A Frighteningly Frank Review of BlogHer ’13

I returned last Sunday night from BlogHer, the largest women’s blogging conference in the world and yes, I’m just now getting a chance to write about it, but by now, you know the drill:  Busy. Stuff going on. Changes. Can’t wait to write about everything.

I’ve gone to BlogHer every year since 2007, and both the conference and I have changed quite a bit during that time. The first year, BlogHer had a few hundred attendees and exactly none of us were making money off our blogs. We blogged because we were (or wanted to be) writers. We blogged because we loved the sense of community that we had found on the Internet. BlogHer was our chance to meet one another in person, to laugh and cry and drink wine together, and talk late into the night. It was basically the biggest Girls’ Weekend ever, and while there was certainly cliquishness and drama, I  remember those first few BlogHer conferences most for the deep bonds I formed with other women who had, like me, bared their souls online.

It’s hard not to think of those early days when I’m at the conference now. This year, BlogHer was held in the cavernous McCormick Place convention center in Chicago. Thousands of women attended, and it was easy to feel lost among a sea of bloggers, most of whom I didn’t know– and most of whom certainly didn’t know me, either. There was a competitiveness, too, that didn’t exist in the early years. Women go to BlogHer now to meet brand representatives and cut deals and try to figure out how to make themselves stand out among the thousands and thousands of other bloggers out there. It doesn’t exactly give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to be in that kind of environment.

Still, there were moments that made the weekend worthwhile. I spoke on two panels while I was there, one on how to sell your blog and another on how to develop a community through comments, and I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged and enthusiastic the audiences were at these panels. I’ve spoken at a lot of conferences over the last few years and have grown very accustomed to talking to roomfuls of women who are staring down at their iPhones the entire time. These women all looked me in the eye as I spoke, and had great questions and insightful comments. It was a pleasure sharing my experiences with them.

What I loved most about BlogHer this year was finding unexpected moments to connect with old friends and new. My schedule was full this weekend, so I didn’t anticipate having much time for great conversations, but they happened nonetheless. Other magic moments during the weekend came when people would find me in order to talk about posts I’ve written over the last year. I love hearing how people have connected with what I’ve written, mostly because it makes me believe that despite our different backgrounds and circumstances, we are ultimately all in this ‘life’ thing together. So if you were one of those people who took the time to tell me you enjoyed or related to something I wrote, thank you for that. Seriously.

I also loved CheeseburgHer. Despite the absence of McDonalds (WHERE WERE YOU, MCDONALDS?), the food was still good, the DJ was fantastic, the photographers were great (we used the Presidential Suite bed as our photo backdrop), and the place was absolutely packed with people having a good time. It had a real house party feel this year, which I preferred to the ballroom atmosphere.

The one and only thing I didn’t like about BlogHer was the thing that everyone complains about every single year- the cliquishness and exclusivity. For all its supportiveness and community boosting, BlogHer also unavoidably has a snarky, high school vibe to it at times, and here is where I’m having trouble writing about my feelings because it means admitting some ugly things about myself. At times, I contributed to that vibe. I did. I wasn’t setting out to do it, but I definitely spent most of my time with a very small group of bloggers who in many cases are really only connected by the fact that they’re all successful online. In some ways, this cliquishness is understandable- We’ve all been around for a while, we see each other at different blogging events throughout the year, we share experiences that tend to come to influential bloggers. But in other ways, it was exclusionary- sometimes intentionally so.

Of course, this has happened every single year that I’ve been at BlogHer — but I have to admit that this was the first year that it bothered me. I flew home feeling icky and not knowing why, and it took me a while to realize that the reason was that I felt that I had at times participated in the high school vibe by not reaching out when other bloggers were rebuffed or ignored, by participating in gossipy conversations, and by not making more of an effort to draw in those who would have really enjoyed being included.

BlogHer, in this respect, may not have changed. But I have– and the conference ended up making me feel like a lesser version of myself. It really, really bothered me afterward, because here at home, I’ve made a huge effort over the last few years to not gossip or judge others based on what I’ve heard about them. And I have worked hard to surround myself with people whom I admire not because of their style or social clout, but because of their commitment to family, to their community, or to their faith.  I’ve got to think long and hard about anything that makes me revert even a little bit to immature behavior that I’d thought I’d left behind. That just doesn’t sit well with me.

And now I’m going to be really, really honest and tell you I wrote this post a week ago and have hesitated to click on the ‘Publish’ button specifically because I was afraid to make the last three paragraphs public, but I couldn’t bear to take them out. Whatever. I make mistakes and I don’t like pretending that I don’t. So now you know.

Moving on.

What made me feel good when I returned home from BlogHer was that I still felt like blogging. In the past, something about the conference has always made me completely unable to write afterward. I always felt completely overwhelmed, like I would never have time to do all the things that needed to be done if I wanted to stay on top in the blogging world.

This time, I looked at all the cliques and the ambition, the posturing and the pushiness, the elaborate private parties and the people who introduced themselves to me using variations of the phrase “I am very important,” (which was particularly funny when they’d had a few too many drinks) and I was never more convinced or happy that my blog is not about making money or attracting the attention of brands.  My blog is simply about… me.

I could not care less about monetization or status or freebies. Suburban Turmoil is for me and it’s for my family and it’s for you, too. And yes, I write occasional sponsored posts. And I sometimes host a giveaway that I think you’d like a chance of winning. And I have ads in my sidebar. It’s nice to make a little extra money, I won’t deny it. But my primary interest lies  in telling the story of my family, for my family. And it’s also in making you feel like you’re not alone. And creatively, I just enjoy writing and taking pictures. This is the perfect outlet for that.

So those are my thoughts on BlogHer- The good, the bad, and the embarrassingly ugly. Any questions?