Lorne Daniel explores the blog phenomenon, the criticisms, the narcissism and the sexism against mommy bloggers.
Why do so many of us blog?
According to Wikipedia, as of February 2011, there are 156 million blogs in existence.
Many millions of those blogs have only a handful of readers, I suspect. Unless you’re already a celebrity, when you start a blog you will send the link to a few friends and family and watch your Google Analytics tell you that three, five, or maybe 10 people visited your site last week. Then zero the week after that.
It’s also obvious, from even the quickest scan of blogs, that many of them are terribly written, terribly designed and in other ways just off-putting. I am particularly thrown off by the sites that are shoddy sales pitches for “social media advising” and “dynamic communications” but can’t get the use of “there” and “their” figured out, or don’t realize that “it’s” is a contraction for “it is.”
So blogs are easy targets.
But before you go into a rant about our narcissist society where everyone wants a blog, consider replacing one word in my opening question. Change “blog” (an uncomfortable verb at the best of times) with “communicate.” Now re-ask the question: why do so many of us communicate?
The obvious answer: we are humans. Social animals. We chatter. We interact.
Yes, there’s narcissism involved in saying “watch me, read what I ate for breakfast.” But we all do that. We go to the office and tell a story about how our kid dumped breakfast all over the kitchen floor, how that made us late getting her to day care, how we missed the 7:40 express.
That little scenario, of course, hints at a genre of blog that for strange reasons draws more derision than others: the mommy blog. Thousands (millions?) of moms out there have found blogs to be their perfect way of connecting with the world — including other moms. For some reason this bothers others who, I suppose, think that a woman should either drop the “mommy” tag and go to battle in corporate boardrooms or just stay home and stay offline.
The criticisms are clearly sexist. Here’s a recent retort that I came across from one of my Twitter followers.
If nothing else, blogs show people who are engaged with their world. That is a good thing.
Ultimately, blogs are a reflection of people. Inconsistent. Some lovely and likable. Many less so. Often maddening. And, yes, often a waste of time.
So? I don’t know about you — I try to pick and choose the people I interact with. Same with blogs. No sense wishing that they would all go away for two reasons — it ain’t gonna happen, and you probably wouldn’t like it if it really did happen.
Image Credit
“Blog board” Mashable.com
With so many blogs we can assume there has got to be a pony in there somewhere. The search, however, can be exhausting, annoying and frustrating.
I’m partial to blogs where the writer (1) communicates about what has meaning for him or her; (2) uses humour to make a point; (3) analyzes or reflects on contemporary culture with a personal perspective; (4) writes clearly and succinctly with minimal grammar or spelling errors; (5) refers to others through links that are not just marketing schemes or commercial scams; (6) recommends additional, possibly “competitive,” resources; and (7) supports whatever point he or she wants to make with evidence from the heart, academia, the blogshpere, published research, or other named sources.
Life as a Human seems to fit most of my favourite seven. If you know of others, please let me know.
Their are some interesting points Lorne….ha! (I’m a bit of a spelling freak myself, and totally get put off when I come across these type of mistakes when reading a blog).
You make a very good observation: ‘…blogs show people who are engaged with their world’.
As someone who has only recently taken to investing time to write and run a blog, I would agree whole-heartedly that this is a good thing.
We just have to pick and choose carefully which ‘worlds’ or blogs, we desire to engage with ourselves.
Thanks for this much needed defense of blogging mothers. I’ve seen a lot of blogs out there written by mothers that are truly excellent. They tend to address everything from parenting tips to organic living to environmental issues and living frugally in a world inundated with corporate greed. Mothers are addressing issues that are important for the betterment of the world, and I’m glad that they’re blogging about it.
I think the derision stems from the fact that many feel motherhood is purely a domestic duty that has no real value. People believe that mothers have nothing important to say because their days are full of diaper changing and wiping their kids’ faces. There is a tragic belief that motherhood is an instinct not a skill and that mothers, particularly those who leave the workforce, have very little to contribute to the world.
The blogs are a way to show that motherhood can, and is, political. Parenthood in general can be political (I wonder if there would be the same derision aimed at “daddy” blogs). Parenthood is a platform upon which all sorts of major global issues are explored on a daily basis. Parents want their children to grow up in a healthy, happy, sustainable world and because of this they are often tuned in to major political and environmental issues of the day.
Annoyance over “mommy blogs,” I suspect, comes from a deep seated belief that mothers have nothing important to say and should return to scrubbing toilets rather than cluttering up the internet with their blogs. As Lorne points out, this is sexist and completely unacceptable. I applaud mothers who believe that they have something to offer the world and develop a voice through blogging.
Thanks for drawing attention to this issue Lorne!
Thanks, Andrea, for a very articulate expression of where those ‘mommy blogs’ come from. I agree that the moms of the world are often experiencing and exploring the important issues – children, society, environment – in a way that can be overlooked in the corporate and governmental circles. Blogs and social media are also very valuable, I think, in reducing that sense of isolation — it’s always strengthening to know that there are many, many others like you ‘out there.’
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Great points! Thanks for linking to my piece.
You’re welcome Jennifer – and thanks for being a resource to bloggers.
Great post! Blogs allow for very public, very important conversations. It helps voices get heard that otherwise probably wouldn’t have. Also, I think ordinary experiences are worthy of writing, as they say so much about our society and the people who live in it.
There are far too many terrible blogs, though, and it IS a pain to sift through the garbage from narcissists who seem to feel they are so important they don’t need to devote proper time and thought to their posts. Some of these blogs are very famous and that’s a reflection on our society, I think. Taste, substance, depth and quality are everywhere, though. That’s the good thing 😉
Yes, while it’s easy to find all those ‘garbage’ sites out there, it’s also a pleasant surprise to realize that there are many deeply thoughtful pieces being written, every hour (every minute?) of the day.