MommyBloggers… Has it become the beast that can’t be fed?
I sat and pondered this for a day, deciding whether I dared to write it. I mean, first of all the few people that still may actually read this are not the people I am talking about. (Unless by some chance this gets spread to a few of the “wrong” people… then it may very well become an example of what I am talking about).
After all, I am certainly not an “authority” on blogging, I am not a “social media expert” or any of the other titles that float around so freely these days. I’m just a guy that blogs (and for the past year or so barely that). But then again… my *brand* is “extra large, extra strong … without being bitter.” I am an openly (and probably too loudly) opinionated blogger. So, if I am going to own my brand… I need to stay loyal to it.
But it also puts me in a bit of a quandary. I signed up to attend BlogHer this year, for a couple of reasons. One… for the entertainment factor (I can’t wait to see what this years drama and controversy will be). Two, to finally get a chance to meet and socialize with some people that are so spectacular in personality in their blogs, I just had to sieze the opportunity to finally get to put a live face to the words (I would love to do that with everybody that I read… maybe someday when I am rich and powerful, but in the mean time this is at least an opportunity to meet several at one time). And third, is to learn a bit more about what I am missing is the blogging world. The “brand building” that I have heard so many people talk, blog, tweet, about in past events. I want to learn a bit more… at least I think I do.
I say “think” because, I don’t know if it was the pithy title that set the mob over the edge, but the New York Times article “Honey Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m too busy building my brand.” certainly got a section of the MommyBloggers circling their wagons. The funny part is, for the most part, the article describes quite well, how MommyBloggers HAVE in fact built their brand… how as a collective they have become a force to be reckoned with (more on that shortly).
But instead, some clearly skimmed the article, others picked it apart selecting passages, others put words in that didn’t exist, and made a story about MommyBlogging to mean no woman can be taken seriously as a writer, and one or two I don’t think read it at all, rather took their cue from others and just wrote based on what they heard was a “wronging” and went from there.
Now, sure I am certain somebody would say, “but you are a guy, you have no idea about being a woman and the struggles it entails.” And physically yes that is true, but I also know I pay a lot more attention to those details and am more aware of them than I suspect most would think, because I do worry what barriers of entry my daughter will face in the years ahead of her. I also read a lot more mommyblogs that about anything else (well… except for tech blogs… but you get the idea).
My question becomes to these people is… are you trying to build a brand? Have you attended panels on how to do this… or have you spoken at them? Then why are you so offended by somebody pointing out that this is what you are doing? Yes, I will admit the headline was corny… but really, building a brand is what you are doing… own it.
Now maybe I am starting to get a little annoyed because over the past 4 or 5 years, I have watched a certain amount of devolving going on, and it is disappointing. Two items in the recent past still stick like a thorn in my pad… The first was the Bullshit “TSA kidnapped my baby” debacle. If you dared question this Mommyblogger because her story did not sound right… you were ridiculed for it, how dare somebody question a Mommy Blogger. How date the TSA do this!! Except none of it was true. No apologies to the beast just moved on looking for its next meal.
The other was the absolutely insane #nikonhatesbabies hashtag party that took place because “how dare Nikon not allow a mother to take an infant to a party… at night… at a bar?” These are the same people that try to claim that Bloggy Boot Camp, and BlogHer are “no different” than any other technology conference. Really? On one side of the coin, I read demands of “if you are going to throw a BlogHer party as a vendor, you should know your crowd, and provide for children at the events.” And then, out of the very same mouths comes “this is no different than SXSW or any other tech conference, and shouldn’t be viewed any differently just because it is a conference for women.” Make up your minds ladies… Which one is it?
And… once again, one or two twitter messages went out from a couple of people about how sorry they were about the #nikonhatesbabies thing… but for the most part, the beast moved on to its next feeding ground.
Perhaps the arguement several years back at BlogHer was correct, and there needs to be a better definition of what is a “MommyBlogger.” Just because you write, and you happen to be a mom, doesn’t necessarily make you a “MommyBlogger.” At the same time, just because you are a mom and happen to have a blog, doesn’t make you a MommyBlogger either, nor does it give you an automatic right to ask for things. I have now started unfollowing people that have put up tweets such as “I can’t afford to go to BlogHer, what airline wants to sponsor me and send me?” and I would think anybody that wants “MommyBloggers” to be taken seriously to spend as much time beating down a person like that as they do when they feel slighted by some corporation, because it reflects poorly on all MommyBloggers. Maybe if this can be broken up, then the pieces can each get the recognition they deserve, and each can have their own battle lines drawn, because right now, it looks like MommyBlogging has become the beast with an appetite for destruction that is just insatiable.
(Quick Reminder… Comment Approval is turned on because of spammers… but all non spam comments will be approved)
20 people that think being bigots toward gays is OK
Embarrassingly, yesterday the New Jersey Senate voted down the Same Sex Marriage Act, because with an incoming, proud bigot coming in as Governor, it became OK to hate “teh gays” again I guess.
State Senator Sean Kean (R), who lives in what he calls “the gayest district in New Jersey” voted “No” on gay marriage. I guess, voting in a way that represents the people of your district isn’t important in his and others eyes in the Senate.
I just want to make sure I have it on record, the 20 people that voted no, the 20 people that think that being bigoted is OK, that think “all men are created equal… except those faggots.” This way, when election time rolls around again, and they say they want to represent the people of New Jersey, we can return the favor and say “NO” to them.
The Republicans that Voted NO:
Bateman, Branchburg
Beck, Red Bank
Bucco, Denville
Cardinale, Demarest
Connors, Surf City
Doherty, Washington Township, Warren County
Haines, Springfield
S. Kean, Wall
T. Kean, Westfield
Kyrillos, Middletown
Oroho, Franklin Borough
O’Toole, Cedar Grove
Pennacchio, Montville
Singer, Lakewood.
The Democrats that added to the embarrasement by voting no
Girgenti, Hawthorne
Madden, Washington Township, Gloucester County
Rice, Newark
Sacco, North Bergen
Turner, Trenton
Van Drew, Dennis
They pay these people, huh?
In talking about Amazon.com earlier, I mentioned how Twitter has not exactly had the best record of being up and running lately. Of course, most people know by now that predominatly the cause is that the site is simply “too popular” and the site was simply not built to scale to the size needed for the number of users.
Rafe Needleman of Webware.com came up with a solution… Shut the site down. His reasoning. The site is too unreliable, and hence “nobody” is using it any more anyway.
Now, I as an “uneducated non media type” could get away with this sort of logic (or lack thereof), because well… I am not a member of the media. I am not an expert. Right? He is supposed to be the respected authority, yet to me (the unenlightened) this makes absolutely no sense.
There used to be a stupid old saying that goes something like, “Nobody goes to that restaurant any more because it is too crowded.” It was a joke, and (most) people seem to readily get the irony of it, but apparently for Rafe, this sort of “logic” can be applied to a website on the Internet. I guess things work differently in the Web 2.0 world.
My question is, how do I find a way to make idiotic statements like this (lord knows I am good at making them), and still find somebody to actually pay me to make them. Inquiring minds want to know.
Friday Foccacia
CHO me the outrage - I have to admit that I am more than a little surprised at the lack of lashback against Yahoo! and their new Shine. Ask.com recently decided it was going to be a niche search engine, dedicated to “married women looking for help managing their lives” and now Yahoo! has seemingly taken the steps to create a sight dedicated to the “Chief Household Officer” (CHO). According the story on Yahoo News, Yahoo said the site will have “attitude,” “personality,” and humor, while providing advice and secret tips like “a friend.” Maybe it is just me (and am I really the right one to be offended by this?), but about the only way I could see Yahoo! making this a bit more misogynistic, would have been if they added to that saying something like, “would be just like your best friend, only it won’t steal your boyfriend.” The only thing I can figure is that the content is good enough to keep people from being annoyed by the marketing mis-steps.
Comparison shop on the fly – So you are shopping in a store and see something you like, but you are thinking, “I could probably find it cheaper online” but that requires you to avoid the instant gratification of buying it “now” right? Well, not anymore. Amazon has now started the TextBuyIt program, which people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that’s “Amazon” on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores.”
And you thought it was just to wake you up – According to a new research report, coffee may cut the risk of dementia. So, as it turns out, not only will coffee enable you to keep up with your kids, it will help keep them from driving you nuts. (I’m joking, please no e-mail defining what dementia really means)
Not Just Wrong, well beyond it - Every time I think I can’t see anything new that parent’s do that would bother me… bang… there it is. This time, it is an article in Philadelphia Magazine about mothers taking their pre-pubescent daughters in for Bikini Waxes, eyebrow waxing and other spa beauty treatments. Tell me, what are the odds of these girls not growing up with severe body issues?
Why do children have to die for common sense laws?
Abigail Taylor died Thursday from injuries sustained last June when when she sat on a wading pool drain; the suction so strong that it suck out part of her intestines. It is always a tragedy when a child dies, and always there is some knee-jerk reactions, some good and sometimes even some not so go. But when it happens for something incredibly stupid, it is all that much more infuriating.
On the heels of this incident, in December Congress approved legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale or distribution of drain covers that don’t meet anti-entrapment safety standards.” It was called the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act [pdf], the named for the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, who was killed when she was trapped by the suction of a drain in 2002!
Now, I don’t understand why this wasn’t already a law, because it seems so brain-dead obvious to me as a parent, but can somebody explain to me, even after the first incident, and when people started lobbying for this law in 2002, it took 5 freakin’ years to get this written into law? Now, I am willing to bet if I left it at that, I would have somebody come along and say “there’s a war on and Congress had ‘more important’ things to contend with.” But if that is the case, then can somebody explain to me why Abigail Taylor had to die when over those same five years Congress sat back, played IM games with Pages, stuffed freezers full of cash, taking bribes, and making medical diagnosis via videotape. They had “the time” to do it, but it seems unless there is enough dead children for them to stop taking donations from corporations that are too cheap to manufacture these things safely, they just allow it to go on.
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