I just finished reading Jon Armstrong’s article over at blurbomat.com enititled “Thoughts on BlogHer 08” and wanted to respectfully respond with some of my thoughts. First off, thank you Jon for having the courage to post such a well written response even though you know it might exacerbate the “drama” and kudos to you for leaving comments open.
I’ll preface this post by saying I know shit from apple butter about nearly everything so please take my comments with a grain of salt. I’m very sorry to hear you lost your aunt. I’m sure you’ve heard alot of mostly empty and meaningless condolences (”I’m so sorry for your loss” etc.) and I won’t insult you by adding mine but to simply say: that really sucks. As such you should not feel the need to apologize for anything.
As far as BlogHer itself is concerned I think you need to go into it knowing that there will be drama. From my vast wealth of experience working with women I can tell you with absolutely no hesitation that if you get more than two women together there is going to be drama. It goes to reason that if you put nearly 1,000 women together at a conference it’s not a matter of there being drama or not rather it’s a matter of it being drama or DRAMA! If you approach BlogHer with this in mind and make conscious decision to avoid as much of the DRAMA as possible you will make your life much easier and hopefully the experience much better.
You talk quite a bit in your post about Heather being a celebrity to which I have no disagreement. However, I do think you both are very naive about the culture of “celebrity” and how fleeting it really is. Please hear me when I say that you are on a ride and there’s a VERY good chance the ride will come to an end. I would even be so bold to say that the ride could come to very abrupt halt. That’s okay because it happens to all celebrities at some point in there careers. People simply move on and the once famous celebrity is left scratching their head trying to figure out what they did wrong. This is something you should keep in mind with all your dealings with people on the internet and in real life.
Being a celebrity you also need to find ways to deal with perception (or rather misperception) of those you interact with. Everyone is going to react to Heather differently and in most cases they will react much differently than you would anticipate or how you would react in the same situation. I know you have very good reasons for the way you and Heather conduct yourselves on your blogs and in person. I can’t begin to imagine the volume of email and comments you must have to deal with. However, when i visit Heather’s site my percpeption, accurate or not, is that she is very cold and unapproachable. Let me reiterate: I am NOT saying Heather IS cold and unapproachable (how would I know that?), I’m just saying that’s my perception and it’s unfortunate when I want to leave a small comment or other on a post that I can’t do that: that’s all. You need to figure out how to manage those perceptions and misperceptions.
To be perfectly blunt: I couldn’t disagree with you more in regards to your comments about Heather helping other bloggers. I’ll concede that she’s played a role in garnering attention to blogging in general and mommyblogging in particular. However, you are missing one critical component in the equation: the readers. Just like a retailer doesn’t become “mainstream” unless they have customers, bloggers get nowhere if they don’t have readers. Don’t ever forget that (refer to my comments about being a celebrity above). Advertisers pay to put ads on blogs so they can sell the people reading the blog their products and it’s as simple as that. The reader’s of Heathers blog, including myself, have helped Heather (and you) MUCH more than Heather has helped fellow bloggers so I’m sorry to say your remarks come off as nothing but condescending.
To close I only want to briefly comment on the “drama” at the closing keynote. I wasn’t there. My wife wasn’t there. We had to leave BlogHer early thanks to our parking situation at the Westin so I can’t comment about the exchange between Heather and Jenny. However, I did read the “mythical hobbit” comment Jenny posted on her blog and I didn’t see anything offensive about it. I thought she was just trying to be funny (in her way) and was trying to illustrate Heather’s absence from the conference (which you admitted to in your post btw). But of course that’s only my perception.
One Comment to this entry.
I completely agree that their celebrity will likely be more fleeting than they realise.
I started reading Dooce 8 years ago, back before she was fired. I continue to read only out of habit, and the hope that the brilliant writer who first drew me in will re-emerge. That hope is fading fast though, as there’s virtually no trace of her left. I can’t imagine the old Dooce filling her blog with photos of stuff from around her house and I guarantee she wouldn’t have the readership she does now if she’d started off with that.
Dooce was unique for it’s time, but not anymore. There are a plethora of equally (if not more so) wonderful blogs to choose from, yet only a limited amount of time one can devote to reading them. My feed reader is limited to 30 blogs - a barely manageable amount to read through and comment on daily. Once in a while I introduce new blogs and cull old ones. Blurbomat was culled almost a year ago and the more I open my feed reader to find 8 posts from Dooce, all containing nothing but photos of (admittedly cute, but enough already) dogs and Heather’s latest show and tell of affluenza, the closer she comes to being chopped.
Which makes me wonder why they’re risking their livelihood that way. You’re not the first person to note that online-Heather appears aloof and detached from her readers. It sounds as though she is warm and charming in person, but very few of her readers will have the opportunity to experience that.
The lack of interaction on her blog, or from her to the wider internet community, does give the impression of an ivory tower. Even when comments are opened, they rarely elicit any response.
I say this out of frustration as a reader and I certainly bear Heather and Jon no ill will over it. Obviously there are others who do though, and there are some people who take that too far.
However, Jenny was obviously not one of those people and I’m very disappointed in Jon’s Blogher response, and wish he’d edit his post considering that Heather has said this: “I was in no way upset or angry at Jenny the bloggess for referring to me as a mythical hobbit or Jesus or Santa, nor did I consider it threatening.”
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