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Give a Blogger Enough Velvet Rope And She Will Hang Herself: (Very) Extensive Notes on BlogHer 2009, Social Niceties, Social Media, and Branding The New Web Order

by anna on 07.26.2009

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Photo by psykedelyc-klutz at DeviantArt

Photo by psykedelyc-klutz at DeviantArt

Are there cliques within the parenting community at BlogHer conferences? Is there an “in” crowd of mommy bloggers, or does blogging really allow us to finally break free from the social, geographical, political, racial, ethnic, and class boundaries that still alienate us in our daily, “in real” lives?

Based upon my experience the past few days, the short answer to this common question about social politics at the annual BlogHer conference is a resounding no. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of people I encountered at BlogHer View definition in a new window 2009 were exceptionally friendly and welcoming, even to an admittedly difficult and socially awkward newcomer like myself, and even during those moments in which we silently acknowledged the improbability of our friendships, marveling at the fact that, under other circumstances, we were unlikely ever to have become friends, if our paths had ever crossed in the first place.

But.

A more accurate response to this admittedly complicated and multilayered question about the community created by blogging is that yes, there is a “cool group” within the parenting blogging community, and within the community that annually attends the BlogHer View definition in a new window conference, and that the odds are that no, this “cool group” probably doesn’t like or even care much about you, who you are, or what you have to say except insofar as it concerns them directly. If you approach them, they will become unconfortable, and if you follow them on Twitter, they will probably not follow you back. And if you try to go to their parties, you had better well adhere to their admission requirements and forms of compliance or else expect rejection. And even if you do adhere to these forms, you might get rejected anyway.

The good news is, though, is that this “cool” group is comprised at least in part–though not exclusively–by shallow, self-important, immature, and extremely insecure fucksticks to whom you shouldn’t give the time of day anyway.

Nowhere was this more apparent to me than at Friday night’s Sparklecorn Extravaganza party thrown by MamaPop, a smart, slick website on popular culture that I happen to frequent myself, which boasts among its (unpaid) writing staff some of the best writers I’ve found in the tiny corner of the internet that I like to call home. I have a lot of stuff to say about this event View definition in a new window but before things get very clouded by my structural analysis of social media branding and sponsorship, let me just summarize what happened to me when I tried to get into this party on Friday night. I will start by acknowledging that, as usual, I didn’t follow the rules: I did not RSVP for this party, a practice which was stated clearly as a requirement for admission to the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza, due to constraints of space and resources. And I cannot plead ignorance on this front, either, because I am a reasonably frequent reader of MamaPop View definition in a new window, so it’s not like I didn’t know about the RSVP requirement

I just didn’t do it.

I expected to sweet-talk my way into this party because, let’s face it, it was being thrown by a bunch of bloggers and, honestly, how fucking hard could it possibly be to get in? I have successfully sweet-talked my way into plenty of trendy LA and New York bars and clubs, and I quite frankly could not imagine the door policy at a BlogHer View definition in a new window 2009 party presenting a challenge more formidable than that of Jones in 2003, Sway in 2001, or the tasting menu night at Geisha House in late 2004.

This refusal to follow protocol, to jump through hoops (even if they are reasonable), is a product of my own arrogance, and I fully acknowledge and accept responsibility for this. But I am not everybody. What about the other thirty or so conference attendees lined up outside the door of the not even one-quarter filled ballroom holding the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza? Many of these (mostly) women were hand-wringing and hair-tearing about getting into this party, having not known about the RSVP policy in the first place, not being regular MamaPop View definition in a new window readers, not being deemed cool or important enough to have received a private, unsolicited personal invite from a party organizer (I know this happened in at least one case), and ultimately, being surprised by a strict door policy that was not used by any other party at the conference, with the exception of the official BlogHer View definition in a new window policy of checking BlogHer View definition in a new window 2009 conference badges View definition in a new window for admission to conference panels.

You're once, twice, three hundred thousand times a liar about losing RSVPs.

You're once, twice, three hundred thousand times a liar about losing RSVPs.

But what about the people who DID jump through hoops, who DID RSVP, and were still turned away because their RSVPs were “lost”? Personally, I know of two people to whom this happened, and since I only know a grand total of about four people all together, that’s a (counting on fingers) 50% failure rate right there. A quick search of Twitter yields two other cases of “lost” RSVPs (examples here and here), and a public mocking of somebody’s method of trying to finagle a way into the party. (Incidentally, these are just the people talking about it publicly–if we could search DMs and email who knows what kind of debauchery we might find?) Coincidence? Poor planning? Selective email recall? Mac-versus-PC related screw up? A zero where there should have been a one? A glitch in the Matrix? You tell me, ladies.

But are there hurt feelings? Oh definitely, that we can confirm.

Sponsorship and Branding Implications of the Velvet Rope View definition in a new window

The Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza had several sponsors, including Federated Media, (the advertising network of both MamaPop View definition in a new window and several of its proprietors), Six Apart Media (an advertising network used by some sites run by or affiliated with MamaPop’s owners and/or contributors, and an affiliate of TypePad, the blogging platform used by several MamaPop View definition in a new window contributors and on which MamaPop View definition in a new window itself is run, and a BlogHer View definition in a new window sponsor that has been criticized in the past for scheduling exclusive private parties to conflict with the BlogHer community keynote); Dove (a cosmetics company that has received acclaim in recent years for featuring campaigns encouraging women to accept and love their bodies as they are, and which at present runs a public service campaign to encourage body image acceptance among young girls); bTrendie (a commercial website targeting the parenting blogging community that offers special deals and admission to special discount sales of baby and children’s gear and the sponsor of several other events at BlogHer View definition in a new window 2009) and Yahoo! (an internet mainstay named after the Houynhnms’ perjorative term for a hairy, stinky and uncivilized version of humans that so disgusts his horse superiors in the third book of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels).

Disclaimer: I’m not familiar with the terms of sponsorship for the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza, and I do not know, for example, if the terms of sponsorship included clear instructions for how the branding should be handled by party organizers. I have to assume that there were some ground rules, though, since many of the sponsoring companies are multi-billion dollar enterprises with fairly standard practices for brand management. Here’s another problem with social media and branding, though: if MamaPop View definition in a new window is first and foremost a business, a money-making endeavor that can procure sponsors for its events, then surely it owes those sponsors some consideration in how it handles the social niceties that fair or unfair will reflect on its sponsors.

What I do know is that the signs posted outside of the event View definition in a new window associated those brands with what was happening at the door of this event View definition in a new window. And I also know that the sponsor’s logos that appeared on signs posted several places, inside the event View definition in a new window on the step and shoot (a promotional tool which is traditionally placed outside of an event View definition in a new window for maximum exposure of the brand to the largest audience possible–marketing tip is free of charge,). Inside, sponsors set up booths or stations, as is their practice at the BlogHer View definition in a new window convention, and gave away promotional products in some cases to party guests, which is also standard practice for these kinds of events.

The most positive thing I can say about the branding done at the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza is that I was able to procure for myself a free tube of Dove Cinical Protection antiperspirant/deodorant, a product that I had used regularly and loved before going to the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza, and which I will continue to do now that the Sparklecorn View definition in a new window Extravaganza is over. But I’m not sure that this is wholly good news for Dove, since now I will use their product whilst remembering that I got it at that fuckstick party thrown by MamaPop View definition in a new window at BlogHer View definition in a new window 2009.

Blogging Implications of the Velvet Rope View definition in a new window

A lot of the problem with what happened the other night, for me personally, is operating at a symbolic level with oodles of plausible deniability, naturally, and for which many people (if they’ve even read this far) will dismiss as once again “reading too much into things.” I get accused of this a lot, as you might imagine. That’s OK. I do know what a degradation ritual View definition in a new window is: I spent 11 years in academia. I had to walk into oral examinations knowing at the outset that I knew the material like the back of my hand, that they knew that they were going to pass me ultimately, but not before they stuck it to me, just a little bit. Not until they made me feel—in spite of all the empirical evidence to the contrary—just a little bit stupid and not good enough. They would let me in—would have to let me in–but not until I agreed to do it their way, acknowledged that they—still—were the ones in power.

The way that you get people to participate in a degradation ritual View definition in a new window is that you pretend, while adopting a voice of authority, that what you are doing is legitimate. You get people to allow you—nay! to implore you to jump them into your bullshit gang by making believe, making yourself believe, that what you are doing is necessitated by some other, higher outside force beyond your control. That you will run out of alcohol at a party, even when the person wanting to gain admission is a sober alcoholic who certainly won’t be taxing the spirit resources of your party, or by claiming that the hotel has strict limits on space and occupancy, even when a room is not even a quarter full of bodies, and the sponsorship tables are still full of deodorant samples and free promotional thumb drives.

But most of all, you get somebody to participate in their own degradation ritual View definition in a new window by holding out a promise to them—a promise that, if you play by the rules that you’ve set up for everyone based on ephemeral, (if any) authority, maybe they’ll one day get to be the one to do the jumping-in. If you do it our way, maybe one day you’ll get an assistant professorialship for $38,000 a year. If you do it our way, maybe one day you’ll get a contract with Federated Media and get to write for somebody else’s website for nothing or worse. Keep dreaming that impossible dream, comrades!

Being told that you cannot enter a party that is even not halfway full due to space constraints is not a humiliating experience on that scale by a long shot. Not for me, and probably not for most people, but it still sucks donkey dicks. Mostly that is all I felt like saying, believe it or not. But as I thought about it more and more, I started to think about other people and what they might have thought when being faced by the same situation.

And I started thinking about the woman who left her kids for the first time to attend this conference in Chicago, from a small town in a flyover state somewhere south of Nowhere You’d Ever Go, who scraped together just enough money to attend this conference and meet some people that she reads and idolizes on the internet? Who weighs a little more than she likes? Feels like her clothes maybe aren’t quite as nice as they could be? Feels already a little bit insecure but is hoping that this time–maybe this time she ‘s found a place where she can be a part of it all? How do you think your policy “necessitated by space and requirements of the hotel” makes her feel? Do you think she’ll notice that nobody else used a similar policy during the entire conference? Do you think that she’ll overhear someone say that the majority of the party’s budget (provided by its five corporate sponsors) was used to buy a giant cake shaped like a unicorn? Do you think that when not even the person working the door can commit to the “necessary” policy of exclusion enough to enforce it without hedging with “It’s not my policy, it’s Tracey’s,” or “Tracey paid for my ticket, I have to do what she says,” do you think she’ll have read Hannah Arendt on the banality of evil, or will she just think, wow, who is this Tracey person and why doesn’t she like me?

Do you suppose she’ll be buying any Dove products any time soon? And if she does, do you think she’ll write about it on her blog?

Before you object, no, you are not obligated to be friends with anyone and everyone who reads you: this is neither desirable nor even plausible. But if you are first and foremost a business, then you do have an obligation to your sponsors. Or, alternatively, if you are first and foremost a community that craves the respect of its readership, then you have an obligation to treat them fairly and with consideration. And I think you are smart enough to know what that means without the hair-splitting and deflection.

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On The Sex and the City-ification of Motherhood

by anna on 04.08.2009

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So, as you already know, I’m sure, Dooce was on Oprah on Monday, along with about five or six other mommybloggers, some chick lit authors, and a B-list television actress. Everybody knows I’m insanely jealous of these people being on Oprah, but this is the part where I acknowledge that fact up front and cross my fingers that it won’t dilute the relevance of my opinion completely. Yes. I’m still super jealous, even if they didn’t publish web addresses up for most of the people. Even if the Skype reception made some of them look like they had bad skin. Obviously, I am a petty person who is dying to be on Oprah. Let’s not kid ourselves. But. Having said that, I’m glad that I wasn’t a part of the Oprah show that aired Monday for a few reasons, none of which were the fault of the individual participants on the show, but to which they nonetheless contributed, whether willingly or unwittingly.

To explain why I hated it, I’m afraid I’ll have to take a detour through mid-nineties feminist thought. Like all New Historicist anecdotes, it will seem unrelated at first, but I promise to tie it all up at the end. There is nothing like an anecdote to start of an essay on cultural criticism, you see: it gives you street cred. Anyway, I was a Junior in college and Camille Paglia was going to be speaking on campus. I had written a reminder about this event View definition in a new window on my hand, because at the time, this was as close as I got to a calendar. I wanted to go see her speak. Something about her in-your-face, pro-pornography contrarianism appealed to me at the time. And so there I was, at the Coffee House, drinking beer with friends, and my little sister (yes, from my sorority–oh the tangled web we weave) notices the note on my hand about Camille Paglia, and she’s horrified all of a sudden, and says, “you’re going to see CAMILLE PAGLIA,” the way I might say, “You’re going to clean out the drain of the shower with your toothbrush?” And so I say, “Yeah.” And so she says, “TALK about backlash.” Naturally, I got drunk and never made the Camille Paglia lecture, but that is besides the point. What I did do was to start to think about what Camille Paglia stood for: mainly, it was just an opposition to the status quo. Was she being sincere, truthful, or were her outrageous claims just exaggerated reaction the limitations of 70s feminism? Was it just Faludian backlash, after all?. And if the brand of my feminism didn’t change that night, perhaps my understanding of how the waves of feminism work did.

Because what we have in this current mommy culture is a backlash against the days of the Supermom, the mom who does it all, who has everything, which is an equally bullshit idea to the idea that parenting is SUCH A DRAG and SO HARD that you often find yourself peeing in your child’s diapers because OH MY GOD THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME anymore, NOT ENOUGH ALL-CAP SENTENCES LEFT IN THE WORLD TO EXPRESS THE DRAIN ON YOUR PSYCHE THAT PARENTING REPRESENTS. No, you cannot have it all, not at the same time, maybe not ever. And yeah, sometimes parenting is hard. And there are certainly positives about the fact that it’s becoming more acceptable to voice our frustrations with motherhood. In a very general sense, it’s a positive thing that it’s more acceptable to say, “Hey, sometimes this shit is hard.”

So what is the problem, then? Well, the problem is that the media is appropriating this one tiny shift in our parenting epistemology and doing with it what Sex and the City did with women talking about sex; viz. now it’s OK to talk about it in very exaggerated terms, on TV, on the news, on Oprah, everydamnwhere, just so long as we can sell it. And the result is that we are beaten over the head with it, we are helping them to smother us in an avalanche of pink-covered books with curly-q cursive font titles and drawings of stiletto heels and pink-liquid-filled martini glasses.

carrie_bradshaw_computer.jpgI won’t lie to you: I hated Sex and the City, and not just because Sarah Jessica Parker kept doing that Doogie Howser thing where she’d ask some dumbass question of herself on the computer screen, and then look up, and think, staring off into the distance, in love with her own profundity, like she’s fucking Jean-Paul Sartre or something. I hated it for reasons that are separate from the show itself, even–I hated it for making it seem cool to be a slut, basically, provided that you wear cool clothes and always work out with a personal trainer. I hated it because everyone acted like it was so ground-breaking, when in fact it just served to reinforce the same gender and class hierarchy as has every other show in the history of time–but it did so in a superfically subversive way, a misleading way. How do you make your life completely revolve around men (how to attract, how to catch, how to keep, how to seduce, how to marry, how to leave, how to forget) but make it seem as though you are a feminist? I know! Make them sexually liberal! Make them drink pink drinks, have spa days! They’re sluts, but they’re upper middle class sluts!

In short, ladies, in this new motherhood episteme, we have a backlash on our hands. And we need to stop helping them with it. To construct a show that suggests that motherhood is 100% a bitch, all the time–a veritable festival of bodily secretions, replete with justifiable hatred of your husband, alcoholic playdates and birthday parties–is irresponsible. And I’ll tell you what: it’s not my experience of motherhood. And to ask the kinds of questions they did of the panelists was misleading and sensationalistic. To make it seem the way it did the other day–featuring a mother who doesn’t comb her daughter’s hair, neglects combing it so much, in fact, that it turns into dread locks–this is just popularizing irresponsible behavior. If this attitude was legitimate or authentic, why would anyone be having another child, ever? Why would Dooce be pregnant right now? Why would Daphne from Cool Mom and Rebecca from Girls Gone Child have newborns at home? Obviously they cherish motherhood. Sure, it can be hard. It can also be awesome. Why make the experience seem like some kind of second-rate slapstick routine or scatological farce? Are we supposed to believe that these women had children for the jokes? Or to give themselves an excuse to drink in order to get through the day? And in case you’re wondering, yes, I am looking in your direction, Momversation.

So while I’m ranting, I’d like to clear up a few things for our childless friends who might be confused after Monday’s Oprah episode:

  1. Motherhood does not require you to use your children’s diapers for yourself any more than a long car ride would cause you to pee your pants. You can usually find a toilet, regardless of how many children you have and how many carpools in which you have to participate;
  2. Dirty diapers are gross, but they are really not that big of a deal. You get used to it. There are worse things in life. Like cleaning out the shower drain;
  3. If you need to take valium or drink to get through your day as a mother, you need help. Like help with your substance abuse problem AND domestic help, whether that comes in the form of a nanny, daycare, or having your parents help you out with some time off;
  4. If you have time off and you still find yourself taking valium to get through the day, you should go to AA and you should not have any more children because you are not cut out for it;
  5. While we’re on the topic of help, there is no shame in getting some. It is the rare mother who has 100% patience 100% of the time and doesn’t need time off. If you can afford it, get it. If you can’t afford it but can trade with another mother, or get help from family–get it. You will be a better mother for it. And don’t feel bad about it, either;
  6. I have taken at least one shower, sometimes two or three, every single day since Mini was born. That’s what bouncy chairs and Baby TV are for;
  7. You should brush your kids’ hair. For fuck’s sake. It’s not that hard.; and finally,
  8. Drinking when you are the one in charge of ensuring a child’s safety is irresponsible. I don’t care how many people say it isn’t. It is. Grow up and set an example for your child.

As is the case with most everything, the truth about motherhood is somewhere in the middle, people. And I promise there are no gIrLy FoNts or Manolos required to get through it.

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7 Abbreviations and Slang Terms That Are Kinda Douchey

by anna on 02.16.2009

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  1. “App” instead of “Application.” Yeah yeah, I know everyone’s so into their iPhones, and part of it has to do with all the neat little “apps” you can get to make your life easier. But come on dudes, since when is a program called an “app”? I am well aware that there’s an app for this, and that there’s an app for that–but you know what I want an app for? Calling you a douchebag for going along with Apple’s involuntary marketing plan whereby whole sections of the English language are shortened into smaller words that (coincidentally) start with the letters “A-P-P” or “M-A-C.” Are we just not suspicious of this because it’s Apple or something? What if Blackberry went around asking you to call things “berries?” “Trying to find a restaurant? Hey, there’s a berry for that!” Or, worse–Microsoft? “Want to get directions? There’s a soft for that!” Wait.

  2. “Fo’ sho’” instead of “For sure.” Maybe there was a time when it was cool to say this, but I missed it. Because it seems to me that you have to say it ironically now, and even then it misses the mark. You know how sometimes something is lame, and then it gets lamer, and eventually it is so lame that it goes back around the other side of lame to become cool again? Like the movie, You’ve Been Served? K, well this saying has lapped lame fifteen times and it still isn’t cool again. For sure.

  3. Anything you got from I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER.COM. This includes the greeting, “Oh, Hai,” any deliberately incorrect usage of the English language that begins with “I can has” or “I has,” the popular misspelling “moar” and, yes, the standard salutation, “kthanxbai View definition in a new window.” Isn’t it enough that this absurd website is so successful, must we add insult to injury by popularizing its neanderthal language? Please, join me in my effort to forget this unfortunate piece of internet history. Kthanxbai View definition in a new window.

  4. “Pwn” instead of . . . fuck, I don’t even know what it’s an abbreviation for–”own”? First of all, if you use this term, then we know that you’re a geek. In fact, if you use this term, you’re not only a geek, but you’re geeky enough to know what it means. I am pretty nerdy and even I am unclear on its original meaning. I think it has something to do with programming and when a function is at the top of the list, like everything else defaults to it. But then I also think it involves a typo for this, like somebody typed “pwns” instead of “owns.” Do you see the problem? People are getting lost in my explanation of how lame this is. Its lameness is too technical for the average user.

  5. “Woot.” In the same vein as “pwn,” woot is an expression that is also overused online. I happen to know that this one stands for “we own the other team.” I have repressed the memory of how I learned this, but I’m stuck with it anyway. Look, I shouldn’t have to tell you that this is stupid. You own the other team, do you? And this “team” of which you speak, does it involve things like like balls, baskets, scoreboards? No, of course not. Do you think you’d ever see LeBron or Kobe high five somebody and say “WOOT!” No, the people who use the term “woot” are not likely to have stepped on a basketball court even one time in their lives. So, yeah, cool: if you want to be associated with motherboards and role-playing games, then, OK, but other than a bunch of extra CPUs, let’s face it–you own nothing.

  6. Green. I am so over this green thing. Enough already. Just because something is green does not mean it’s good for the environment, or something we want. Take the Celtics. Or mold.

  7. The expression, “I am so over . . .” Yeah, so I’m guilty of using this one, doesn’t make it any less douchey. Ask yourself: “Does anyone care what I am over or not over?” “Is this a love affair?” “Is what I’m discussing of such importance that it is well-compared to the perils of romance, infatuation, heartbreak?” “Do I want to sound like Heidi Montag?” &c.

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