Yesterday, this piece got posted on Metafilter.
In case you don’t want to click through, here’s a screencap:
The basic gist was this:
There’s a group of girls that blog about their life/art/fashion trends.
– Is this a movement?
– Are they friends?
– Is there a name for this?
My first thought was in fact, OH NO! WE’VE BEEN OUTED!
The truth is, we are actually a secret society of lady bloggers.
Our entrance requirements are strict, and we are as secretive about it as the Freemasons.
But there’s an easy and clear way into our little club: KNUCKLE TATS.
In all seriousness, the simple answer to the questions posed on metafilter is this:
We are friends!
The more complicated answer is a bit more interesting.
Looking at everyone’s comments really made me think about the qualities that we all have in common, and I do think there are unique things that we share.
Identity is a curious beast, and when you add the internet into the equation, things start to get strange.
The line between myself and my work is nearly invisible; I do this on purpose.
Similarly, The way I represent myself online is the way I represent myself in my real life.
I see this blog an an ongoing project in documenting the twists and turns of my life.
There are things that I share on here that are difficult to make public in a professional context, like the fact that I work for a porn company!
This however, is of little concern to me. I can’t hide who I am when I meet people, and I shouldn’t have to hide who I am online either. The fact is that I love myself, and the best thing I can do is be myself wherever I go!
It’s really hard to put yourself out there in such an open and public way sometimes, but all the ladies in our incestuous little group do it every single day.
When I first met Nubby, Gala, and Marie in person there was no question that we would be close immediately.
I knew this because I realized that I already knew them as well as I know some of my long time IRL friends.
Many of us were longtime livejournal bloggers (I started in 2000!) and originally met each other there.
These days, LJ seems to be a sinking ship of sorts, and we’ve all moved onto our own domains.
At this point, many of us have been reading each other and interacting for several years.
The Society Speaks
Marie says: “I love this accidental collective of ladybloggers. I think it’s a wonderful notion to have a bunch of creative women who inspire each other and other ladies. Positivity on the internet is a powerful thing. And I am all about GIRL POWER.”
galadarling @nubbytwiglet Haha. Waking up to that Metafilter thing was weird. Like, obviously we’re all friends, are they not reading?!
nubbytwiglet @galadarling We’re all friends, but are we a movement?! So strange.
galadarling @nubbytwiglet I don’t think so. It’s just personality branding, which is old news, I guess it’s interesting because we’re creative girls.
I say:
We believe in what we do, and we are not afraid to be vulnerable.
We are authentic.
& yes, we are friends.
HELLZ YEAH LADEEEZ! I like how I’m the only one making a weird face. U MUTHAS…
LADYBLOGRRRZ unite.
I’m all about the Lady Blogging. Dem bitches be JEALOUS!!
I love all of you.
xoxo.
i love that you said we’re authentic!! because i’ve really never faked it in my blog at all, and i know none of us do.
we need our own brass knuckles. xox!!
I can’t stop giggling about the article.
” * “Things I Love Tuesday” (possibly started by one of those bloggers) “
Wow — THAT was well researched
You realise now you guys are going to have to come up with a name for the ‘movement’…
Talking about “well researched”, the post was not on MetaFilter — it was on AskMetaFilter. As that name implies, it was a question (or questions) that someone wondered about, and which other people offered answers to. It wasn’t “an article”, nor even commentary.
You’ve displayed just as much a lack of understanding of one corner of the Internet as you ridicule them for displaying about you. Judge much?
Hi, I’m the person that asked the question.
I read Gala’s blog on occasion and gathered that at least a couple of you were friends because you link each other so often. However, I did find a few others through link-hopping and wondered if they were inspired by you somehow. I’d be surprised if ALL of you that I mentioned in the question were friends.
When I was a teenager, certain types of personal/fandom sites was all the rage. There was a fairly close community, and the bigger names were close friends with each other. However, other teens became very inspired by those sites and made their own, and soon it became a big trend.
I was just wondering if this was the start of a trend that’s about to happen. You guys are getting pretty famous, and especially after the big Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing (which someone in the thread mentioned) I figured the trend would grow. You may just be in the forefront of a new blog trend.
No one’s stopping you from being yourselves — I just thought it was interesting that the way you all did your blogs were very similar. (Particularly Doe Deere’s extremely close layout resemblance to Gala’s — copy??)
Also: I knew about Gala’s TILT (that’s where I found it from) but wasn’t entirely sure where it came from initially and didn’t want to assume. Also, I wanted to keep the question pretty general. Sorry if that’s not enough research for you.
I’m flattered I was mentioned as part of ‘the trend’ — although I don’t think I deserve it as much as the other girls! They have been blogging for months, years even — and have a true following. My Blogazine is barely a few weeks old, a baby… (Although I have been blogging since 2003).
I love to write and connect with people though my writing. I’m sure we can all get along.
xoxo
“I’d be surprised if ALL of you that I mentioned in the question were friends.”
Tiara: Shockingly, we are! Also, we all excel at different things, so Star built my blog for me and I’m going to be doing both hers and Gala’s logos. I think it’s natural for a close group of friends to share ideas and resources with one another.
Nubby
[…] good news: I’ve been accepted into the elusive & exclusive Secret Society of Lady Bloggers. This all stems from the commentary on this page (of which I will expand upon more […]
John & Tiara–
I was in no way trying to judge or ridicule, simply trying to answer some of the questions posed.
I’m very sorry if my statements were taken that way, as it was not my intention.
I found the discussion very interesting, and it made me take a closer look at where all of us come from, and why we ended up being friends.
I’m flattered that this happened, and I hope I was able to clarify some of the things you were curious about.
Fair enough. It’s just that from link-hopping, I’ve heard sentiments (mainly from the comments) about how I’m somehow devaluing you or mocking you just by asking the question, which I didn’t think was fair. (e.g. #4/#5 on this blog). Also, as John said, it’s not an article — though I did wonder if someone had done an article about it already. Am a bit surprised that no one else did yet
hehehe
[…] for nosey parkers: we’ve been outed! by star ‘personality girls’: a new blogging movement? by doe deere +share the […]
[…] We’ve Been Outed! (Or, that Metafilter Thing) […]
Thanks for the reply, Star, and, much like Tiara above, I was more referring to the commenters than to your post — I actually linked your post back to the question at AskMe saying I felt you yourself had answered the questions posed there.
Anyhow, if it matters, out of all of this, you (and some of the other linked blogs) have gained yourself at least one more reader… I’ll just keep quiet now!
oh dear john and tiara, star, nubby, marie and i are just trying to be funny. it was supposed to be a harhar kind of moment. tongue-in-cheek. i love sarcasm especially brit sarcasm, and this was supposed to be one of those. tiara asked about us and why we’re so similar. but i felt that the similarities that she wrote about us wasn’t what really brought us together. what DID bring us together, like what nubby, star and i have said, is that we’re authentic and true to ourselves, and having fun living our dreams! and some younger girls perhaps look up to that because they want to follow THEIR own paths in life too. i think everything is just being taken a little out of context. none of us meant to be catty. perhaps we just didn’t understand each other’s sense of humour. that’s all~!
[…] post, if we appeared to be some sort of “blogging clique” it is truly accidental. Like Nubby, Star and Gilda have all basically said, we are just a group of creative-minded women with six degrees of […]
[…] Some of the girls have noticed and written about it. I think it’s safe to say that none of them think of this as an underground movement […]
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