Mommy always said to be seen and not heard, but if I'm not being seen and not being heard isn't it better to be heard than to just fade away?

The interpretations competition came to an official close today (Sunday the 24th), announcing the winners: Aldous Davidson, Kha Do, Keith Eng, Andrew Oh & Joey Yee
(congrats to them)

The entire time this competition was going on I was going a bit crazy b/c not only was my profile editor not working on the Interpretations site, but my film wasn't showing up in the "submitted" section. Additionally, any attempts to contact them about this issue lead to, well, nothing. No one ever got back to me and my problem remained a problem. Finally, at about the beginning of the month, I decided "screw it, I don't give a fuck, I need to move on with my life" and did just that.

Upon hearing about the end of the competition today something in me kinda snapped. It might have been the 48 hours straight of working and not sleeping, or it might have been the fact that I'm tired of being okay with being ignored and stepped on, but I went to their Facebook page and posted the following message:

Matthew Chao Dear Sir or Madam,

This is the third message I am sending to you. Though I realize the contest is now over, I wanted to again point out issues that I have had with my account that I have previously sent messages about but have heard nothing back about. I submitted my interpretations film, entitled "For my Country" before the deadline, but my account would not let me change any settings or details about myself and on top of that, my film has not shown up in the "submitted" category, so no one has been able to view it unless they specifically knew the link to it. I have sent two prior e-mails via the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page, leaving both my account information and my contact information and have neither seen any changes or heard back.

I put a lot of hard work into my film, and even though the competition is over, I find it hurtful that it was treated this way and that it did not receive the equal attention that everyone else's did.

I am sending this e-mail not because I expect any changes to the winners, whom I wish to congratulate, but because I want you to know that I am hurt by this inaction and lack of attention to an issue I brought up three times prior, and hopefully to bring about some closure for myself regarding this issue and my film.

For anyone that wishes to see my interpretations film, you can play it here:

http://interpretationsfilm.com/watch.php?v=%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Finterpretations%2Fmembers%2Fvideos%2F874.flv

Best,
Matthew Chao
Matt.Chao@gmail.com

They Responded:

You Offend Me You Offend My Family Not sure what the issue was since the admin did respond and take care of problem--your film was successfully uploaded and part of the judging. See here:
http://interpretationsfilm.com/members/shrubfilms/

and to which I responded with:

Matthew Chao Is there another way to contact you? (i.e. e-mail, IM...?) I don't want to make this any bigger than (admittedly) I already have and would like to move this discussion to a more private forum.

and when I got no response I posted this:

Matthew Chao I was hoping you would get back to me with an e-mail or something, but I haven't gotten one so here it is:

I have seen all the winner's films and think they all did fantastic jobs and fully deserve any and all awards they have received for the films they created.

It was never my intention to insinuate that my film was not part of the judging and I never thought for a moment that it should have gotten any sort of award that it didn't. To be honest with you, I scoured the "submitted" section looking for the films of the winners about an hour or two ago. I found links to everyone's films/profiles but one: Kha Do. Though it is possible that I may have just missed his name, it is highly unlikely as I must have gone through each of those 14 pages at least 10 times.

Bottom line, he was not there and he won, which means that if someone else was in the situation I was in and won, you were clearly judging each and every film with equal attention.

I apologize if my previous post sounded hostile, but the facts remain; I brought this issue up previously and I maintain that I had not and still have not heard back from any administrator (aside from your response to my initial post on this was about an hour ago) telling me that my issue was being looked at or taken care of.

Additionally, I do not appreciate a link to my film being added to the submissions page moments after my post on this wall and then being informed via reply HERE "Not sure what the issue was since the admin did respond and take care of problem--" when that was not the case.

Ultimately, all I would like here is just a little honesty. It's completely possible that I missed it all and I'm just a giant nut job who's ranting and screaming over nothing, and if I am, I'm sorry for causing you all this trouble, but if not, I would like you to just please be honest with me, though at this point I'd like to move past this topic (as I'm sure you would like to too) because I just feel like I'm coming off as a sore loser beating a dead horse, which I really don't want to be.

I want you to know, however, I DO appreciate what you are doing for the Asian American film making community. I am a follower/fan of your blog and I hope that you will do more of these competitions in the future. I also hope that I will be able to have an opportunity to meet you all one day and you won't find me annoying/crazy/very disagreeable.

All the best,
Matthew Chao
Matt.Chao@gmail.com

This weekend I was asked if I had Asbergers. This was all sometime within my 48 hour workathon (I asked to help film a wedding, though when I popped in on Friday night to help with the lights I found myself stuck with the lighting decorations until the wedding itself... and then there was clean-up) I was asked this a couple of hours before the ceremony was set to begin and I said "not that I know of," and this question really kinda threw me for a bit. Maybe because the person asking this question admitted to having mild Asbergers himself and when I said "Why, do I seem like I have Asbergers?" said "yea, because you fixate on things a lot".

Now, while I don't care if I do have Asbergers or not, I'm wondering if this thing with the Interpretations film is just another one of those things I'm fixating on and obsessing over and brings about the question of if I should be vocal or if I should just shut up about it.

I feel like so much of my life was just people trying to get me to shut up, "grow up" and not complain about anything, but now that I'm at that point where I don't vocalize issues, people yell at me for not speaking up about problems and on top of that, suffering silently has only come at a detriment to me. So where do I draw the line? Which path do I take? Do I be silent and let people walk on me or do I make a voice and not care who hates me for it? Ultimately, was I right in bitching about my account like that to the Interpretations people?