The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

In this case, it's several ladies, protesting a lot.  

Much like Hamlet's Queen Gertrude,   I think a great deal of the women complaining about the image that attending a mommy-blogging conference has received, are in part trying to protect their own conscience about possibly contributing to that very image. 

image credit

In the 9 or so years that I've been blogging, both professionally or otherwise, I've never attended a blogging conference.   That's right,  no BlogHer, no Type A Parent, no Blissdom, and not even Mom 2.0, which, after meeting the amazing Jenny Lawson for the first time recently, she strongly suggested I attend.  She knows about my social anxiety issues and can relate to why I don't attend the conferences.    Hell, it took me 2 days worth of Xanax, and a close friend to act as an anchor (to keep me from running out of the room in a hot panic) just to go and meet Jenny at a book singing event recently . . . 

. . . so the thought of attending a large conference with up to 5000 other women, a lot of whom have spent the weeks leading up to said conference Tweeting and Facebooking about their panic to lose 10lbs, or find the perfect pair of shoes, or who can't wait to spend a long weekend away from the kids, the remote-controlling husband, and mounds of laundry, seems an impossible task to me.

While I'd love to attend a conference and think there's much still left to learn; a lot that someone like myself would find valuable and that I could apply to my own writing and blogging practices,  I can't even bring myself to seriously contemplate going to a conference without starting to hyperventilate.    So, after seeing the blogosphere virtually explode in a red hot fury in response to an article about mommy-blogging conferences,  it was with a great deal of interest that I went out to the Wall Street Journal to read Katherine Rosman's piece about what she calls "The Mommy Business Trip" 

I'll be upfront and tell you, and let me be clear so that you don't misconstrue what I'm saying, that I don't think the WSJ article is the sexist, damnation of mommy-blogging conferences that many are making it out to be.   While I think Rosman was patently unfair to Katherine Stone and completely took her statements about attending blogging conferences out of context,  and while I think the article came across as condescending, and as my friend Bob pointed out, the article seemed to carry an "implicit mischaracterization of regular business travel,"  I don't think her article is completely off the mark.  Let me go a bit further and offer some conjecture in that I think a lot of the outrage I'm seeing from those making the most noise about this is due, in no small part, to the fact that perhaps there's a modicum of truth to the piece? 

Rosman leads her piece by mentioning one of my favorite writers, Katherine Stone from Postpartum Progress - a woman who has contributed so much to the community within the blogosphere and even more to the greater audience of women she's been able to reach when writing about postpartum mental health.    As I mentioned above, Rosman completely takes Stone's statements out of context and makes it appear as if Stone is getting ready to jet-set off to a boozy girls-only weekend.   It tweaked me just a bit that Stone felt she needed to apologize to many, in response to the WSJ piece.  In this regard, the only person that should have done any apologizing is Rosman for pure lazy journalism in respect to the fact that she obviously didn't put any time in when it came to researching Stone's work and the high esteem in which she's held. 

That's where my own eye-rolling ended when it comes to the WSJ piece.  

As someone who is a bit of a people-watcher when it comes to the movers and shakers in the blogosphere,  and who considers herself an outsider (but not in a bad way),  I watch the Twitter and Facebook streams pre-and-post-conference and it's easy to see how someone could make the assumption that mommy-blogging conferences in general are little more than a good excuse to bail on mommyville for a long weekend.    Just take a peek into the Flickr or Instagram streams of some of these bloggers post-conference and the photos tell a story - not one of insightful dialogue during a panel discussion about branding or what to write about when it all seems to have already been written about - but one of shiny cocktails glasses in the foreground of all too-wide and slightly inebriated grins.  

While other more adept writers have covered the aspects of calling yourself a "mom" blogger and  The Innate Hazard of Leading With Your Womb; deciding to cash in your mom card and monetize your experience of being a mom, I'm going to talk about the more superficial aspects of why there's an image problem with mommy-blogging conferences. 

The BlogHer conference, undoubtedly the mother (no pun intended) of all blogging conferences, boasts an attendance of somewhere around 5000  (where's my paper bag?  Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out . . .) attendees, goes to a lot of expense and effort to promote the three-day event.  At a cost of $608.00 just to register to attend the conference  (if you're someone who is intending on writing-off the conference as a business expense, otherwise the regular "Blogger Rate" is $407.00), when you figure in hotel, travel, food, and incidentals, it's no small feat just to be able to afford attending a conference like this.  

With panels aplenty and past speakers like Katie Couric and Martha Stewart, and even  President Obama who addressed the BlogHer '12 crowd, and then sessions where you can learn from the pros on topics like, Technology,  Strategic Content Development, Blogging About Your Special Needs Child, Protecting Your Blogging Rights, and various other topics running the gamut from blogging burnout to maximum monetization with minimum marketing, there's something for everyone.  However, when it's all said and done, after a BlogHer conference you're more likely to see one of two topics in your Twitter and Facebook streams and in the general conference attending blogosphere - the epic parties and the picture posts to prove just how epic they were, or the posts where people are bemoaning how they came away feeling excluded because their favorite blogger either completely ignored them, they weren't invited to a party, or left without getting any swag at all.  

For every one post you'll read about how someone came away from BlogHer having really learned something useful, made connections with other bloggers, or were able to network with brands, and therefore felt their time and money had been well spent, you'll find at least three more posts about the parties, the swag, and the booze filled schmoozing.   

• When the most talked-about part of your blogging conference isn't the keynote speaker but instead, a party called "Sparklecorn" where people celebrate a massive unicorn shaped cake, get so drunk that the only recognition of the party itself are all the photos being slapped up on Instagram, you might have an image problem. 
• When more people post photos of themselves eating cheeseburgers and wearing fast food bags on their heads, than they do a photo of the lady sitting at a "Voices of the Year" panel who is absolutely moved to tears, you might have an image problem. 
• When you have thousands of women Tweeting and Facebooking about how pressured they feel to lose x-amount of pounds, or find the perfect pair of shoes that they can't really afford, all in an effort to be accepted,  you might have an image problem. 
• When you have more people talking about the parties, the swag, the late-night-drunken junk food binges, the booze, and did I mention the parties, than you have speaking about what a great conference and how much they learned at the various sessions, you might have an image problem. 

There are plenty of women that will admit that they've been to BlogHer (or any other blogging conference for that matter) several times, and at this point, they don't go for the sessions or panels, they go for the chance to get together with other bloggers, party, and yes, escape home for a little me-time.   If that's the case, why not own it?  Why get so agitated over an article that's simply calling it like it's more often than not, presented?  

In the meantime, until the voices of those who attend these conferences and legitimately get more out of them than a piece of the unicorn cake, or a massive hangover, are heard over the post-conference plop-plop-fizz-fizz of Alka Seltzer,  mommy-blogging conferences are going to continue to have an image problem.   Until then, don't roll your eyes and complain about someone elses perception, a perception that you might just be helping create. 

Comments

[Lisa]

So here's the thing:

1. Where's the article about SXSW with men acting the same way?
2. I didn't pay $600 for my BlogHer Chicago ticket
3. I don't get drunk at these things.
4. I don't go to a blog conference to get away from my family
5. I go to a conference to either learn or meet up with PR people

[Deb]

I have to say the WSJ used the oldest link bait trick in the book.
Stir up a crapstorm about Moms and you'll get thousands of reblogs and replies and yet all the smart social divas.. fell right into the trap!!! So a big congrats to the WSJ, they succeeded. again.

Now,that said, the WSJ was prejorative and did somewhat degrade moms with their initial excerpts and comments, but seriously, when was the last time that any one was at a women's conference that there weren't hundreds of images flashed to the web about all the 'fun', booze, food and entertainment?

And Lisa, where are all the squuuuueeeeeeeeee posts from said men about all the fun, booze, food and entertainment? This article was written, not for informational purposes, but to garner attention. WHICH THEY DID.

Did you know that the custom cupcake industry is dying?

[Lisa]

It was linkbait. Hence, why not a peep on my blog about it. :)

As I said on FB, I post way more margarita pictures from the comfort of my home than from any blogging conference I've been at. ;)

And i saw plenty of tweets about SXSW and the stuff going on there while it was happening.

[Audrey]

When the minority of voices - those from the women who go to these conferences and get real value from sessions, panels, networking and contact, outweigh the voices of the women who go for the parties and such, until that happens, the perception is going to remain the same.

And Lisa, when was the last time you saw a bunch of men sitting around in McDonald's bags, taking cheesy selfies of themselves, or drunkenly dancing around a unicorn shaped cake, then plastering those images all over the web, then having the audacity to ask, "Gee, why don't you take my blogging, seriously? I HAVE to go to these conferences! They're for work!" If that's the case, if you want to be taken seriously, then keep the party pics private and maybe, just maybe you (general you, not you yourself because I KNOW you!) might get taken seriously and people might believe you're going off to a conference to work rather than play.

[Audrey]

I readily admit that if it was linkbait, I took it, hook, line and sinker. BUT it was after being irritated by all the posts, the posts that were filled with rage, and righteous indignation, were written by the very same women who are the ones going around plastering images of themselves at these conferences, looking less than professional. The irony was overwhelming and irresistible.

[Audrey]

Oh and, custom cupcakes have too much frosting. ;-)

[Lucretia Pruitt]

As someone who met Jenny Lawson in 2008 at BlogHer because we were both hiding in the same bathroom due to Social Anxiety? I totally get why you hyperventilate at the thought. I'm not sure when I learned my coping mechanisms, but they got pretty good over the years - still, I've run into Jenny in more than one bathroom and there are a lot of bloggers you'll run into at conferences who are on the fringes, avoiding the crowds, and still managing to get a lot out of it.

That said? I've been to BlogHer several times and many other 'mom' conferences - both speaking & attending. I've also been to SXSW many times. While the parties that you mention at BlogHer have gotten larger and better funded over the years since they first started out as smaller 'events' that were just self-funded by some of the attendees? They don't even begin to compare to some of the excess, expense, and mind-boggling levels of alcohol & social-media oversharing at some of the parties that take place during the 2 weeks of SXSW.

But to paraphrase someone brighter than I commenting elsewhere (wish I could attribute, I've read too much today) - judging a conference by the social media footprint of its parties is like judging college by pictures of frat parties.

Yes, probably some of the bloggers protesting too much *are* doing so because they do approach the events from the perspective characterized by the WSJ article. But I do know from personal experience with some of them that the outrage comes in part from having to time and again defend themselves and their work from the charge that it's just "mommy playtime disguised as work." After awhile, when all you see is disparagement of what you do for a living? You start to have knee-jerk reactions to articles that reinforce the stereotype.

Ironically? Part of the reason I have stopped speaking or going to conferences stems from the fact that it is *not* a girls' weekend, a vacation, or an excuse to slack off - but an exhausting, commitment-filled, emotionally-draining experience that takes me twice as long to recover from physically & mentally when I get home. I miss seeing my friends - but it's not exactly like we were sitting around poolside somewhere relaxing and catching up. Those things are demanding timewise.

Oddly enough, I don't see anyone pointing out that mostly, the attendees share rooms, buy their tickets at early-bird prices, go to great lengths to arrange for everything to be covered at home and spend as little money as possible to be able to afford these things because in many cases? The investment comes back in business, advertising, partnership opportunities and knowledge gained.

I can't say I disagree with your conclusion entirely though. I can think of a few cases I know fit it to a T... and a few more than fit the ones I've explained. I guess the question is - how much will the actions of the former affect the reputations of the latter?

(p.s. followed Jessica's link to your post)