The Good Ol’ Days of Blogging

I remember a scene from the documentary Dog Town and Z boys in which Stacy Peralta (I think it was him, not 100% sure) talks about his early days of skateboarding with his friends. He’s standing in the present of skateboarding–tournaments, x-games, professional skaters, sponsorships, etc–but as he reflects on the past says something along the lines of “There was no promise in it, there was no fame or fortune to be had… we did it simply because we loved it.” If you’ve seen the movie you know what he’s talking about. A bunch of So Cal kids sneaking into empty pools and pushing themselves and each other to be better at this thing that few people understood, but that they unequivocally loved.

When I think about the blogging landscape in the mid aughts, I think of that scene from Dog Town and Z Boys. There was no fame or fortune to be had. No SponCon, partnerships or ads. You blogged–also known as writing–because you loved it.

For me, and many of my friends, the mid aughts were in my late 20’s and coincided with the early months/years of marriage. Additionally, my husband and I had just moved to NYC for my husband to start dental school and this new thing called blogging (a web Log, aka BLog if you didn’t know) was this great new way of keeping in touch with friends and family abroad as you embarked on this new journey. It was this common set of circumstances that appeared to be ripe for the rise of the mommy blogger. Only, I wasn’t a mommy yet–and neither were a lot of the women I knew who were also in that early blogging scene. (But of course, many were.)

The most exciting thing for me in those early days was discovering other women bloggers that I either knew or kept hearing about and then–get this–reading what they wrote. That was the big pay off. I read their words, sometimes laughed, sometimes cried and sometimes both’d.

When I became a first time mom in 2007, blogs were part of my sanity. As soon as baby went down for a nap I was reaching for the computer to check on Mormon Mommy Wars, Tales From the Crib, DesignMom and more. There was an older mother (had high school aged kids) named Randi, who lived in my hometown, and there was something so calming about reading of her life with her children mostly grown that gave me a lot of hope. She made it, I thought. So could I. I even messaged her a few times spilling my new-mama-guts to this internet stranger on how hard it all was and how in the world was I ever going to have more kids? Looking back it seems a little bizarre that I’d do that… but at the time it felt acceptable. What’s even more bizarre I that the little baby I was so worried about will be in high school next year herself.

I remember one blog that caught on very, very quickly about a single young college lady who was secretly in love with her best friend! She was trying to tell him and I can’t tell you how much we all salivated as this drama unfolded. The late night hang outs with extra long pauses, the did-he-or-did-he-not-want-to-kiss-me-as-much-as-I-did? As it turns out, it was all fiction as a writing exercise one woman (married with children) had concocted to practice her writing skills… she apologized (not that she needed to–I don’t think anyone was seriously upset) as she hadn’t expected it to take off the way it did.

Of course people were sharing more than just writing. I still remember the first ever blog post I saw from Little Green Notebook, aka Jenny Komenda of Juniper Studio, where she spray painted a beautiful console table bright red and I couldn’t believe how gorgeous and professional it looked. I was hooked as she shared project after project after project.

It didn’t take long for companies and brands to figure out that this was an untapped market. And slowly sponsorship began to make it’s way into blogging. And by no means is that a bad thing. So many women were doing so much work that of course they could and should get paid for it. Especially if they were already sharing brands they loved without any sort of compensation or expectation. It made sense for brands to reach out and for those natural connections to become business partnerships. I’ve done a lot of partnerships myself and have been grateful for the brands who want to work with me.

But I can’t deny that some of the magic was lost. Like in Queen’s Gambit. Of course you want Beth to win tournaments and prize money. Of course. But near the end when she walks out amongst a large group of men playing chess outdoors for fun… because they love the game… there is a purity in that moment much different than the nail biting championships among the best of the best. It’s not either/or, it’s and/both.

And of course many of these OG bloggers have gone on to create successful businesses. Susan Peterson had a blog called Freshly Picked before her moccasins were even a  twinkle in her eye. (I still have the pocket print out I use from time to time from her how to add pockets to clothes tutorial.) DesignMom Gabby Blair is still a prolific blogger, but she also owns and runs the Alt Summit Design conference–an amazing business that has launched a million other businesses. Liz Stanley, a friend from college, was also an old school blogger who also maintains her blog Say Yes, but has also started another business called The Huddle. The platform of blogging, and now social media, has allowed who-knows-how-many-women to jump start careers from home, many of whom did so while also raising children and I think that’s pretty amazing. (Although I would be remiss not to mention the fact that most of these women who were able to jump start careers from home while also raising children were usually upper-middle class, able-bodied, straight white women.)

I am not mad at what blogging has become per se–although like any industry there are problems, as mentioned above–but I am sad for what we lost from those original days… lots of women writing and sharing for no other reason than they loved to write and share. It seems that the more commercialized blogging became, there was a certain group of women who no longer felt they belonged if they couldn’t keep up with the big wigs. Not to mention that it’s just a fact that when you’re writing for yourself–and maybe for your audience–vs. writing and sharing for money, the question of authenticity is almost a moot point. Not entirely, but much less so.

And I miss that. I miss the willy-nilly days of blog posts written during nap time with basic Blogger headers and maybe one not-super-edited and definitely not posed photo. I miss the real conversations happening in the comments section, that were also somehow done with much more kindness. (Explain that one.) And for the women who wrote just to write–I miss that for them. I hope they know that whatever they were sharing was worth sharing, even if it was for an audience of one. And I can only hope they’ve continued to find ways to share their voice.

People have often asked my advice about blogging over the years and I have always said this: do it for a few months first and see if you even like it. You might not even like it! If you like it you’ll keep doing it for reasons other than the promise of a paycheck (that may or may not come.) Lest we forget, there are plenty of hobbies, goals and aspirations one can have without any monetary attachment. Like a lot of creative endeavors–painting, photography, design, writing–blogging can be a job, but it can also be a hobby.

As a job blogging is hard work, especially to do it by today’s standards. I’m glad people get paid. And as one who sort of straddled the two worlds–never a big wig, but I still had an audience–and was never much for making a content calendar and who often just sat down to write about whatever was on her mind, I decided to do that today.

I just sat down to write and this is what came out.
And I’m about to push publish.
And no matter who reads or doesn’t read this, I’m glad I did it.

Do you miss the olden days of blogging as well? Who were some of your favorite bloggers of times past? Any bloggers who you still feel have this kind of stripped-down, but totally real content still today?