Hi Josh,
Hopefully this will help you to understand. I copied this from a post by Lindsay, which addressed some VFAQ (very frequently asked questions):
"... guitar picks make up the BlueRodeo.com ranking system. Every time you make a contribution to BlueRodeo.com, whether it's a message board post, a photo submission or a news comment, you receive a point. These points are added up and create your BlueRodeo.com rank. You rank is expressed by the number of guitar picks that appear under your avatar.
Everyone starts off with one red guitar pick. Right now, the highest rank someone can reach is five blue guitar picks.
Here is a breakdown of how the ranking system works:
1 Red Guitar Pick: 1+
2 Red Guitar Picks: 200+
3 Red Guitar Picks: 400+
4 Red Guitar Picks: 600+
5 Red Guitar Picks: 800+
1 Blue Guitar Pick: 1000+
2 Blue Guitar Picks: 2000+
3 Blue Guitar Picks: 3000+
4 Blue Guitar Picks: 4000+
5 Blue Guitar Picks: 5000+"
No way that I can fake it
this times got to be real - JC