What does Matador mean to you?

By Julie Schwietert On February 17, 2010 · 17 Comments

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Matador is built upon its community. So what does Matador mean to you?

A couple things got me thinking about what Matador might mean to you.

Over the weekend, a reader left a passionate comment in response to Kate Sedgwick’s humorous article, “Crimes Against Hair in Buenos Aires”:

“It is sad that an article like this appears in the Matador Network…. Go write for a fashion magazine and not Matador, so we won’t have to read your garbage. PLEASE!”

At first, I was put off by the comment. Even if the reader didn’t like the article, did she need to be as aggressive in her reply as she was?

But then I thought about it some more and realized that the reader does seem to care about Matador. In fact, she seems to care about it so much that she has a very personal vision of what she thinks Matador is or “should” be.

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The other thing that got me thinking about what Matador might mean to you is a conversation the editorial team has been having about how travel publications define themselves. Senior editor David Miller and I were noting that lots of travel publications try to define themselves by comparing themselves against their competition: “self-defining by saying who you’re NOT instead of who you are,” David says. It’s not really a useful way to identify oneself, though.

We’re pretty clear about what Matador means to us, as I wrote last week in an editorial about the original vision of Matador as articulated by co-founders Ross Borden and Ben Polansky.

But we’re curious to know: what does Matador mean to you? How do you use Matador? What do you value about Matador? What’s your role in this community? How would you like to see us grow and evolve?

We invite you to share your thoughts in the comments.

Community Connection:

Senior editor David Miller rounds up the 15 most vital narratives published on Matador in the article “Travel Writing as Punk Rock.”

About The Author

Julie Schwietert

Julie Schwietert Collazo is a writer, editor, researcher, and translator currently in New York, formerly of Mexico City and San Juan. She is Matador's managing editor and is the lead faculty member of MatadorU's travel writing program.

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http://www.canvas-of-light.com Daniel N.

For me, Matador is a community of travelers and people interested in expanding their horizon that gather up and share stories together… any stories.

What I value about Matador is that it’s an open minded community, where you can anything from tips, stories, reviews or just simple chat between friends.
http://simplycommarachel.blogspot.com/ Rachel Kamradt

I’ve been addicted to Matador for two years now. It is my inspiration, not just for travel but for the overall idea that my life is mine to lead. Even if you guys thought that your goal was to just give good travelling tips or whatnot, for the younger folks like me on this site you provide inspiration and insight into a very special kind of existence. So I’d just like to say thank you for everything you have done for me, Matador!
http://www.wheretheroadgoes.com Richard

“More than the polished gloss of the exotic travel mags, Matador was about people for whom travel was but one core part of a larger idea of the world and where they belong in it. One where being matters, where exploring is as much about inner discovery as it is about learning about things outside yourself. For an admitted travel romantic, it was easy to become hooked.

So yeah, I had a bit of a crush on the quirky, heartfelt, occasionally hippie travel site.”
- http://www.richardstupart.com/2010/02/12/where-the-road-goes-goes-to-matador/

I think that pretty much sums it up for me
http://www.candicedoestheworld.com Candice

Acceptance.
http://milesofabbie.com Abbie

To me, Matador is a passionate community of writers and travelers. My first article (ever!) was published on the Matador Network, so it will always have a special place in my heart
Billy

I discovered Matador about 5 months ago and immediately felt I had found something special – A group of travelers and writers sharing stories about anything and everything. Though I’ve never met any of you in person I feel like the people of Matador are my friends. I’ve started reading your blogs and watching your videos and am excited every single day to see what’s new here. I’ve been inspired by your journeys and stories and will hopefully be able to travel again soon and share some of my own. Thanks Matador!
http://www.fluentin3months.com Benny the Irish polyglot

Great idea to reach out to the community!

I absolutely love this site (and did for a long time before anything I created was published here), but some articles really do make me scratch my head at the decision process of how certain ideas get included, and unfortunately make me cynically believe that being an editor or very regular contributor means any mental vomit you have can be published on a site read by thousands of people daily.

I am definitely on the side of that commenter about the hair-idea. To me that post was immature and doesn’t say anything useful. It feels like someone’s basic personal “blogger” where they nag about things they don’t like. I would have joined in with her in trying to show she wasn’t alone in her opinion, but I just found the article silly and it hasn’t annoyed me as much as some others may have.

Some of us criticise particular articles, but actually find the majority of what the same writers produce on this site to be spectacular material (definitely including Kate’s and other writers like Sarah who I’ve also written angry comments to).

Just because it’s something “abroad” doesn’t mean it should be included on a travel idea and discussion site, even though the network goes into more broader categories like the environment and interesting ideas about improving how you live your life (not necessarily travel related). There are a few other posts I found to be wasteful of this amazing interface, like when the site was used for political propaganda and turned into a gossip page.

I will stick with the full RSS feed from Matador because 95% of the articles are always some amazing writing worth reading or discussing (even and especially when I disagree), but using the other 5% for random garbage will genuinely annoy me, because I love the site so much.

I agree with the above commenters that one of the best things about the site is acceptance and the huge variation in articles that you produce. Some can get really off topic, but still be interesting and important to discuss. But some of us more passionate commenters do feel like there should be some kind of filter applied and not all articles being published simply because the person is an editor of the site or a regular contributor.

Then again it’s your site, so you make the decisions! I’d hate for people to tell me how to run mine. Posts like this one show how mature the editors really are in being open to criticism!

By the way, please know that those of us that tend to write comments more frequently when it’s nitpicking are also stumbling, retweeting, e-mail exchanging, facebook linking, real-world discussing, linking to regularly from our sites, constantly promoting, and otherwise sharing the links of the posts we adore Nearly all posts I see would deserve a comment “That was an amazing piece of writing, I loved this!” but then I’d get really repetitive and never contribute to the discussion The writers of some articles may think we are bad commenters, but we do contribute positively to the community in other ways

Thanks for bringing this up! As always, this is Benny representing the hot-headed commenters

http://collazoprojects.com Julie

Benny–

Ha- I don’t think you’re a hot head (even if you didn’t like my criticism of McCain’s fleet of vehicles or the title, which, by the way, I did get in trouble over.).

Seriously, thanks for taking time to share your thoughts. It’s really helpful to learn how people are responding to this question; when you’re on the inside, so to speak, you don’t have quite the same perspective.

I’d like to think there’s room for all sorts of opinions and ideas here, even when they are articulated in a way that’s pretty different from the way I’d choose to articulate them. I’d also like to think that we’re redefining travel so we’re incorporating articles and ideas we might not have considered a year or two ago.

As Matador’s managing editor, I so an initial screen most of the incoming articles, so I’d be curious to know more about what you have in mind when you mention the idea of a filter. If you’d like to share your thoughts off-thread, feel free to email me at julie[at]matadornetwork.com.

Thanks again, Benny… and when will we see some more video?

http://www.fluentin3months.com Benny the Irish polyglot

Thanks a lot for the response Julie! I’ve responded to you by e-mail agreeing that expansion in variation in articles is mostly a good thing. Thanks again for raising this point!
More video coming very soon!!
http://www.fluentin3months.com Benny the Irish polyglot

Here is another example of an absolutely pointless article. I’ll spare the writer a rant (although someone else may not). LOLcats Matador? Really? I’m sure someone extremely imaginative could come up with a ridiculous twist of logic of how this relates to travel (or “Life” – cats have a life too right? Or um, there are cats abroad)
Please filter articles… please.

http://www.mikesryukyugallery.com Ryukyu Mike

About this time last year I discovered Matador while researching an article I was doing on Bullfights. I’ve probably been back visiting here every day since.

The information, inspiration and education available here and friends I’ve made in this community can’t be found anywhere else I’ve visited online. Sure, there’s articles I have absolutely no interest in; morning newspaper’s the same way. You turn the page when you see something you don’t like.

At least once a week, I’ll hear from some aspiring travel writer wanting resources. I tell them check out Matador. Two Thumbs Up if I ever figure out how to trick the dang thing.

Cheers,
Mike
jdc

I’ve been reading Matador regularly for a year. To me, because it’s digital and grassroots, Matador is about staying ahead of the curve and close to what’s actually happening. I like that it tends to avoid reproducing ideas from other travel websites and I don’t have to scroll through a lot of unoriginal content to find something that would make me think (an increasing problem in digital media).

I like:

(1) individual perspectives on travel – including stuff like “what’s in your backpack?” – that’s not advice per se but a snapshot of how someone is actually currently doing something.

(2) Articles that accurately portray a political situation and then take a stance or discuss controversial points of view. I think for a lot of travelers there is an internal ethical debate about life and its contents, and various parts of the act of travel, and even if responses aren’t positive they encourage you to evaluate the side you’ve taken. Debate is good! For me it replicates some of the most valuable conversations I’ve had on the road.

I don’t like:

(1) The offense some writers seem to take to being disagreed with. I’ve seen writers chide commenters with another position without adding new content, or resisting being corrected on things they haven’t accurately sourced. There’s less of this lately but there have been some bad periods.

(2) The periods where a lot of the articles seem to lean towards fluffy ideas I could read about in the NYTimes Lifestye sections.

I would be interested in seeing:

(1) More on-the-ground perspectives of what’s going on in far flung parts of the world and the way the travel community there is reacting to it. For example, Costa Rica is regularly celebrated for it’s eco-tourism but, dude, what is up with the destruction of Jaco over the past few years or locating yoga/surf retreats on parts of the west coast where there’s a serious water shortage making them unsustainable? I want to know what the Talk of The Town is among well informed backpackers on the ground – something that I can’t do by cursory internet reseach.

(2) More humor. I’ve found some of this creeping in lately – well approved – but I wouldn’t mind soms perspectives that are a little less earnest and a little more acerbic.

(3) Can you steal Ask Rolf from worldhum please? Thanks.

http://collazoprojects.com/ Julie Schwietert

Thanks for taking the time to reflect on this question. We appreciate knowing what fires you up (for better and for worse).
We’re always on the look-out for writers, photographers, and filmmakers on the ground in “far flung parts of the world” to provide some local perspective about what’s occurring where they are. We try to avoid covering stories where we don’t have someone–even if that means some uneven geographical representation–because it’s important to us that our writers are really writing what (and where) they know. We regularly reject pieces that don’t reflect that deep knowledge of place. And hey- if you feel you’re qualified to tackle that Jaco piece, by all means let me know. That’s a story I’m definitely interested in.

As for humor, well… I think there are those of us who have it in spades (Tom and Candice, for example) and there are those of us for whom earnestness is more natural than humor (sad but true- myself). One of the reasons we moved to a system where we have section editors is so that many types of voices would be able to find a platform on Matador and that readers would similarly find a voice or voices that would reflect their own interests and styles. I hope you’d agree that the voices are all authentic, though. As much as I’d like to be funnier, it just doesn’t come naturally to me usually, so I don’t force it.

We won’t be stealing Rolf, but I’m curious what you find particularly compelling about his posts that might be incorporated in its own way here.

Thanks again for taking the time to reflect. Peace, Julie

joshua johnson

Matador keeps me connected to my travels, past present and future. I became a Matador member and wrote my first post 2.5 years ago and since then the Matador team has been my travel family and a place where I can express myself.
Carlos Mena

For me it means the way to see life through a screen with people with the same motivation in different faces, but thoughts together
http://thefutureisred.com Leigh

Hey Benny,

I’m sorry you didn’t like that article. I felt we include so many serious things on the Life section that it would be fun to have something just plain silly. So perhaps that one’s not for you. But if you’re asking about the point of it, it’s intended as a general comment on the types of things that find their way to popularity on the internet.

As for the the Life section in general, it isn’t intended to be about travel. In fact, it’s the only section on Matador that deals with the time in between our trips.

I hope you find other things to your taste on Life, tho, as you clearly do on the rest of Matador.
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