I have been tired and busy and there seem to be children around here who want to be fed or something, so I am dragging this out, I know. I swear this is my last post on BlogHer. Unless it’s not. CHORTLE CHORTLE. If you are tired of this (I know I am) then I suggest you go watch this crazy person beating Super Mario Brothers 3 in 11 minutes! Rad! (via Daniel) I love what this You Tube commenter said about the video: “COOOOOOLLL!!!! No offence, but I saw another person beat this game in 10:35.” You just can’t please some people (present company included).

Hey, that’s a great segue.

Tha Dark Side

Anywayz, now I must talk about the DARK SIDE of BlogHer: sponsorship. Dun dun dun. Ed Champion told me in person in San Francisco (yay!) that he would bust me so hard if I didn’t write about this, so I bow to his clout.

At the beginning of the conference, we were given swag bags. The swag bags were full of three types of things: 1) Ads from other bloggers. Mmm, okay. Some bloggers like to rock it that way. That’s cool. 2) Reasonable stuff that I would actually use. Case in point: Saturn provided me with a magic stick (jump drive). Awesome. I have been wanting one of those FOR EVER. 3) LADY swag. BOO!

What do I mean by lady swag?

First, W3ight Watch3rz Online was there, giving us food…that did not taste like food. I know WW has worked for some of my friends and that’s great, but I wish there would have been a snack alternative to the diet food. Like…I don’t know, fresh fruit? Yogurt not made with aspartame? I heard about three people declare that the granola or whatever tasted like cardboard.

Second, there was some kind of diet-support water there, called C0ntr3x. A blurb from the website: “Cxxx Natural Mineral Water helps replenish your body with nutrients that may be lost while dieting, like calcium.” Because you are dieting all the time, yes, fatty? I heard innumerable women redub this stuff “Ass Water.” I didn’t try it, and was pretty irritated that in eighty-five degree weather my choice was to go into the hotel and drop a dolla sixty-five for a bottle of filtered water, have iced tap water from a pitcher at the back of the panel sessions, or I could have as much Ass Water as I could hold. That’s kind of backhanded for the men who were there, too. “Here, Man, have some Lady Water. Fatty.”

Third, there was also a “natural” artificial sweetner in the swag bag, containing an ingredient that I had never heard of, and one which I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually occur in nature.

Finally, there were Lady condoms in the bag, a new marketing effort by Tr0j4n. Condoms are great! They meet all my internal heroin transport needs! I like the fact that these Lady Condoms have water-based lube, rather than that heats-when-ya-blow-on-it stuff, or spermicide. Rad. But I think they went a little too far in putting a rep from Tr0j4n on the “Let’s Talk About Sex” panel. The representative was nice (faint praise, I know) and I’ve got nothing against her per se; I think it’s great that she’s a sex educator. It’s just that she didn’t have that much to say. The rep paled in comparision to her fellow panel members, who were Susie Bright, Melissa Gira, and Halley Suitt, for fuck’s sake. I squirmed to watch a company rep up there with those women.

I heard other women say that they felt that all of BlogHer was targeted towards straight women. I didn’t see any evidence of this (possibly because of how I identify), other than some of the heinous sponsorship. I liked the fact that many of the panels were broad enough (Identity and Obligations, Let’s Talk About Sex) that anyone could stand up and say “I’m a lesbian, and…” or “I’m a dog blogger, and…” and they could stand up and share their experiences. Probably one of the more focused ones was the mommyblogging session, which was Mommyblogging, and not “Parentblogging” or “Mommyblogging or…Not.” I don’t know, though, because I didn’t go to that one.

So this whole thing bugged. There was a lot that BlogHer did right, but some sponsors were telling me I am fat and defective. So after all this complaining, what would mollify my fat self? Probably to stick with the more general sponsors that are not about creating insecurity which can lead to a financial investment in self-improvement. Yahoo! (what? tech-related? krazy) was there, and they gave us little notebooks, which I found handy.

AND NOW TO CHANGE IT UP A LITTLE

One of my favorite moments was in the morning on Saturday. The breakout discussions were about to start, and I had signed up for mine. I was sitting by the pool, nursing a well vodka hangover, when a woman approached me and sat down at my table. We introduced ourselves and chatted a little bit. I could tell she was a somewhat serious and thoughtful person, who ran a website about Real Issues. I felt like a lightweight (albeit a proud one) all weekend when I ran into women like this.

I asked her which session she was going to, and she mentioned she was going to the body image (I think) session. She asked me about mine and I said I was eagerly looking forward to the gossip blogger session. I have to give her snaps for not running away at that moment. She stayed and talked to me, and we began a discussion about the proanorexia groups online, and the Venn junction of body image, celebrities, and the popular media. This happened to me more than once, but this was one of the nicest conversations I had with what I consider a “heavyweight.”

So, Laurie, it was nice to meet you. I liked hearing about your work, your website, and your daughters. I’m glad I missed my session because of meeting you.

Laurie and her partner Debbie, who I also met briefly, wrote about the sponsorship issue as well.

To be honest, the best part of the conference was meeting Lauren from feministe. We didn’t know of each other beforehand, which is kind of a shame. She said I was the person she would most like to know in “meatspace,” and man, right back atcha, Lauren. I felt like if we would have spent ten more minutes together we would have been hive mind. My heart broke for her when she described giving up her first personal website because her babydaddy dragged it into court. Persecuted for having a beer, a boyfriend, a life. Man, I feel that. Until I can talk her into, I don’t know, enrolling in school here, I will keep reading her.

The End!

Conclusion for the haters: YES, it was worth it to buy some friends. Hee.