You’ve heard it before, I’m sure. Women bloggers referring to this community we all are a part of as being rather like junior high on occasion. It’s not just the mommy bloggers, though admittedly, we’re a rather large part of the community and a vocal one at that. Anyhow, this always comes up when people are invited to events that others aren’t (CampBaby and the RealSimple dinner party, to name a couple) or at the national BlogHer conference or any other such thing. People feel left out, is what it boils down to. And that reminds them of junior high.
Do you remember junior high? I sure do. It was AWFUL. Except that for me it was “middle school” instead of junior high. Same thing. Anyhow, it was the worst three years of my young life. Of course, eventually I grew up and gold older and realized what a really bad time was all about. For those early years, middle school was the worst that I’d experienced. There was such uncertainty, insecurity and awkwardness.
As far as I know, no one ever misses junior high. Well, except for that one girl in my carpool freshman year of high school. She always said that she missed it, but then again, she was a cheerleader in middle school so she totally doesn’t count. (Yes, my middle school had cheerleaders.) (GAH!) It’s pretty much an awful time for everyone. Which is why I guess that people are extra sensitive to junior high rearing it’s ugly head once we are safely ensconced in adulthood.
Still, I think that any perceptions of the blogging world being like junior high are a little off. And, if you’ll excuse me, a little manufactured. I think we’re doing this to ourselves, ladies. If you think it feels like junior high, well, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If you think it, it will come” (Or some such rubbish, you get the point.)
Look, I understand that it sucks to be left off the “invite list”. It’s awkward to be at a conference full of hundreds of other women and everyone seems to be leaving you out of their little groups. It’s easy to get jealous when you see other bloggers getting lots of fabulous swag that you would have loved to get. And what about the paying gigs? Those are sure nice too. I’ve felt that way a little myself from time to time. Shoot, I used to write posts on this very blog about how I felt about being “left out” of the cool kids and lamenting not being an a-list blogger.
But I’m over it now. Because I realized two very important things: 1) if it’s meant to happen, it will. Just give it time. And 2) that’s not why I’m blogging in the first place. When I wrote my very first blog post, I never in a million years thought, “It’ll be no time until I start earning the big bucks!” or “I wonder when I’ll invited on an all-expense paid trip to collect fabulous swag?” or “Book deal, here I come!” No, I keep this blog for me, first and foremost. I like writing for it every day. I can’t imagine my life without it. If you told me that if I wanted to keep blogging I would have to forfeit any income opportunities, swag, invites, book-deals, etc then I would say, “Okay, no problem.” Because it isn’t any problem to me. Sure, those things would be NICE but they’re not why I’m here. And I suspect that they’re not why you (those of you with blogs out there) are here either.
BlogHer conferences are a lot of fun. They’re intimidating as heck, I sure know that. But if you open yourself up, introduce yourself to a few people (just remember, they’re probably as nervous as you are!) and really just enjoy for a moment that you’re at the greatest gathering of women bloggers ever conceived, well, then you’re just bound to have a great time. And maybe the invites and book deals and swag and jobs will eventually come your way. And maybe they won’t. You just need to be okay with that.
There is enough to go around. As long as you are blogging because you love it and that shows in your writing, you’ll see opportunities start to come your way. But the more you whine and complain and have yourself a little pity party about what you’re not getting, well, the longer it might take to trickle down to you. In the meantime, let’s all be happy and excited for those of us who are getting the book deals, the invites, the swag and the newspaper interviews. Not only is it awesome for our fellow blogger who has worked long and hard and deserves it, but it sets a great precedent for the rest of us. It means more opportunities for the rest of us.
So let’s graduate, shall we? Leave junior high behind once and for all? Sound good?
Posted by Zoot 
