My Farewell To A Movement: Eight Years of BlogHer

Melancholy. That's probably the best word to describe BlogHer 14; it wasn't just me, but in talking to the women I've become friends with (around the world) at BlogHer, many of the veterans came to say goodbye to what has been an amazing 10 year ride.†

My first BlogHer was the second year. I could't convince work to pay for it, or to allow me to skip work on Friday (amazing how the agencies wouldn't really grok it for a while - or still, for some struggling with social media and paid/earned media) but I went down to San Jose on Saturday and was allowed in (thanks Jory, I never forgot that). I came with a bit of a chip on my shoulder - check out the snarky T-shirt on (thanks Irina for the photo!) - but lost that pretty fast.

But what was more important was that I sat down and talked, and discussed and met with a group of women (and very few men) and had no problem listening and talking. And engaging. And finding out what people were thinking and doing in this new blogging space that could change things.

Interestingly enough, many of the other man at the conference that year couldn't do that without being condescending and holier than thou, or without just being awkward around women. They couldn't just be there and talk.

Through the years, I've had fun adventures at BlogHer.

I got to be on the yelling end of a discussion in Chicago where another PR person made really stupid comments about his favorite Mom bloggers - who all happened to be white - so the woman next to me turns and yells at me about PR being blindly white. And she's right (not me, of course) and it's still that bag. But if it weren't for that woman and panel, I wouldn't have met Mocha Momma or KimchiMamas/CityMama.

Another fun time was when a social media person - who played it as if she'd always been at BlogHer, even if it was her first one - got so annoyed with me that she called me an outlier. Not to cast aspersions to her intellect, but she probably was trying to use Malcolm Gladwell theories on someone that might be an outlier, but in a more positive way ... as someone who had been involved and saw what was really going on in social media that was more than just public relations, digital marketing or affiliate marketing.

I guess what I'm saying is that I thank the BlogHer community and all the women I've met there through the years for accepting me as part of the community (the brands, well, they're still confused by my attendance). I've met so many people from around the world, seen the good and the bad of the mom blogging movement - hearing chants of "fuck you, pay me" in response to PR pitches, and them just not getting the relationships between PR/journalism and blogging is sad - and seen things change to where blogging is just a small subset of what is really being done by the community, by everyday people who have grown powerful in this new media world. 

And, while there have been other conferences that have come in and made a dent - EVO was an amazing one, and Mom 2.0 is incomparable for creme de la creme feel of the conference - BlogHer always felt like coming home: seeing friends, having women run up to me (scaring me) that they were told they had to meet me (um, okay), making new friends - if I listed all the women whom I've met over the years, it'd be a lot of name dropping but the post would be really, really long and I'd forget people and accidentally insult them. But they know who they are, or they should.

The bonus of eight years is I got a lot of blog posts out of BlogHer.

So whatever happens next to BlogHer and the conferences - if they go smaller, a la BlogHer Pro, BlogHer Food, BlogHer DIY (I pitched that one years ago) - BlogHer will still have the first mover advantage of putting together an amazing conference to help women grow, learn, network. The fact that the number of first-timers grew year-over-year is a testament in itself.

After my 8 years of attendance, BlogHer10 might just be my coda on the conference. But going out on a high-note as "I Am BlogHer" (thanks Jessi!) and acknowledging that my blog has always been tilting against windmills in PR and SM (and usually losing) was a nice gift to me.

 

_______
† NB: there's been no announcement of this being the last BlogHer full conference - it was just a feeling many had on 10 years and something next is coming.
Comments
No comments

Post a Comment