Light Refreshments Served

Sometimes reading blogs is like reading a bunch of those braggy Christmas letters. Everyday. But not all of them are unrealistic. Some of them are self-deprecating, some “awesome” (a scientific term my husband and I use regularly to describe someone who tries so hard that it’s difficult to look away, and all you want to do is put your arm around that person and say, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Calm down. We LIKE you!”), and some just matter-of-fact. But they all have an undeniable element to them. They invite readers.

When you invite someone over to read what you’re writing, you’re thinking of how to hook them. Writers, after all, do that. Public speakers, too. These artistic mediums tell you to “know your audience” and then the product will follow. So, blogging is no different, really. Only sometimes I think we fool ourselves into thinking that it IS different. That this is just a way to document our lives, you know, for our posterity (a noble pursuit), or to stay in touch with friends (nice, selfless of us to preserve friendships like that, isn’t it?), when if we really acknowledge that we have a motive to make money, or start a business, or create a readership to sell something (books, how-to’s, etc), or create a celebrity persona (gasp!), we would be embarrassed or feel we need to justify it in another way. No one acknowledges the growing trend to sell yourself in blogging. No one likes to show up to a “party” only to find that instead of eating and catching up with friends, you have to sit through an hour-long presentation that smells, walks, and quacks like a pyramid (you know the ones). Blogging, like Kacy once told me, is the new tupperware party. The new Avon.

I think blogs are more like an advertisement for your life. They’re big, glossy pictures they’re selling you something. It’s the new glossy magazine spread, the new crazy billboard, the breakthrough tv commercial. With more and more methods of getting to us, we’ve become so comfortable with advertisements around us, that we’ve become one. We don’t even need to be asked–we just morph into what has always been there.

It’s not enough to decorate your house–you have to show everyone and give tutorials because you just know they’re dying to do it, too. It’s not enough to make a good meal, you’re sure everyone will want the recipe–so you’ll include the step by step process in pictures and description. It’s not enough to clean out your cupboards, you have to tell everyone else how to clean it too (ouch. that one hurt. I hate it when I’m a hypocrite.) It’s not that it’s materialistic, either. There are blogs that tell you when they go to the temple, how much food storage they have and how you can collect it, too, or how they’re studying the scriptures. It’s not that these tutorials are bad. I have used lots of ideas I’ve found on blogs. I’ve used recipes, decorating tips, places to get a bargain, etc. I’ve used it as a tool to better my life. It’s great. My point is, do we acknowledge our motives for both posting and reading/using blogs?

Do you ever read blogs and think, “What are they selling me?” or “What is their agenda for showing me this?” or “How does this blog make me feel?”

Blogs can have giveaways, or they can be upfront and say, “Hey, I got this for free and I really like it–maybe you will, too” and have ad space on the sidebar and if you click on it, they get some sort of compensation or whatever. I’m not really talking about that aspect. If a lot of people read your blog and you want to make money off of it, I say that’s great. I have no problem with that. I’m talking about advertising your life in a way that creates an image of how you are and not owning up to that. Or the audience not acknowledging that it is not a full picture of that blogger’s life. A blog is not a complete autobiography. It is a choice and a small sliver in one aspect of a person’s life. It’s not the whole story. Even if they blog everyday. Even if they include positive and negative aspects of their lives. It’s still a filtered perspective: her (the blogger’s) filter of what happened (real or imagined), the presentation of that experience (what she decides to report and in what way), you (the reader’s) perspective when reading it, and so on.

When I read some blogs, I feel like I don’t have enough, literally, and that I’m not doing enough. Other blogs make me laugh, others inspire me to write more. One blog literally changed my life for the better in ways I won’t share here (example of my blogging persona: I’m trying to be mysterious because in real life I’m not, and so here it is). Others make me really mad. It’s interesting that, in thinking of what the difference is among these different blogs, I can’t really put my finger on the major differences. Intent, surely, has something to do with it. I’m not fully sure. I just think that there are more differences than labeling blogs like “cooking blog,” “mommy blog,” “design blog,” etc. There are better methods to determine intent and authenticity.

There are different schools of thought when it comes to blogging. If you’re not convinced, read through all the comments (and imagine the ones that were removed or deleted) in your favorite and not-so-favorite blogs. Some blogs are specialized: design, scrapbooking, family, bargains, clothing, etc, and some are not.

Blogging used to be a little different. It used to be anonymous and, in my estimation, a little more honest. You put out there, in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way, what you thought, good or bad. Now it’s a business. It’s a way of life. It’s an inside community or clique. It’s a magazine. It’s a scrapbook. It’s different.

When everything is categorized and put neatly in order (I can’t believe I’m writing this, being the organizational freak that I am), it leaves out the human element. I’ve had this discussion before and it usually ends up with the realization that you can’t win: If you only talk about “good” things and show beautiful photos of your children, perfectly decorated home, or playful lifestyle, you’re giving people unrealistic standards to feel bad or guilty about not meeting. On the other hand, if you try to be more down-to-earth and “complain” about aspects of your life, then you’re airing your dirty laundry and you’re just snarky. And we all know that none of us fits exactly and neatly in either category, even if our blog does.

Meeting somewhere in the middle requires some delicate manuvering because there will always be topics you have to avoid completely, which is problematic to a writer who wants to write about what they know. For example, you can’t really be honest about your family or your employer, which is at the heart of a person, unless it is in vague or unrealistic terms (and even if they don’t read your blog, you can’t even complain that they don’t in case they might). I guess if it’s all good and you’re just praising someone, you could write about that, but then there will be the assumption that, in reading a blog full of the good and nothing else, that others will misinterpret that and question why they have problems in their family or with their job, and you seem to avoid all of them. Or, the assumption may follow, in the best interest to avoid anything uncomfortable or messy, that there are just some things that nobody ever writes about. Secretive things. And sometimes that’s not good or productive, either. But if you wanted to write about a real family or work problem and how you overcame it, in the interest of strengthening other people and families, you really couldn’t write about it or do so without taking a big risk. I don’t think you should write anything on the internet that you wouldn’t be comfortable with anyone reading in front of you, but life is full of uncomfortable moments.

Is the future of blogging more and more specialized, specific, beautiful pictures and ad space, or disconnected, glorified family scrapbooks, or secretive, anonymous writing exercises?

Kacy, Kristy, and I met together in Utah for cheese fries and ultimate dipping sauce.  It’s totally the ultimate. We missed having Emily and Chelsea.  We, of course, each ordered our own plate of cheese fries.  (These are the details that hold this blog together.)  These are women I respect immensely.  

Hey, who is that cute kid in the back?  Hmmm, looks familiar.  

Oh wait. . . that guy looks familiar, too.  Oh yeah:  that’s Kristy’s family!  How nice of them to sit at a different table while we could have our “business lunch.”  It was very professional, so it was nice of them to respect that.  (Did I mention there were cheese fries?)  For this LRS meeting, I didn’t change my baby’s diaper under the table or nurse under a tent.  I really felt more professional.  

We talked about food, friends, kids, raising daughters, soda, Christmas, family, blogging, publishing, writing, laying around, napping, cleaning, Utah, homes, landscaping, and traveling.  All things we can look forward to blogging about in the new year.

I had been confessing all of my inadequacies blogging for almost a year when I was approached about joining a small group of writers for this website.  I was incredibly flattered, but a little unnerved when I learned that I would be sharing this platform with accomplished author and editor Emily Watts.  Though she and I haven’t yet met personally, I once heard her make a derogatory comment about glue guns in a Time Out For Women talk so I think we’re going to get along just fine.  Then later I heard that our 3rd participant in this venture was an improv comedian and a mother of 5, and I had to sit down and write 100 times “I will not be intimidated in this class.” I’m okay now.

Nevertheless, I still have a few questions about how this is all going to work.  First of all, will people still want to read what I have to say when they are not a) friends who relish any opportunity to shame me publicly with their comments, b) people who either pushed for several hours to bring me into this world or spent many subsequent years trying to force me to smile in our family pictures, or c) those who interract with me enough that they only check my blog regularly to make sure I’m not talking about them?

My answer:  I don’t know.

Secondly, can I write for this venue and still make my personal blog interesting enough to keep it active?  I really hope so.  Finally, will I run out of things to say?  Sometimes I worry about this one, and then I remember that puberty is just around the corner at my house so I think it is safe to say, I doubt it.  Well then, lucky you.