A lot of stuff being said here reminds me of voting for Homecoming/Prom court. The popular kids at school always become Hoco/Prom King and Queen. It always happens and all of the non-popular kids thinks that it's hopeless to nominate anyone that isn't popular. But that's not the case. Non-popular kids don't make it to court because none of them bother to vote for themselves anymore (**This is in my experience, I can't stress that enough**). They've simply given up hope. This past fall, one of the the guys from my band program (nobody from band is popular at my school) won Homecoming King. He won simply because we all put in the votes for him. All of the seniors from the band (and his friends who aren't in band) banded together to vote for him and in the end that overpowered the votes for the popular guys.
I agree that a lot of "popular" people do receive rewards for Monthly Kudos. I personally think that more often than not, they deserve it because a lot of cats and roleplays are really thought out. That's one of the big differences from Homecoming/Prom and Monthly Kudos. We're all friendly to each other here and I'd go as far to say that I consider everyone here a friend, even if we haven't talked at all. We all share one big thing in common; a love for a book series. While the popular kids at school who get Hoco/Prom court may not deserve it, I think more often than not, MK winners do deserve it. I think we should at least be happy for the winners as they probably deserve their win.
I see a lot of people who are saying they don't vote because they think that MK is unfair. We've seen that the site admins and mods are trying hard to make changes so that MK becomes more fair (thank you site staff!). They've gotten rid of that awful system of voting that just consisted of I second this! I third this! I fourth this! Admittedly, in the year that I was roleplaying on WCO in the past, I never voted for MK because it was just a mess. Once someone was nominated, people would just second it or third it until it was impossible to compete. With this new system, everyone has a fair chance. It's at least possible to compete. This new system also pushed me to look outside of my own rps and view what others were doing with their cats. I really wanted to vote for the December MK because I'd never voted before and I wanted to get my chance in just in case it was going to be discontinued. I searched long and hard through all rps, popular cats and not popular cats, until I found a cat that I thought deserved recognition. The cat that I nominated had an equal chance of getting picked as all the other nominated cats did, and I think that's such a big improvement from the MK I experienced when I first joined WCO. This system should, theoretically, inspire everyone to nominate a cat or cats that they truly think deserve recognition.
I realize that this is a little ranty and super unorganized, but I really wanted to voice my thoughts considering I have a lot of them and I've kept them to myself for a long while.
TL;DR || Nominate cats you think deserve recognition!!! If you think MK is unfair because only "popular" cats win, then nominate a cat that you think deserves recognition. Nothing will change unless you make that change! It is possible to make a change! Popular or not, let's give recognition to cats who have earned their MK win. Let's not alienate winners or make them feel as if their win isn't valid. They were nominated for a reason c: Let's all look past rank and social standing and just vote for and nominate cats who deserve recognition. In the end, we can either make a change or we can let MK die.