Blog Antagonist said:

Yeeeeaaaah. See. As I told Mammaloves…I'm not sure the reality of Blogher would be quite as romantic and thrilling as the way I imagined Blogher. I think I would be disappointed, particularly since, I am not really a member of any of the blogging "in" crowds.
Ignorance is bliss, in the instance, I think.
6 August 2007 at 5:10 pm
Karly said:

Ah, Erika, I'm sorry. I can just imagine how that made you feel…all high school-ish and what not. That was my main reason for not going to BlogHer. Everyone else has been going for years and knows everyone and so of course they've all formed friendships. Too scary for me. Maybe next year. Maybe not. But, I'm sorry your experience sucked.
6 August 2007 at 5:34 pm
Jazz said:

I say next year, you and I form our own "blogger posse" and we host a party at a Bar that has lights and a bartender who can turn the thumping noise down! You in?
6 August 2007 at 5:34 pm
Jamie said:

Ironically my 20-year high school reunion AND BlogHer were the same weekend and I didn't make it to either one. In some aspects it just seemed like a big bloggy girl cocktail party and mutual adoration fest and after a while I just quit reading everyone's tales from BlogHer. I think it's awesome for everyone who went, but after a while it was wearing me out!
6 August 2007 at 5:44 pm
Maria P. said:

Aren't all annual events that combine people who don't meet in person regularly like that?
((((((hugs))))))) I would have partied with you. Wouldn't have been a party with out ya!
6 August 2007 at 6:03 pm
Kalyn said:

Ah gee, it's always gonna be like that. I loved meeting you even if we didn't get to talk for very long. Sometime I will tell you my stories about food bloggers who have snubbed me big time. (Luckily I'm old and don't care that much what people think.)
6 August 2007 at 6:11 pm
Ivy said:

LOL, I'm hella jealous that I didn't get to go to BlogHer, so I understand.
And if I had been there, I totally would have partied with you. Any party that includes me is a damn good party, so you wouldn't have been feeling so jealous. ;)
6 August 2007 at 6:20 pm
super des said:

It was very clique-y. But you know what? You were in my clique, so that's all that matters.
6 August 2007 at 6:36 pm
MammaLoves said:

I think you bring up a really good point. Maybe there just wasn't enough time. Maybe we were all so busy trying to say hello to each other that it came across as if we weren't interested in the people we were talking to. There were plenty of people I really would have liked to spend much more time just talking with (do you know how hard it is for me to end this sentence with a preposition?).
It wasn't that I personally felt slighted or talked about in some way, it was more the disappointment of seeing grown women acting like teenagers. I don't think my posts really got that point across.
I hope more women bloggers will attend next year. I definitely didn't find the conference to be filled with tons of people who knew each other before. And I met many terrific women who had attended previous conferences who were more than willing to make new friends.
And while the rooms at the W were comfortable and filled with all the free Bliss products, it would have been more conducive to talking if the lights were a bit brighter and the music a little less thumpin.
Sorry to go on and on. I just really liked your perspective on this. Thanks for talking about it and letting me know I'm not the only one.
6 August 2007 at 6:36 pm
canape said:

I wanted to meet you. I did meet you. And then, I couldn't think of one thing to say that wasn't retarded.
Small talk is so hard for me. I like to jump right into the good stuff, and that couldn't happen in the setting of BlogHer.
"And I hated high school with the firey passion of one million suns."
Indeed.
6 August 2007 at 7:10 pm
Beth said:

Well that's not good.
:(
6 August 2007 at 7:14 pm
andi said:

I read MammaLoves' post earlier today and loved it. I liked your take on it too. It makes me feel a little bit better that I didn't get to go to BlogHer this year. I think I'll still try to go next year, but thanks to you two at least I'll know better what to expect.
6 August 2007 at 7:18 pm
Jenn said:

Oh, Erika, I hate that you felt that way. You are such an amazing woman. I am bummed by how little time I was able to spend with the wonderful women I wanted to talk to. It was just so manic. I wish I had known about the cliques you speak of. I would have kicked some ass. (Many of the parties were crashed parties, just an FYI.)
I was so freaking overwhelmed by the sheer number of people the entire time I spent most of it looking like I was in another zoned out world. Too. Many. Squees. To. Take. In!
I love your writing and your blog and am crushed to know you left feeling as you did.
6 August 2007 at 7:22 pm
Redsy said:

I'm with you PJ, fuck FLICKR… and (sorta) fuck blogher… i was totally frustrated about not getting to talk in any meaningful way with hardly anyone.
HMPH
6 August 2007 at 8:09 pm
Janice said:

I can understand why you might have felt that way. I wasn't there and it seems like there were too many people and too many different events to get in on everything. I'm in college right now(at my advanced age) and every now and again I wonder if I belong there. Not academically, but socially. Amazing how those feelings we had in junior high can still come to the surface so easily.
6 August 2007 at 8:12 pm
Alli said:

I'm totally scared of blogging now! Yikes.
6 August 2007 at 8:21 pm
Nap Warden said:

I am new to the Blogger universe, needless to say Blogher was my first conference. I just found it overwhelming, and hard to meet people…The people I did meet were very nice…I like the analogy that it felt like high school. To me, it felt like the first day of high school, and I was a freshman.
6 August 2007 at 8:33 pm
JJK said:

(There's another JJ commenter on some of the blogs, so I added a letter!)
I had wondered why you hadn't posted for a few days — I was wondering if your head was still spinning from BlogHer or if you just had to catch up on real life stuff.
First of all, it's unfortunate fact that when you get a bunch of women together, there's going to be some of that high school stuff happening. Men do it too, but in a much different way. I'm actually dealing with something similar in the mommy world (momosphere?) which drove me to read the book "Mean Girls Grown Up." I'm finding it quite enlightening. And in it, it mentions a story of a woman traveling to a conference for female writers and she got to sit next to her idol and by the end of the trip, had a much different opinion of the woman. The woman completely treated her like an underling, when really, they were both accomplished writers.
Which brings me to my second point. Writers have egos! And it is hard sometimes to have so many writers in one place without the hierarchical crap starting.
Have you ever traveled to a wedding of a friend you haven't seen in a while, and then been disappointed by how little you actually saw her? I didn't really grasp the bride's side of thing until I was the bride — there were so many friends I wanted to spend time with and yet I was constantly having to go here or there (come dance now, cut the cake, get your picture taken) that I was lucky if I spent two minutes with them. That's basically what conferences are like — the more popular someone is, the more scattershot everything is and the less time they have to make new connections unless they are very strategic new connections. It has nothing to do with YOU as a person. B/c we all know what a fun, cool, hip, smart, funny chick you are!
Hey, I would have LOVED to have hung out with you at BlogHer!
Perhaps the events planning people need to find a way to enable more social/networking time? Maybe through some SIG (special interest group) events.
I highly recommend reading Mean Girls Grown Up — it's not just about mean girls, but about the different kinds of relationships women have with each other and why. It gets a bit too anecdote heavy at times, but you can skip through some of those and still get the main points.
6 August 2007 at 8:41 pm
Wendy Piersall said:

I wasn't going to bring it up on my blog - I'm glad you did so that I could comiserate. It WAS great while we were there. Meeting you was one of my highlights. But the exclusive parties were in SUCH poor taste - the fact that they were held at all was just w.r.o.n.g.
I'll definitely go again for the business benefits, but it's a relief to see I wasn't the only one who felt really awkward and weird at times at the conference.
I've been in a blogging funk as well - but not just because of BlogHer. I'm getting SO down on the comment spam on my blog - not the obvious stuff, but the literally hundreds of people who drop by just because of my page rank. Makes me lose a little faith in the blogosphere, which is really disheartening.
I usually try to turn this kind of comment around with a positive ending, so I'll just say that you ROCK. And I [heart] ya even more because we met! :D
6 August 2007 at 9:03 pm
AbsolutelyBananas said:

Love the honesty of Mamma's post and now this one. Here are the things that drove me crazy… that I hated with the heat of a thousand suns (LOVE that!):
1) The picture taking… like if I have my picture taken with X it proves that we're tight and I can post it on my blog and everyone will think I'm A-list.
2) Flickr. like if I link to Flickr pictures of all my great parties you'll think I'm THAT girl (the popular one).
3) People who I was excited to meet but who spent the ENTIRE time looking over my shoulder in the event that someone better might walk by.
But that was the annoying people. And for me, they were the minority. The great part was getting to meet, in person, some amazing bloggers who I've long admired. Getting to know people like Mamma Loves and Canape over dinner. Learning more about blogging. Being in Chicago BY MYSELF and getting to be in charge of my days. These are the things I am trying to focus on in order to keep going, keep motivated, keep excited.
Next year if I go, I think my expectations will be calibrated more appropriately, if you know what I mean.
6 August 2007 at 9:08 pm
My Minivan Is Faster Than Yours said:

As a new blogger I had no idea what the politics of the conference were. I'm hoping to attend next year and appreciate having this information available to better help me make a final decision when it gets closer.
Thanks for everyone whose shared for putting this out there on the table for discussion
6 August 2007 at 9:45 pm
Andrea said:

You know, I've been blogging for a looong time, before mommy bloggers and blogging conferences. This is the first year I've read about BlogHer in multiple places and didn't feel like I missed out.
Was it really so crammed with sessions and parties there was no tiem to chat? Wow, that's just.. I have no words really. Especially on top of reading elsewhere about women leaving one session in tears and sessiosn leaders slamming sponsers.
7 August 2007 at 5:51 am
Suburban Turmoil said:

Well, I was upset that I never got to really talk to you! I saw you in front of me in a session when you asked a question and I got all excited- and then i never saw you again!
You guys are making me nervous about posting my Flickr pictures, too! I took pictures with a lot of the new friends I had made, but I also took them with people I hardly knew and thought were cool, like Cooper Munroe. There were parties that corporate groups held in which not every blogger was invited, but I didn't know of a single party held by bloggers in which everyone wasn't welcome.
I did have the thought, on the other hand, that next year, I'm going to tell all of my readers who are going to BlogHer to give me their cellphone/room number when we meet so that if I find out about anything going on, I'll call them and tell them where/ when it's happening. That way, no one will feel left out.
I do think some of the "popular" bloggers are getting a bad rap simply because they were a little on the shy side and were more likely to talk to someone they recognized than someone they'd never heard of before. Aren't we all that way?
7 August 2007 at 6:17 am
Mrs. Schmitty said:

I hated high school too for that very reason. I hate feeling like the person left out….and a lot of times that's the way it is.
7 August 2007 at 6:45 am
Melina said:

Being that I was sick for most of the time, I'm kind of glad now because I really missed out on all that. I got to meet some fantastic people YOU, Mamma Loves, Jazz, Slacker Mom, Midwestern Mommy, Othejoys, Joyunexpected, Imperfect Mom, The Lush Life and so many others… but I did notice a few at the cocktail party on Thursday that were very "I'm sorry I can't be bothered by you," so I just ignored them, and will stop reading their blogs.
I agree with Jazz next year we'll have our own little group and you know we'll be more friendly to new bloggers and first time attendees.
7 August 2007 at 7:35 am
Florinda said:

I've recently found your blog, and haven't commented before - hello, and I like it here! :-) I really hope you'll find some more things you want to blog about soon.
I haven't been blogging very long, but I've been really interested in people's reactions to BlogHer, even though I wouldn't have felt it was my place to attend it at this point. I've been thinking "maybe next year," but your post and a few others I've read are making me wonder. A lot of the conference content sounds like it was really good, but it's the other stuff…and some of the reaction posts I've seen in the last few days (including yours) are feeding my concerns about that. I tend to get overwhelmed and timid in crowds of strangers anyway (which is what they'd be in person, regardless of online relationships), so I'm not sure this would be for me. Trying to keep an open mind…
But if BlogHer is the same weekend as Comic-Con again next year, I'll probably be there instead (my husband really wants to go), and I'll have a whole other source of anxiety.
7 August 2007 at 9:38 am
BirdieRoark said:

I wish we had more than a fleeting moment in a shuttle bus. Seriously. I felt some of what you did, so ended up sticking with my sisters of SV and Chicago Mom's Blogs. It was easier to stay closer to my own flock then totally venture out into what often felt like a scene out of Mean Girls.
The weirdest part to me wasn't meeting new people. It was the push to get out your business cards. I barely gave any away and I stopped asking for them - it felt so fake. Before someone had even finished their name, they practically had shoved their biz card down your throat.
7 August 2007 at 11:00 am
slackermommy said:

I think the venue was not at all conducive to socializing. We were all too spread apart. I met you briefly Thursday at a very crowded restaurant and then didn't see you again for the rest of the weekend. You weren't the only one that I wanted to talk to more but never got the chance. There were even a couple bloggers that I really wanted to meet but never saw. Next year I plan to get cell numbers before hand in case a chance meeting doesn't happen.
7 August 2007 at 11:19 am
Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said:

It was so hard with so many people there. I feel like I spent about 30 seconds with about 350 people each. I alost wish it had been smaller. It would have given everybody more time to hang out. The only time I feel like I felt I had any meaningful conversations with anyone was when I was skipping sessions, which is too bad because I really enjoyed most of the sessions I went to.
7 August 2007 at 11:27 am
Valerie said:

Thank you for this. I spent a little time feeling sorry for myself that there seemed to be so much going on that I wasn't a part of. I do think having my boyfriend there was an obstacle to meeting more people. Then again, I don't know that I would have had the courage to attend BlogHer for the first time without someone familiar back in my hotel room. I won't know until next year when I go back.
And yes, I will go back. As Sarah said, there were a lot of people and it was hard to spend time with anyone for any length of time. But I am making it a goal to get to know not only some of the people I encountered directly, but others that I've found indirectly from others' posts.
7 August 2007 at 12:55 pm
Nicole/wksocmom said:

I think one of the reasons I didn't come away feeling bad was that I sort of made a decision not too. I've been to tons of work conferences where people have been working together for 20-30 years nad not only have I not, but I'm not exactly an expert in my field either. I do a little socializing, then either drink a lot and hang with a small group (if I can manage to find one), or retire to my room.
This conference was probably even more focused on socializing than these, with a way broader mix of people. I sometimes even felt odd with people I already knew, but whom I considered more "popular" and so I did resort to joking about it. I remember one day I was determined to sit with someone new at lunch, and it seemed like the tables were either full, or had like 2 people in a conversation (once again total flashback to other conferences), but I met a few people this way.
What bothered me more, the biz cards and extended "conversations" from people who only seemed to want to plug their business.
Wish I could have hung with you.
7 August 2007 at 2:16 pm
Suburban Oblivion said:

And here I was worried you might be too cool to hang with me next year!
7 August 2007 at 2:32 pm
Anne Glamore said:

I couldn't go, and hated missing it, but honestly, I might have come off as snobby at first. My online persona is honest, but it takes me a little longer to "cold-call" people I've never met.
Plus, back when I thought I was going, I was talking about staying with BusyMom. I've never met her, but she and Suburban Turmoil and I have emailed each other about things (When do you let a kid get a cell phone?) and I would have considered them "close friends" in that atmosphere.
While that might have made me feel comfortable, it might have looked like a clique to others.
I think any big crowd thing is hard. If you're shy you can seem snobby. If you're well-known you can accidentally be insulting by not talking to someone.
Anyway, sorry I missed it and I've loved reading all the followup posts.
7 August 2007 at 3:41 pm
Oh, The Joys said:

I feel like I never saw you - and you were one of the people I came to meet. Where did you keep escaping to dammit?
7 August 2007 at 6:35 pm
Her Bad Mother said:

I only saw you briefly, fleetingly, and fear that I may have been one of those people who vaporized. But everybody was vaporizing, everywhere, all at once. SUch is this kind of conference. It's not the women, really. It's the circumstances.
Which is why it's both great and deeply unsatisfying, all at once.
7 August 2007 at 7:21 pm
motherofbun said:

Hi…. I think I might have gotten to stand within 5 feet of you at some point Thursday night. (Waves!)
Yeah hearing about the exclusive parties was a bit awkward. Plus, I felt like I didn't get to really talk with people. And also, if I saw more than two people standing in a group, I was worried I'd interrupt. And when I did meet a blogger, my brain turned to mush and I had NO IDEA what to say. All in all, alot of awkwardness (on my part.)
I hope I do get to meet you at some point tho… Have heard alot of people remark on how amazing you are! I totally missed out by not getting to know you.
7 August 2007 at 7:31 pm
sarcastic journalist said:

So you've let FLICKR ruin things for you? What "exclusive parties" were these? Please don't even say it was the one we had at the W with Y and her posse. How did I get in on that? I heard them saying "I'm going to the 7-11 and getting alcohol" and I followed.
Don't ever remember someone inviting me.
I would have loved to been invited to Real Simple but I wasn't. I didn't get half of these "goody bags" people spoke of that were handed out. And, I would have liked them.
But am I going to ruin a whole experience because I was one of a zillion people and got overlooked? No because that doesn't make any sense.
I'm glad that you feel comfortable enough to reveal your true feelings, but I almost feel as if many are looking at this with colored glasses, and they aren't rose.
8 August 2007 at 9:18 am
Mymsie said:

Good for you for being honest! In truth, I have virtually encountered some of the high school crap you're talking about. Unfortunately I'm overly sensitive to things of that nature too.
I hope that the good parts of your experience outweighed the bad and again, I think it's great that you were honest about something a lot of people would be afraid to mention.
8 August 2007 at 10:57 am
jodi said:

I didn't go to blogher, but you would have been one of the first people I was looking for. Seriously.
8 August 2007 at 2:42 pm
Abi Jones said:

Oh, now I realize that I definitely should have gone. Because you know what? I've been in Real Simple magazine. Well, in the Food Issue. And I have a feeling that even then I wouldn't have been invited to that party.
Also, it takes a long time for me to get to know people, which isn't very conducive to a conference. So instead I come off as sort of mean and/or standoffish when really I hate, hate, hate the superficiality of 'being fiends' with people I've just met.
I think that's why I'm looking forward to going to SXSWi next year. I'll be meeting up with a bunch of 9rules folks, people that I've been in active conversations with (online) for over a year. And while those aren't IRL relationships, they're something more than I have with most other bloggers.
9 August 2007 at 7:22 pm
Izzy said:

You know what I think sucks? That I spotted you as you were getting your lunch!!! But nonetheless, I'm glad I spotted you at all because at breakfast that morning I was going over the contact sheet and naming all the people I hadn't run into yet but hoped to and you were one of them. I'm sorry we didn't cross paths again, which still dumbfounds me.
10 August 2007 at 6:58 pm
boomama said:

I think any conference, BlogHer or otherwise, might make me all nervous and jittery for some of the reasons you mentioned. That being said, I actually wanted to go to BlogHer this year - but alas, it was not meant to be. And ditto what Anne said. Except for the part about staying with Busy Mom and ST. Because, well, I don't think they know me, and as a result they might be a little frightened if I showed up in their room.
11 August 2007 at 2:26 pm
Lotta said:

Really? I thought you were so sweet and I liked that we kept bumping into each other. I could give a rat's ass about those parties.
12 August 2007 at 12:00 am
Alex Elliot said:

I enjoyed hanging out with you! When I left BlogHer, I left in very good spirits. However, when I started reading other bloggers post about BlogHer and looking at their pictures, it made me wonder if I was really at the same conference as them.
12 August 2007 at 6:39 am
Jenny said:

Can I just say that I saw you at blogher and was really afraid to talk to you?
Okay, said it. Now I can go on with my comment.
I made a conscious effort to hang out with people I didn't know even though it was really frightening for me but I'm so glad I did. The last night (with the HBM party ravaging right next door) I invited a bunch of bloggers (some I'd never heard of and who had never heard of me) back to my room to just talk and relax and it was awesome. It was exactly what I wanted…the chance to quietly get to know some people and have a real conversation. It was better than any session blogher offered.
Wish you could have been there.
13 August 2007 at 5:41 am
Mama Luxe said:

I was not at BlogHer.
When I was reading a bunch of posts before the conference that said "No one will be an outsider, it won't matter what your stats are…" I thought, "Yeah, right." Not because I doubted the sincerity or warmness of the bloggers saying it…but because I have just never been convinced by the idea that the blogosphere is this great democratizing force.
I don't think that PJM was saying that she really thought (more than in passing) that she was "unloved" or "uncool" (because if you are saying that, girl, you are seriously divorced from reality).
I think there was a secret hope for many that BlogHer would be more than a fun networking conference for women–but would actually be almost a democratic, feminist utopia.
The truth is that there were probably as many motivations for attending as there were attendees–fun, empowerment, networking, getting away, etc. In the face of such an overwhelming number of people, opportunities, and goals and dreams, it is only natural for people to retreat to some extent to what is "known."
Cliques are not always malicious and intentional–although they sometimes are.
Sometimes they are just people with limited resources (time, energy, confidence) choosing to spend them on "safe" investments (those they already know, perceive to be "like" them).
JJK suggested some sort of interest group social mixer meetings to mix things up a little. I would add a couple of others–geographic location, random (alphabetical?), etc. I think the more ways you can get people to interact beyond the familiar, the closer it will come to meeting the ideal…although nothing is ever perfect.
21 August 2007 at 6:40 am

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