"I cannot be that person."
January 23, 2016 9:36 AM Subscribe
John and Sherry Petersik built a cult following with their website, Young House Love. Then they tried to walk away. The couple behind Young House Love on the process of falling down the rabbit hole from lifestyle bloggers, to full time "brand," and the burnout that resulted. Related, Heather Armstrong (a.k.a. Dooce) on "Why the 'Queen of the Mommy Bloggers' had to quit."
“It’s like we left the curtains open in one room,” Sherry says. “And of course, we knew we were being watched in there. We made choices about what we’d say or do in that room.” But over time, they shared more. “It’s like we were opening other curtains throughout the house.” John jumps in: “Well, and also, it was like that one room was getting bigger. People saw into that room and thought that was the whole house.”
Heather Armstrong and the Petersiks continue to update their blogs.
Previously.
“It’s like we left the curtains open in one room,” Sherry says. “And of course, we knew we were being watched in there. We made choices about what we’d say or do in that room.” But over time, they shared more. “It’s like we were opening other curtains throughout the house.” John jumps in: “Well, and also, it was like that one room was getting bigger. People saw into that room and thought that was the whole house.”
Heather Armstrong and the Petersiks continue to update their blogs.
Previously.
> In recent weeks, the Petersiks had been chronicling the overhaul of their home’s laundry room, and today, fans were anticipating the big “reveal.”
I just fundamentally do not understand the appeal of this stuff. If someone you didn't know well talked at length about their laundry room at a party you'd probably fake an injury to get away from them. Another post included 1200 words about the purchase of a wicker chair. Do their fans enjoy living vicariously through them? Do they get off on comparing their own lives/furnishings to theirs, favourably or unfavourably? I guess blogs like these are just magazines like Better Homes and Gardens with a human face attached, but...I don't know. And from their end it's like The Truman Show, only they're doing it to themselves (although there is of course the financial incentive).
Escape From The Internet! sounds like the title of a Choose Your Own Adventure Book: "There's no point in getting angry. Here in the Internet, everything is energy. Your body is gone. Your mind will remain in the Internet forever, thanks to your new friend."
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on January 23, 2016 [23 favorites]
I just fundamentally do not understand the appeal of this stuff. If someone you didn't know well talked at length about their laundry room at a party you'd probably fake an injury to get away from them. Another post included 1200 words about the purchase of a wicker chair. Do their fans enjoy living vicariously through them? Do they get off on comparing their own lives/furnishings to theirs, favourably or unfavourably? I guess blogs like these are just magazines like Better Homes and Gardens with a human face attached, but...I don't know. And from their end it's like The Truman Show, only they're doing it to themselves (although there is of course the financial incentive).
Escape From The Internet! sounds like the title of a Choose Your Own Adventure Book: "There's no point in getting angry. Here in the Internet, everything is energy. Your body is gone. Your mind will remain in the Internet forever, thanks to your new friend."
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on January 23, 2016 [23 favorites]
The article about the Petersiks was interesting in how it reveals these little contradictions in their motivations. One of them says they weren't out to get famous, but the article says that before they started blogging, they'd tried out for the Amazing Race, for instance. They were interested in attention. Which I can't blame them for. I also enjoy attention.
I find this dilemma that people face on the internet when a person is the product they're selling an interesting one to follow. Even sometimes when a blog of any kind is popular enough to supply an income, I wonder how long the blogger can sustain it. I haven't looked at CakeWrecks in awhile, but when I was reading it pretty regularly I wondered how someone could stay interested in such a one-trick pony for very long, and how long readers would. Maybe other people have more stamina than I did, but I reached a point where I'd seen enough bad cakes. But how do you transition to something else when your job was single-topic blogger?
The Petersiks were in advertising and have the ability to pick that up again. Sometimes with other blogs that become income-producing full-time jobs, I want to say, "Keep your day job! This is going to get really old!"
That might just be my personality, though.
posted by not that girl at 10:01 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I find this dilemma that people face on the internet when a person is the product they're selling an interesting one to follow. Even sometimes when a blog of any kind is popular enough to supply an income, I wonder how long the blogger can sustain it. I haven't looked at CakeWrecks in awhile, but when I was reading it pretty regularly I wondered how someone could stay interested in such a one-trick pony for very long, and how long readers would. Maybe other people have more stamina than I did, but I reached a point where I'd seen enough bad cakes. But how do you transition to something else when your job was single-topic blogger?
The Petersiks were in advertising and have the ability to pick that up again. Sometimes with other blogs that become income-producing full-time jobs, I want to say, "Keep your day job! This is going to get really old!"
That might just be my personality, though.
posted by not that girl at 10:01 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
The Heather Armstrong article was interesting, too, as she talked about getting sponsors who then wanted her to tone down the style that had created her popularity in the first place. I used to love Stark Raving Mommy, who wrote hilariously and honestly about raising kids with autism. Her classic post on where the parents are on children's TV shows is still one of my favorite things on the internet.
And then, based on her blog popularity, she started getting paid to write at mainstream parenting sites, like Nickmom and Redbook. And the articles she wrote were toothless. I was glad she was getting paid, but sorry that getting paid meant we lost the voice she had when it was her writing about her life for her own purposes, and there were no editors or advertisers.
posted by not that girl at 10:08 AM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
And then, based on her blog popularity, she started getting paid to write at mainstream parenting sites, like Nickmom and Redbook. And the articles she wrote were toothless. I was glad she was getting paid, but sorry that getting paid meant we lost the voice she had when it was her writing about her life for her own purposes, and there were no editors or advertisers.
posted by not that girl at 10:08 AM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
I just fundamentally do not understand the appeal of this stuff... Do their fans enjoy living vicariously through them?
I can't find an actual journal cite for a test of this hypothesis, but here's a possible reason why.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:13 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
I can't find an actual journal cite for a test of this hypothesis, but here's a possible reason why.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:13 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
"Posing for another picture. Everybody's got to sell. But when you shake your ass, they notice fast, some mistakes were built to last." – noted pundit and cultural critic G. Michael
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:14 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:14 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
Even sometimes when a blog of any kind is popular enough to supply an income, I wonder how long the blogger can sustain it.I don't know. I know someone pretty well who works for a DIY/shelter magazine, and her fulltime job is being obsessed with houses and remodeling and projects and stuff. It's different in that she gets to go home at night and doesn't have to be a persona on the internet, but the single-issue thing is the same. I don't think it's that unusual for people in the media to have a long-term focus on one thing.
I mostly read food blogs and the very occasional craft blog, and it occurs to me that most of the blogs I read don't share a whole ton about the blogger's life. I don't know anything about Beth from Budget Bytes, other than that she's named Beth and lives in New Orleans. I know a little bit about Deb from Smitten Kitchen: she has two kids, she's Jewish, she's married to a guy who's originally from Russia. I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her on the street, though. To some extent, I think that most successful bloggers sort of invite readers to feel personally connected to them, but that doesn't mean that everyone lets people in to quite the extent that YHL and Dooce did, and that level of sharing seems to come with a particular set of perils.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:14 AM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
Turning yourself into a product is the toxic end stage of the consumption mindset we've all been conditioned into since birth.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:16 AM on January 23, 2016 [16 favorites]
“We put ourselves on the public stage, and then we realized it wasn’t where we wanted to be.”I wonder how widespread this realization will be over the next couple of decades, on scales large and small.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:16 AM on January 23, 2016 [16 favorites]
I just fundamentally do not understand the appeal of this stuff. If someone you didn't know well talked at length about their laundry room at a party you'd probably fake an injury to get away from them.
I sure wouldn't, but my house is still in various states of DIY disarray, so I'd probably be asking them about the best way to repaint baseboards when half of them are off the wall and half of them are still attached with little obnoxious bits of skimcoat stuck to the tops.
That said, I only ever read YHL for step by step how-tos (their suggestion of a tiny angle brush for cutting in during painting was clutch, and all the pictures they threw in made it easier to get what they were saying than paging through tons of mostly-text forum posts). My home projects blog of choice for fun and schadenfreude is Manhattan Nest, where I vicariously enjoy Daniel ripping stuff up left and right and then ending up even more deep in the never-gonna-finish-this hole. He updates once a month at best, and I devour those posts, and keep them in mind to try to be sure I scope our own home improvement projects more appropriately.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
I sure wouldn't, but my house is still in various states of DIY disarray, so I'd probably be asking them about the best way to repaint baseboards when half of them are off the wall and half of them are still attached with little obnoxious bits of skimcoat stuck to the tops.
That said, I only ever read YHL for step by step how-tos (their suggestion of a tiny angle brush for cutting in during painting was clutch, and all the pictures they threw in made it easier to get what they were saying than paging through tons of mostly-text forum posts). My home projects blog of choice for fun and schadenfreude is Manhattan Nest, where I vicariously enjoy Daniel ripping stuff up left and right and then ending up even more deep in the never-gonna-finish-this hole. He updates once a month at best, and I devour those posts, and keep them in mind to try to be sure I scope our own home improvement projects more appropriately.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
The long-hiatus-followed-by-slow-output-of-new-material approach to reclaiming your life after you've been Someone Notable On The Internet for a few years is one that also seems to be working out for Chris Onstad of Achewood - again, less stress on the creator, and understanding/non-entitled fans are pleased to see any new content. Seems like a workable model for rebalancing this kind of thing.
posted by terretu at 10:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by terretu at 10:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
What's worst is that for every blogger in every category who rage quits (justifiably) being a Sponsored Content Mill, there's ten more willing to sign up to do it for a tenth of the price.
posted by SansPoint at 10:49 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 10:49 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
then, based on her blog popularity, she started getting paid to write at mainstream parenting sites, like Nickmom and Redbook. And the articles she wrote were toothless. I was glad she was getting paid, but sorry that getting paid meant we lost the voice she had when it was her writing about her life for her own purposes, and there were no editors or advertisers.
I remember casting about for freelance writers when I was an editor at a home mag, and we picked some amazingly snarky bloggers who then ended up with their edges sanded down when their writing appeared on the blogs or in the print edition, because their voice didn't match the editor's or because the editors were just plain afraid to go with it. One woman we hired because we liked her blog ended up going through some major life stuff and wrote the pain of that into her stories, and while I loved the sarcasm, those in charge didn't always go for it. Ultimately writers are just human beings, and in many contexts, such as the blogosphere, that voice is what people want, but the more obtuse editors out there don't realize that being human is what makes their writing valuable. They just know there's something there that people like and they want to get in on it. Then they put a low price tag on it and nitpick the hell out of it and ruin whatever it was they saw in it in the first place.
At the end of the production cycle, too many editors get into the rut of wanting someone whose content they don't have to give much thought to at all, or to whom they can pay a vanishing rate, etc. They want young ingénues who bring that snarkiness that rakes in pageviews without demanding higher rates or otherwise giving them trouble or growing up to be adult humans with agency.
As I was thinking about this, I was about to say any jerk can write a grammatically sound 500-word front-of-book piece, but that's not actually true. I've rewritten enough bad writing to know better. And the overlap in the Venn diagram among the people who can write pretty in a magazine context and who also have a voice you'd want to read talking about house stuff or fashion is a slim one. But publications too often burn through (or just plain burn) writers, thinking they can always trawl up someone else from the vast depths of the Internet. They're inevitably disappointed when those people turn out to be human too. So many editors see bloggers "putting it all out there" for what they think is free but is really ad-supported and think, "Cha-ching!"
Anyway, that's a little orthogonal to the main discussion, but that's what that brought to mind for me. Like a contractor on the Death Star, I developed some feelings about being the middleman between bloggers and those who ultimately approve the work and set the rates in an editorial context. The thing is, even with all of the above, that's what you don't get when you do this yourself as a blogger—you have editorial freedom, but you end up beholden to the market just the same if you're not careful, and there's no layer of protection there at all. At its best, that's what writing for a publication gives you: people to manage the complexity of ads and selling and market rates, people to deal with comments and other feedback, people to edit out inaccuracies or anything potentially libelous, people to say, "It's OK, just keep doing what you do and don't worry about what they're saying." But too often editors as a group aren't thinking about the larger context, and in their mercenary way, they just want that page filled with content that doesn't bring in "bad feedback."
On one hand, my mind is saying, like everyone always says, "That's just business, suck it up." One month you're up, another month you're down, and you ride the wave while you can. But on the other hand, there's a real emotional toll on everyone involved in this process that it doesn't pay to discount, and that's a big part of what you're reading about here from multiple angles. Being human is hard, especially when you're writing about it for a living.
posted by limeonaire at 11:10 AM on January 23, 2016 [28 favorites]
I remember casting about for freelance writers when I was an editor at a home mag, and we picked some amazingly snarky bloggers who then ended up with their edges sanded down when their writing appeared on the blogs or in the print edition, because their voice didn't match the editor's or because the editors were just plain afraid to go with it. One woman we hired because we liked her blog ended up going through some major life stuff and wrote the pain of that into her stories, and while I loved the sarcasm, those in charge didn't always go for it. Ultimately writers are just human beings, and in many contexts, such as the blogosphere, that voice is what people want, but the more obtuse editors out there don't realize that being human is what makes their writing valuable. They just know there's something there that people like and they want to get in on it. Then they put a low price tag on it and nitpick the hell out of it and ruin whatever it was they saw in it in the first place.
At the end of the production cycle, too many editors get into the rut of wanting someone whose content they don't have to give much thought to at all, or to whom they can pay a vanishing rate, etc. They want young ingénues who bring that snarkiness that rakes in pageviews without demanding higher rates or otherwise giving them trouble or growing up to be adult humans with agency.
As I was thinking about this, I was about to say any jerk can write a grammatically sound 500-word front-of-book piece, but that's not actually true. I've rewritten enough bad writing to know better. And the overlap in the Venn diagram among the people who can write pretty in a magazine context and who also have a voice you'd want to read talking about house stuff or fashion is a slim one. But publications too often burn through (or just plain burn) writers, thinking they can always trawl up someone else from the vast depths of the Internet. They're inevitably disappointed when those people turn out to be human too. So many editors see bloggers "putting it all out there" for what they think is free but is really ad-supported and think, "Cha-ching!"
Anyway, that's a little orthogonal to the main discussion, but that's what that brought to mind for me. Like a contractor on the Death Star, I developed some feelings about being the middleman between bloggers and those who ultimately approve the work and set the rates in an editorial context. The thing is, even with all of the above, that's what you don't get when you do this yourself as a blogger—you have editorial freedom, but you end up beholden to the market just the same if you're not careful, and there's no layer of protection there at all. At its best, that's what writing for a publication gives you: people to manage the complexity of ads and selling and market rates, people to deal with comments and other feedback, people to edit out inaccuracies or anything potentially libelous, people to say, "It's OK, just keep doing what you do and don't worry about what they're saying." But too often editors as a group aren't thinking about the larger context, and in their mercenary way, they just want that page filled with content that doesn't bring in "bad feedback."
On one hand, my mind is saying, like everyone always says, "That's just business, suck it up." One month you're up, another month you're down, and you ride the wave while you can. But on the other hand, there's a real emotional toll on everyone involved in this process that it doesn't pay to discount, and that's a big part of what you're reading about here from multiple angles. Being human is hard, especially when you're writing about it for a living.
posted by limeonaire at 11:10 AM on January 23, 2016 [28 favorites]
If they continue to update their blogs, what exactly did they quit?
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:16 AM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:16 AM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
"A debate had broken out about their choice of countertop" - I love these dispatches from alien worlds.
posted by doctornemo at 11:25 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 11:25 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
I can't imagine chasing the kind of followership and fame that these major bloggers have. I already get freaked out when strangers recognize me at concerts several months apart (I stand out in a crowd, but I am simply just there, I am not striving to be recognized). To have a daughter be recognized in public while out with grandparents for ice cream? Or to have a major home improvement chain hire body double actors for promotions? That would be a level of recognition that I truly could not live with.
As fascinating as it seems to me that some can actually leverage a blog into an income, if it were to happen to me I would probably see the tide rolling in and run away as quickly as if it were a tsunami.
posted by hippybear at 11:33 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
As fascinating as it seems to me that some can actually leverage a blog into an income, if it were to happen to me I would probably see the tide rolling in and run away as quickly as if it were a tsunami.
posted by hippybear at 11:33 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
If they continue to update their blogs, what exactly did they quit?
It sounds like they quit, or they want to quit, living for others. This is kind of interesting, given that their blogging is so personal—some of their readers are probably reacting to this precisely because it seems like this would be a dream, to just show people who you are every day and make money from it. But of course when you're living your life onscreen, through a series of photos and paragraphs, it's mediated, and you start to wonder about your ownership of what is most fundamental to you as a person.
It sounds like they're learning to reestablish some boundaries in their lives. It sounds like they want to choose their own damn countertop without it being subject to a vote of the masses. Is the American dream the attention and love of the people, or having enough that you can quietly live your life without having to please others, or just for your kids to grow and thrive and bring your legacy into the future and/or someday care for you when you're old? It sounds like they're growing up and working through some of these questions, as well as dealing with a very real nausea of existence (and concerns about security) when it comes to sharing so much.
This makes me think of the reality-TV episode of Black Mirror, as well as The Circle. What a publication gives you is edges—very real physical edges on paper pages, and boundaries in terms of editorial policy. But blogging like this is postmodern in that there are no edges. Everything is on the map. So how do you define boundaries? You start with the limits of human endurance, I guess, and go from there.
posted by limeonaire at 11:39 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
It sounds like they quit, or they want to quit, living for others. This is kind of interesting, given that their blogging is so personal—some of their readers are probably reacting to this precisely because it seems like this would be a dream, to just show people who you are every day and make money from it. But of course when you're living your life onscreen, through a series of photos and paragraphs, it's mediated, and you start to wonder about your ownership of what is most fundamental to you as a person.
It sounds like they're learning to reestablish some boundaries in their lives. It sounds like they want to choose their own damn countertop without it being subject to a vote of the masses. Is the American dream the attention and love of the people, or having enough that you can quietly live your life without having to please others, or just for your kids to grow and thrive and bring your legacy into the future and/or someday care for you when you're old? It sounds like they're growing up and working through some of these questions, as well as dealing with a very real nausea of existence (and concerns about security) when it comes to sharing so much.
This makes me think of the reality-TV episode of Black Mirror, as well as The Circle. What a publication gives you is edges—very real physical edges on paper pages, and boundaries in terms of editorial policy. But blogging like this is postmodern in that there are no edges. Everything is on the map. So how do you define boundaries? You start with the limits of human endurance, I guess, and go from there.
posted by limeonaire at 11:39 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes, limeonaire--the whole thing recalls this sentence from the article, which I found both chilling and, of course, "well, they're not wrong...":
As the blog became more successful, the scrutiny, along with a righteous sense of what the Petersiks “owed” their audience, intensified. “I bought you your house,” one reader told them in the blog’s final months.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:50 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
As the blog became more successful, the scrutiny, along with a righteous sense of what the Petersiks “owed” their audience, intensified. “I bought you your house,” one reader told them in the blog’s final months.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:50 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
Maybe there is an opportunity for a new kind of career. A hybrid of editor,publisher and agent who is a gatekeeper/protector, deal maker and limit enforcer.
posted by humanfont at 11:57 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by humanfont at 11:57 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am always fascinated by people who overshare to this degree. I can't imagine the horror of growing up and realizing my parents had shared my birth story with millions of people.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:57 AM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:57 AM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
I followed their blog for years, and was one of the fans scratching my head as the content went downhill and they seemed unable to reset. One of them was zealously monitoring comments at almost all hours (they'd mention missing kids activities to monitor comments; if you're not blogging to set your own hours and be free, what the hell is the point?) I don't know that I've ever seen another big blogger put in anywhere close to that level of energy into a task you could, theoretically, outsource, or step way back from. I wonder how things might have been different had they been able to establish better boundaries in that area up front.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
If they continue to update their blogs, what exactly did they quit?
YHL is only posting occasionally, as opposed to a strict daily schedule, and comments on the blog are closed.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:26 PM on January 23, 2016
YHL is only posting occasionally, as opposed to a strict daily schedule, and comments on the blog are closed.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:26 PM on January 23, 2016
As the blog became more successful, the scrutiny, along with a righteous sense of what the Petersiks “owed” their audience, intensified. “I bought you your house,” one reader told them in the blog’s final months.
Okay, using that logic, by occasionally using their products I've bought houses for Mr. Smuckers, Chef Boyardee, Paul Newman, Colonel Sanders, Uncle Ben, and Mrs. Butterworth. And that's just in the pantry.
posted by jfwlucy at 12:41 PM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Okay, using that logic, by occasionally using their products I've bought houses for Mr. Smuckers, Chef Boyardee, Paul Newman, Colonel Sanders, Uncle Ben, and Mrs. Butterworth. And that's just in the pantry.
posted by jfwlucy at 12:41 PM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
I have a question. I don't know from lifestyle blogging but skimming the link it made me think of Day of the Locust and I was wondering if anyone here knows of anyone who is writing today about this kind of thing the way Nathaniel West wrote about Hollywood and America?
posted by Pembquist at 12:42 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Pembquist at 12:42 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Looks like they stared too deeply into the abyss, and lost themselves.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by blue_beetle at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
jfwlucy: you didn't buy anything for Paul Newman. All the profits from his Newman's Own brands go to charity.
posted by hippybear at 12:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 12:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I actually quit reading YHL and Dooce for similar reasons, in that I felt uncomfortable intruding so far into someone's personal life. The pics were clearly staged, and had to be, which made me start wondering about things like how much time was spent staging them, how many pics of the kid did they take to get the right one, how many normal life events had to be stage-managed, and so on. I don't like reality TV. I don't want people to do that for my entertainment. I don't mind a little documentary-style storytelling, or DIY instructions, or funny occasional stories, that people want to share about themselves, but the level of intensity these blogs get to does feel really off.
I wish Dooce and these folks well. I don't resent any of their success.
posted by emjaybee at 12:57 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I wish Dooce and these folks well. I don't resent any of their success.
posted by emjaybee at 12:57 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I guess this is no different than anyone else that chases fame and then realizes it has a downside. The weird part to me, as someone doesn’t desire that, is the failure to predict that downside and how long it takes to see it.
I’ve been saying for a while that this oversharing trend is not going to last as a cultural thing. I think, like most things, people tend to see the future as a straight line expanding out from where we are. But I think the next couple of generations may look back on this and shake their heads with no understanding of why this was happening at all, like the previous generations did. There will always be people who engage in it, there always have been people who want to live in the public eye, but that will go back to being a minority.
The pics were clearly staged, and had to be, which made me start wondering about things like how much time was spent staging them, how many pics of the kid did they take to get the right one, how many normal life events had to be stage-managed, and so on.
I feel this way about 95% of the internet. This describes most people’s social media. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been with someone, especially when kids are involved, and thought "are we actually going to enjoy any of this or is this all theater?" Fortunately that’s not the bulk of people I am usually around.
posted by bongo_x at 1:11 PM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
I’ve been saying for a while that this oversharing trend is not going to last as a cultural thing. I think, like most things, people tend to see the future as a straight line expanding out from where we are. But I think the next couple of generations may look back on this and shake their heads with no understanding of why this was happening at all, like the previous generations did. There will always be people who engage in it, there always have been people who want to live in the public eye, but that will go back to being a minority.
The pics were clearly staged, and had to be, which made me start wondering about things like how much time was spent staging them, how many pics of the kid did they take to get the right one, how many normal life events had to be stage-managed, and so on.
I feel this way about 95% of the internet. This describes most people’s social media. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been with someone, especially when kids are involved, and thought "are we actually going to enjoy any of this or is this all theater?" Fortunately that’s not the bulk of people I am usually around.
posted by bongo_x at 1:11 PM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
I read a couple of house DIY blogs every so often, and one of the people writing just went through a breakup and is working their ass off, and after explaining all this upheaval one of their commenters was like " That's so sad and so awful AND NOW I HOPE YOU WILL GO BACK TO POSTING MORE BECAUSE I NEED YOU TO." It's kind of amazing the sense of entitlement people have about something they get for free.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:17 PM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by oneirodynia at 1:17 PM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
Couple take inefficient and unnecessary path to discover most people are stupid assholes....
posted by humboldt32 at 1:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by humboldt32 at 1:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I just fundamentally do not understand the appeal of this stuff... Do their fans enjoy living vicariously through them?
A lot of people are lonesome, I guess. Could be independent of infinitewindow's hypothesis, or a special case of it: following a homely-styled blog might feel like having friends with less work, when it's only true that it's less work.
And with that thought, I'll sign up for the next IRL meetup and get off the internet for a while!
posted by clew at 1:32 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
A lot of people are lonesome, I guess. Could be independent of infinitewindow's hypothesis, or a special case of it: following a homely-styled blog might feel like having friends with less work, when it's only true that it's less work.
And with that thought, I'll sign up for the next IRL meetup and get off the internet for a while!
posted by clew at 1:32 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I think their success is partially how friendly and responsive they are. I've never noticed a blogger who so meticulously replied to comments. YHL tutorials are also highly detailed and thorough, almost obnoxiously so. I remember reading the "how to re-grout a tub" tutorial and being amazed at how many words and photos they eeked out of the topic. But you know, now my grout does look fantastic! I think Sherry (that's her name, right?) has excellent design instincts and I'd bet she's responsible for sparking as many design trends as Martha Stewart. Chevron, gallery walls, basket light fixtures, painting molding white... I'm not saying she invented these fads, but I think she picked up on them fast and really spread them. I'm glad they're pulling back a bit, they're so open and casual about sharing family details that it actually made me nervous. Do they really want the Internet knowing what their house looks like and its exact layout? That terrifies me!
posted by areaperson at 4:20 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by areaperson at 4:20 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Infinitewindow's link was really interesting and helped me understand why I've never had any interest in or patience for reading any blogs about the things I love doing most. I'm an avid knitter but have never followed any knitting blogs. I thought it was because most of them are what I'd call "knitting-themed personal blogs", on which the knitter does post some about his or her knitting but generally spends more time blathering on about the details of his or her life, which I find really boring and self-indulgent. Back in 2012, I got the idea of starting the kind of blog that I would like to read myself, and since then I have since discovered there are knitting blogs out there that are more like mine... but I still don't read any other knitting blogs. I'm the same way with reading about other things I enjoy doing and do regularly: crafting, sewing, decorating/renovations. If I need to do research on something specific, I do, and that research might take me to a particular lifestyle/craft blog post, but I won't read such a blog on a regular basis just for enjoyment, because I want to do those things, not waste time passively reading about them.
The blogs I do follow are a seemingly oddball and random selection. For instance, I have no interest in making costumes even though I have the skills to do so, as I can't stand to spend all that time making something I'd use so little, but I love reading about hobbyist historical costuming. Sometimes the vicarious experience is all you really want or need. But I think I'll be more careful after this about how much time I invest in consuming material that is supposed to be inspirational, because it seems such material has the opposite effect and is actually just a pacifier.
posted by orange swan at 4:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
The blogs I do follow are a seemingly oddball and random selection. For instance, I have no interest in making costumes even though I have the skills to do so, as I can't stand to spend all that time making something I'd use so little, but I love reading about hobbyist historical costuming. Sometimes the vicarious experience is all you really want or need. But I think I'll be more careful after this about how much time I invest in consuming material that is supposed to be inspirational, because it seems such material has the opposite effect and is actually just a pacifier.
posted by orange swan at 4:27 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Like infintewindow’s link, I read somewhere, probably here, that the people that make travel and cooking shows say they're not really for people who travel and cook, they’re for people who like to watch travel and cooking.
posted by bongo_x at 4:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bongo_x at 4:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I can see why it would be very enticing to be able to make money essentially for being yourself and going on about whatever it is that you're interested in, like these folks did. Unfortunately, creepy demanding crowds/creepy sponsors/way too many followers seems to have ruined the whole idea.
I think fame generally should be used as a tool: use it to get jobs, use it to get money, use it to meet famous people. I don't read these folks so I don't know how well the famous people thing worked (though didn't I hear that Dooce got some new appliance for complaining about a broken one on Twitter or something?), but I think it'd sound great at least at first to get to blog as your job instead of slaving away at Teapots, Inc, filling out your TPS reports, especially when others are offering you money.
But using it to get attention/love/fans? Hah, that's only gonna work so far compared to the guaranteed hate that goes along with it. Which is why comments and engaging with your public at some point is just going to have to go. People being able to interact with the known/famous makes them all crazy after awhile. Humans weren't designed to see and hear about someone all the time, that they hear about the lives of, but not actually KNOW in person to interact with them--it's a very fucked up dynamic that confuses the hell out of the fan who thinks they "know" a person and the famous person who is all, "Who are these mobs making creepy demands of me? You don't REALLY know me! We're not actual friends!"
It's all very sad when you think about it a lot.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:19 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think fame generally should be used as a tool: use it to get jobs, use it to get money, use it to meet famous people. I don't read these folks so I don't know how well the famous people thing worked (though didn't I hear that Dooce got some new appliance for complaining about a broken one on Twitter or something?), but I think it'd sound great at least at first to get to blog as your job instead of slaving away at Teapots, Inc, filling out your TPS reports, especially when others are offering you money.
But using it to get attention/love/fans? Hah, that's only gonna work so far compared to the guaranteed hate that goes along with it. Which is why comments and engaging with your public at some point is just going to have to go. People being able to interact with the known/famous makes them all crazy after awhile. Humans weren't designed to see and hear about someone all the time, that they hear about the lives of, but not actually KNOW in person to interact with them--it's a very fucked up dynamic that confuses the hell out of the fan who thinks they "know" a person and the famous person who is all, "Who are these mobs making creepy demands of me? You don't REALLY know me! We're not actual friends!"
It's all very sad when you think about it a lot.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:19 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's really twilight-zoney how some years ago I googled some recipe, clicked on the first link, and had to scroll through about five CRT yards of absolute BLATHER before I got to the actual recipe. Fast forward to last week when I walk into a store to see she has her own line of cookware.
posted by sourwookie at 9:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sourwookie at 9:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
how some years ago I googled some recipe, clicked on the first link, and had to scroll through about five CRT yards of absolute BLATHER before I got to the actual recipe.
Seriously, can we talk about this for a second? I really don't need to read 1500 words about how this is the absolute lightest, fluffiest angelfood cake recipe that the author has ever made, or that it was only after bringing the kids home from an afternoon of apple picking ravenously hungry that they first tried this hearty stew.
I want to quickly decide if I'm going to make your banana bread recipe, or if it needs ingredients like stevia and arrowroot powder and sour cream. That's it. Menu planning and reading lifestyle blogs are two separate activities in my book. Ugh. I wish there was a way to Google "banana bread recipe" and simultaneously filter out 2500 word narratives about how someone perfected the greatest banana bread ever made. I don't need to build a relationship with you just to take your word that I should add 1/2 t. baking powder.
posted by salvia at 9:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
Seriously, can we talk about this for a second? I really don't need to read 1500 words about how this is the absolute lightest, fluffiest angelfood cake recipe that the author has ever made, or that it was only after bringing the kids home from an afternoon of apple picking ravenously hungry that they first tried this hearty stew.
I want to quickly decide if I'm going to make your banana bread recipe, or if it needs ingredients like stevia and arrowroot powder and sour cream. That's it. Menu planning and reading lifestyle blogs are two separate activities in my book. Ugh. I wish there was a way to Google "banana bread recipe" and simultaneously filter out 2500 word narratives about how someone perfected the greatest banana bread ever made. I don't need to build a relationship with you just to take your word that I should add 1/2 t. baking powder.
posted by salvia at 9:53 PM on January 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
For some reason I got really hung up on their weekly photo project of their daughter while I was pregnant with mine. When she was born, I decided I try to copy it. Only I'd only do it monthly! On the different baby blankets we'd been given! But the lighting in our tiny apartment was awful and I was always forgetting the monthly milestones and it would take forever to photoshop them. I gave up at four or five months, I forget which.
I can't imagine the amount of work that went into doing an actual weekly baby photo series on top of all of their other blogging and home improvement projects.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:59 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I can't imagine the amount of work that went into doing an actual weekly baby photo series on top of all of their other blogging and home improvement projects.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:59 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seriously, can we talk about this for a second? I really don't need to read 1500 words about how this is the absolute lightest, fluffiest angelfood cake recipe that the author has ever made, or that it was only after bringing the kids home from an afternoon of apple picking ravenously hungry that they first tried this hearty stew.
I am grateful for this blather because it's an early warning system. The minute someone starts wittering on about the "yummity goodness" of whatever they're making or begins typing "mmm-mmm" in between beauty shots of each ingredient, I'm out.
Food 52 doesn't do this kind of BS on the regular and -- surprise, surprise -- it's staffed by people who cut their teeth writing about food for actual publications. And Serious Eats has the courtesy to separate out the novel of How To Do from the actual recipe (American beef stew example here -- how-to essay and actual no-blather recipe). Again -- launched by a person who had experience as a culinary pro and a food writer.
The greatest thing about the rise of DIY blogs, food blogs and style blogs is how they've midwifed a market for good content crafted by people who have actual depth of knowledge and professional writing and editing skills. I'd sooner read The Cut, Racked or Girls of A Certain Age before some style blog where someone who thinks that nabbing sales at Old Navy makes her a fashionista. Same goes for interior design: there's a reason why Houzz is now valued at approximately $2 bil after a scant five years.
The Web can be a great platform for people to break past traditional doorkeepers in editorial, and it's great for finding new editorial presentation models to serve the reader better. But I think it's also presenting countless use cases for the merits of skill and experience in producing lifestyle media.
posted by sobell at 11:01 AM on January 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
I am grateful for this blather because it's an early warning system. The minute someone starts wittering on about the "yummity goodness" of whatever they're making or begins typing "mmm-mmm" in between beauty shots of each ingredient, I'm out.
Food 52 doesn't do this kind of BS on the regular and -- surprise, surprise -- it's staffed by people who cut their teeth writing about food for actual publications. And Serious Eats has the courtesy to separate out the novel of How To Do from the actual recipe (American beef stew example here -- how-to essay and actual no-blather recipe). Again -- launched by a person who had experience as a culinary pro and a food writer.
The greatest thing about the rise of DIY blogs, food blogs and style blogs is how they've midwifed a market for good content crafted by people who have actual depth of knowledge and professional writing and editing skills. I'd sooner read The Cut, Racked or Girls of A Certain Age before some style blog where someone who thinks that nabbing sales at Old Navy makes her a fashionista. Same goes for interior design: there's a reason why Houzz is now valued at approximately $2 bil after a scant five years.
The Web can be a great platform for people to break past traditional doorkeepers in editorial, and it's great for finding new editorial presentation models to serve the reader better. But I think it's also presenting countless use cases for the merits of skill and experience in producing lifestyle media.
posted by sobell at 11:01 AM on January 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Although I initially had a lot of negative judgement about lifestyle blogs, I try to think of them as personal zines but on a massive scale. But it seems like that's the problem- you're not within just a like-minded crowd of weirdos, but the whole world, which includes stalkers. I can't balance the personal-narrative thing, which can be so great and connecting, with the voyeuristic invasive, stalky thing. I guess medium is everything; the quote about how Sherry had to show how the wooden countertop 'played with the wood clothespins' so that her whacked-out, obsessive readers finally, finally understood its worth(!)....I died inside with laughter.
And the staging of family events for public consumption, this is like keeping-up-with-the-Joneses style of performative living that does become the Truman Show and is just wrong and gross. Reality TV is bad enough; raising your kid as a consumer image, part of your brand...ick. I wish I had some snappy Beaudrillard quote to sum it up, but you get the idea.
The points above about how we'll be feeling and analyzing the effects of this culture for years to come was dead on target. We've created a monster.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 3:12 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
And the staging of family events for public consumption, this is like keeping-up-with-the-Joneses style of performative living that does become the Truman Show and is just wrong and gross. Reality TV is bad enough; raising your kid as a consumer image, part of your brand...ick. I wish I had some snappy Beaudrillard quote to sum it up, but you get the idea.
The points above about how we'll be feeling and analyzing the effects of this culture for years to come was dead on target. We've created a monster.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 3:12 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
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For instance: Home Depot made a deal for the YHL brand, so Lowe's hired lookalike models for their in-store advertising. Their agency was very thorough—the models are an uncanny match, down to John's graying hair, Sherry's postpartum physique, and the couples' height ratio. I have never seen anything like that before.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:54 AM on January 23, 2016 [13 favorites]