For those who don't know, a "mommy blogger" is a colossal bore of a human being who thinks that telling you how perfect her family is is something the world will care about. It is shallowness defined. Well, it turns out (surprise surprise wink wink), that the industry is much more cynical than expected. These professional mommies, often with prior careers in marketing, spend their time in seminars and workshops on how to whore out their blogs and how to connect with the rest of the vast army of mommy bloggers. Naturally, the goal is page views, which this woman says they lie about. Really? I'm shocked! Anyways, here are some things she admitted:
● Their posts are mainly faked. They are written to deliver paid product reviews and are typically approved and edited by the companies looking to reach the supposed audience for mommy blogs... whoever that may be.There's more, but I don't care. What I want to talk about is our little blog here.
● They stage their events too. For example, she mentioned that she needs to stage every photo she takes at family picnics and holidays to make sure that product labels are perfectly visible and that her kids are smiling appropriately. She lies about details like where, when and how things went all in the name of presenting a cheerful image. In other words, her life is manufactured.
● The whole blog was nothing but a marketing weapon, with demographics, data crunching, negotiated rates, reciprocal link agreements, payments to traffic driving sites, hiring assistants to help manipulate search engine results, etc.
● JosiDenise has a potty mouth.
● They engage in cynical participation: "/nobody is reading your shit. I mean no one. Even the people you think are reading your shit? They aren’t really reading it. The other mommy bloggers sure as hell aren’t reading it. They are scanning it for keywords that they can use in the comments. 'So cute! Yum! I have to try this!' They’ve been told, like you, that in order to grow your brand, you must read and comment on other similar-sized and similar-themed blogs."
● They avoid opinions that offend their audience or their sponsors.
● Mommy blogging defined: "You’re writing in an inauthentic voice about an unoriginal subject, worse if sprinkled with horrible grammar and spelling, and you are contributing nothing to the world but static noise."
● They don't know why they are doing it: "What are your goals? At all the conferences I’ve attended and in all the Facebook groups, I hear women with the same answers. 'To gain traffic. To grow my blog.' But why? What are you going to do with that traffic? What’s the point of any of it?"
See, we ain't like that.
I have at times received emails asking me to speak about products and I've ALWAYS turned those down. I'm not here for that. If I tell you about a product I like (like Disney or those razors -- still super impressed) or hate, then it's just something I have run across that I think might interest you. It's not anything anyone has asked me to write about and they don't even know I'm doing it. By the way, I've never earned a penny from this blog.
Nothing here is staged or made up either, except I might not really have the physique of a Greek God as may have once been inadvertently implied... whoops. And I will never pull punches to avoid upsetting people. Remember 2012? Yeah, mucho off pissing time. Anyways, I will always speak my mind, just as I expect you folks speak yours. As I see it, we're here for the genuine conversation.
In terms of demographics, I don't do anything to try to drive traffic or grow the site. I figure the right people will find us. Right now, I estimate that we have about 300 regular visitors, though most don't comment. The film site does a little better, depending on how lazy I've been.
So what does our blog contribute to the world? I like to think that we are offering a nice place for rational, intelligent people to come talk about things along with a tad bit of humor and the occasional bit of insight. Your mileage may vary. And in terms of my goals, it's just that: to create a fun place to spend some time online, to get to know some good people and to maybe come up with some ideas that keep all of us sane in an insane world and provide a little hope for the future.
I hope you all had a nice holiday. :)
BTW, in light of this, we will be cancelling our plans to open Mommentarama. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd not to toot my own horn, but we have a Tuesday review up at the film site!
ReplyDeleteOT: I'm not surprised to see that the "father" of the child in Cincinnati has a criminal history -- kidnapping and drugs. Irresponsibility travels in families and it was obvious from the get go that this whole thing was about irresponsibility. Zoos just aren't built that a child can fall into a gorilla pen without the "parents" being negligent.
ReplyDeletePoor gorilla.
Andrew...As with here, I go to sites to read the comments. Some commenters have interesting perspectives that I can add to my thinking on, most deal with trolls from the oppo side spewing hate and snark.
ReplyDeleteAs for the child and ape, I read that some have called for the parents to be shot in retaliation for killing the gorilla. Man, we have some sick people out there, even if they're just commenting to get other people riled up. This is the type stuff that will ultimately ruin the internet for everyone and bring on the "censors."
Oh, and I am so glad not to have seen the "Work from Home" trolls where they made $8,747 dollars in one day!
As far as mommy bloggers, don't read 'em as I'm not a mommy and could care less how other raise their little geniuses.
Bob
Wait, Andrew, you are cancelling my "Mommentarama" spinoff? Uh, when were you going to tell me? I was all set to inven...er...creat...no...write about my "family" for fun and profit. (Mostly for profit)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, is anyone surprised. It's free-enterprise. And I agree that this woman is probably trying to cash in on being the "Anti-Mommy" blogger. Look, even WE are talking about her.
BTW, I am glad that you have created an environment free of trolls and open to debate and discussion. I hope that more of our silent majority who come will feel comfortable enough to join in.
And as for the poor gorilla who really was most likely just trying to help the child. I mean, he had been born and raised in this zoo surrounded by humans. But right on cue, the "parents" are ready to sue because they didn't make the gorilla enclosure "child-proof". Of course, they didn't bother to make themselves "idiot-proof". Now, I have been to zoos in my life and it would take a concerted effort and time to fall into these places.
ReplyDeletePatriot, Unfortunately, you are right. Those people will eventually ruin the internet for everyone. That's the problem with humanity, there are always people who abuse a good thing. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the parents should be shot, nor do I think the zoo had any choice but to shoot the gorilla, but the parents do need to be made to pay for what happened. Accidents happen, but I have to wonder if it was just an accident or negligence to let a kid climb over a wall and fall ten feet. Trust me, kids are wily and can be hard to control, but a lot parents also don't bother trying.
Bev, Sadly, yes, we're cancelling Mommentarama. I've even returned the kids we bought for the photoshoots. We'll need to find some other profit center. Maybe Charityarama? ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe've done a pretty good job of staying troll free. I'm quite happy with the environment we've created here. :)
I have no doubt they will sue because they are clearly those kinds of people. They deserve to be punched, not rewarded. Frankly, I'd like to see the zoo sue them for the cost of the gorilla.
I'm always searching the internet for recipes and, inevitably, I end up on these "mommy blogs" that are always hawking some product. Every one of them is completely fake. They write about things a) that nobody cares enough to write about and b) in ways that nobody really writes. And, of course, "I always use Namebrand Whatever in my cooking because it works *soooo* much better. LOLZ ♡ ☺ ❀ ☕ ☢"
ReplyDeleteI just scroll down until I find the recipe and use all generic ingredients, because I don't care about how someone finally perfected the kitchen techniques that have been passed down for generations and across oceans through the use of brand name ingredients that didn't exist until now and probably won't exist in another few years. I just wanna bake some f*cking cookies.
On the gorilla, the story taking over is about the gorilla trying to help the boy. I hesitate to weigh in b/c wild animals are inherently unpredictable. That said, I agree with the Twitter poster who commented that it's too bad a rare gorilla had to die because of some parents' negligence. Frankly, the boy and his family are lucky that the 12-foot drop into the moat wasn't the end of it.
ReplyDeleteTryanmax - I do the same thing when looking for recipes. I go these sites and skip over the narrative and go for the ingredients. And many of the recipes are crappy anyway. They make the recipe 20 times to pick out the very best, and "food style" them. The only explanation that your cookies didn't turn out just like theirs is tha tyou didn't use [insert sponsored, name brand product], it would have turned out better...yeah, no. Actually it would be fun to start a blog to blog about the recipes on other blogs.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, I think the people attacking the zoo are wrong. The zoo had no choice really. They say that they should have negotiated with the zoo and tried to trade the boy for a toy "as they often do with gorilla" but you can't rely on the idea that the gorilla won't kill the boy while you're doing that. Animals are just too unpredictable and this one could have killed the boy even by accident in an instant. So they had no choice.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate the animal had to die, but that's the math. That's what happens when animals cross paths with idiots.
On the mommy bloggers, I always feel dirty when I run across those sites. They are creepy... very Stepford. And it's obviously fake and very exploitive.
Bev and trynamax, The BEST recipe people, by far, is Cooks Illustrated (Link). They take a science-like approach and they run multiple experiments on how to do each step (different temps, combining ingredients in different stages, different cuts of meat, etc.) and then come up with the best method. And so far, everything I've ever done from them has worked amazingly well. I really swear by them.
ReplyDeleteDamn if that doesn't sound like a product placement. Hmm. Well, it's not. They really are amazing.
Oh... LOLZ ♡ ☺ ❀ ☕ ☢
Actually, Andrew, Cooks Illustrated is my favorite too. I actually test recipes for them occasionally. And strangely, they are the only magazine that I found that actual field tests their recipes before publishing them. If anyone is interested - LINK
ReplyDeleteOMG! CookingTips-arama is born!
Yeah...LOLZ ♡ ☺ ❀ ☕ ☢
ReplyDeleteI also frequent Cooks Illustrated! Full disclosure: I am crap at cooking, that's why I always turn to the internet for help. Those people on cooking contest shows who just make stuff up from a box of random ingredients are like alchemists to me.
ReplyDeleteJust gotta throw this into the mix: did everybody hear about the outraged black folks on Twitter saying the gorilla was shot to save a white life, making fun of white parenting, and claiming that if it had been a black child, they wouldn't have killed the animal.
ReplyDeleteThat was until... well, you know.
Anyway, the knee-jerkers never fail to amuse. I'm still processing all the inadvertent yet problematic implications of making a gorilla the poster for #BlackLivesMatter, assuming only white families visit the zoo, and, of course, exposing their racial oppression fantasies in dramatic fashion.
The gorilla thing:
ReplyDeleteIf the parents were stupid then maybe some level of legal recrimination might be necessary (lawsuit, damages, etcetera).
The zoo did the right thing.
The gorilla thing is sad, but I think the zoo did the right thing. Child services needs to open a file on those parents.
ReplyDeleteThe mommy blogger thing doesn't shock me though I confess I hadn't heard of mommy bloggers until I read this article. A lot of bloggers in general strike me as sincere people (and many are too smalltime for companies to bother with) but everyone has biases and blindspots so I don't turn off my brain whenever I read a blog or anything else for that matter.
I can't say I'm surprised about that segment of bloggers, though it doesn't surprise me. As I've often said, though, I'm glad this blog is around to serve as a good source of sanity and humor!
ReplyDelete- Daniel
Mommy Blogs? What the heck?
ReplyDeleteAndrew, you need to stop reading these wastes of pixels and get back to watching terrible movies so I don't have to.
The family was gone last weekend so I was alone to watch several movies. I watched Foxcatcher which good but illustrates a problem with movies based on real stories. Deadpool, which was more entertaining than I expected. The Eagle, which was ok. Fury, which was also ok but had problems from the beginning. Maybe I'll try to put together a review if they haven't been done.