog could even be interpreted as a series of math lessons in a flat-Earth trenchcoat! Excellent work, cathlete!

Moving on to our next category, the Best Creative Blog. Ever since blogging was added to JetPunk people have been coming up with new ways to utilize the feature, many of which simply cannot be compared to any other blog. Thus, they require a category all to themselves! The Best Creative Blog recognizes these blogs that break the mould and take a step in a brand new direction (or are just plain weird). As a reminder, here are the nominees:

And the winner of Best Creative Blog is...

Congratualtions! Very well deserved! I'm going to say that for all the winners, by the way. What are you going to do, say I'm wrong? Anyways, this blog is very unique. It's the second part of a two-part blog where LuckyCat asked members of the JetPunk community to give various features that he would then draw on Jeppy, as a sort of JetPunk profile picture. This blog is the one where he actually released the profile pictures, and there are alot of them. It's remarkable how cohesive each picture looks, not just with each other but with the base Jeppy artwork as well! Plus, he still updates the blog and adds new profiles for anyone who requests one. Great idea LuckyCat, and excellent artwork too! Congratulations!

For the penultimate award of the night (or whenever you're reading this): the Best Blog Author award! Before there were blogs there were blog authors. Without the passion of these people for mildly amusing subjects and sharing that information with the world there never would have been any blogs in the first place! On JetPunk there have been many authors who have come and gone, many who have stayed here for years, and some who only just joined us in 2024. All of us together make the blog section what it is (for better or for worse) and I for one can only hope that more users continue leaving their mark for years to come.

The Best Blog Author award recognizes users who made great contributions to the blogging section in 2024. As a reminder, here are the nominees:

And the winner of Best Blog Author is...

Congratulations! It was very well deserved. toowise had two major series he worked on throughout 2024: Five Islands, and Second City Origins, as well as a few one-off blogs sprinkled in there. He was one of the most consistent writers of the year, releasing a blog once every week or so, and in December he published his 100th blog: One Hundred. And yet despite the comparatively short time in between his uploads he was still releasing quality blog after quality blog. It's tough to think of another user more deserving of the title of Best Blog Author of 2024 (that's not a dig at other users by the way, just some appreciation of toowise). Awesome work, and I hope to see more from you in 2025!

We've now reached the final award, the highly coveted and prestigious Best Overall Blog award. There are no restrictions on which blog may compete for this award, so it's truly a selection of the best of the best. The following six blogs have been selected due to being all-around high-effort and high-quality. As a reminder, the nominees are:

And the winner of Best Overall Blog is...

Congratulations! It was very well deserved. Quizmaster's one-sided rivalry with Belgium has long been one of the site's most iconic running gags, but its origins have remained a mystery to many JetPunkers. This blog proposes many theories as to the origin of this feud, some from comments found around the site and others proposed by the authors. Some are pretty reasonable, some are outlandish albeit plausible, while others... are just kind of silly. But overall it's a very entertaining blog with elements that appeal to all JetPunkers, so it's definitely worthy of the title of "Best Blog of the Year". Or whatever. Congratulations to both McKenzieFam and Fianchetto!

This marks the end of the 2024 JetPunk Blog Awards! The first of a (hopefully) annual series. I hope you all enjoyed reading. I had alot of fun creating this, from thinking up the format and categories, to seeing which blogs were nominated, to reading all the blogs people made in 2024. It gave me a whole new appreciation for blogs!

I'm going to release another blog sometime soon where I reflect more on the decisions I made during this year's blog awards, how I want to improve upon, as well as other completely new ideas I have for next year. This way I can get feedback from people as to what they do/don't want to see. If you have any ideas for the 2025 Blog Awards, let me know in the comments on that blog. In the meantime, keep an eye out for any good blogs you may want to nominate for next year!

That's all from me for now. Thanks for reading!

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