Live Blogging from BlogHer ‘08 - Keynote

Live Blogging - Closing Keynote: Living the Truman Show
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Featuring:
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Elisa Camahort Page
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Heather Armstrong
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Stephanie Klein
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Elisa announced that Melissa from Stirrup Queens won this year’s BlogHer Hero Contest.
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Elisa (to Heather and Stephanie): Who were you before you started blogging. What was your life? Who were you at the time? Both of you have changed and evolved.
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Stephanie: “Before I started my blog I was walking around with a spatula in one hand…married to a doctor…working full time in advertising designing websites…in 2004 that’s when I started the blog. Before all of that happened I had a personal website where I would list my sites. It was my virtual resume to show my art.” She included some writing samples.
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Heather: “I am pretty much the same person that I was…an evil manical robot.” Someone said they wanted to pour hydrochloric acid on her to expose the real her. She developed a small space on the web in 2001 and the rest is history. She expected friends she went to college with to read it…not her mother and father.
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Her parents found her two days after 9/11 after writing a mean-spirited post about mormons. Her brother Googled “Dooce” and sent an email to the rest of the family. “He outed me.” He wanted her to remove every mention of his two children on her blog.
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Elisa: Who did you think you were writing for?
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Stephanie: She sent it to some friends because it was easier than sending out mass emails. A co-worker mentioned she should start a blog because it’s “just easier.” She knew people were reading it when an independent newspaper in London called her to say they loved her blog. She’s also a photographer and would put her photos on her blog. People would ask where they could see pictures from a specific event and she would direct them to her blog.
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Elisa: Do you think it’s weird to live and think “this would be a good blog post?”
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Stephanie: “I think that’s common for any kind of artist because you’re trying to remember what you live as your living it. You’re always thinking about how this best translates into a story.” She’s always walking around with a camera because she doesn’t want to miss a moment.
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Heather: John is the number one person she is thinking of when she writes.
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Stephanie: When she was on the cover of NY Times Style section. Her friends would say they loved her, but it made them feel like shit about their friendship. It was weird for her friends to find out these stories she told them are now being told to everybody. It made them feel like their friendship meant less. Now they’re encouraging her to write it on the blog as long as she tells them on the blog.
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Heather: Some friends from high school refuse to read it because they think she’s abandoned the friendships. Back in 2004, she found that she was able to work through what she was feeling better by writing about it. John would come home from work two hours later and say that he didn’t know she was feeling so bad.
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Elisa: He’s a blogger too? Do you ever blog the same stories?
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Heather: “We kind of call dibs on stories.”
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Heather: Blogging changed the way she lived and her outlook on life. She said horrible things about religion, her family and a boss and ended up getting fired and loosing the trust of her family. She ended up taking the blog down because she didn’t like who she was in. “This is not a good idea.” She took a break and decided she didn’t want to put that back into the world. It changed the way she wrote about people on her website. “I don’t want people to dread the fact that I wrote about them…”
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Stephanie: I get a lot of someone telling a story saying “Don’t you dare write about this on your blog!” Her family was really supportive and loved her blog. Her ex-mother-in-law and husband might not agree, but her immediate family was very supportive.
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Elisa: Do you feel like your style has changed because of your life changes?
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Stephanie: “I don’t think my style has changed, my life has changed. It has always been very raw, very honest and very real of everything I was going through. Your voice will change and your life will change.” Her life has changed drastically, but it’s all about being very real and honest about what you’re going through.
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Elisa: As you change your blog can serve your life.
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Stephanie: People try to pigeon-hole you. Because you write about one thing, you’re suddenly a body image writer or mommy blogger. Just be yourself.
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Elisa: BlogHer performed a survey about what you would blog about if you could only choose one thing. The most popular response was “my life.”
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Heather: People would approach her in a grocery store and tell her it’s so weird that they know everything about her. But they don’t. There is a filter in her head. “Ninety-five percent of my life is not blogged about.”
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Elisa: The character “Heather” on your blog is only a part of the person.
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Stephanie: “People definitely believe that they know everything about me.” They know you, but they don’t know what you’re going through.
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Elisa: People don’t think of you as a real live person with feelings who can get hurt.
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Heather: Just because she puts things out there doesn’t mean she isn’t a sensitive type who repeatedly gets her feelings hurt.
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Audience Member: Asked about a rumor where Heather ran over negative comments.
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Heather: She’s printed out nasty comments and ran over them with her car per a request..
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AM: Regarding her recent Oprah diet, she was reading through the comments and a lot of women were “so glad you went on the diet, now we can to.” “It’s like they’re putting you in a position of an authority. How do you deal with that, does it stress you out? Do you feel responsible? How do you move beyond it?”
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Heather: You don’t move beyond it. She talks to her husband about her stress. It took her a couple of days to read the comments and understand. It’s constantly changing and evolving things. Sometimes she needs to walk away from the comments.
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Elisa: Do you ever feel that people pay a little too close attention to what you do?
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Stephanie: (Sarcastically) Noooo. It won’t hurt her feelings if they say she has awful hair. Anything that hurts or stings can make us stronger. She believes that our enemies are our best teachers because she uses it as a learning experience.
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AM: If you were to shut your blogs down today, do you think you’d go through some sort of withdrawal?
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Heather: “For me to just stop would be a bit of a lifestyle change.” She’d have to get a ‘real job’ outside of home. She would probably sleep for three weeks and experience a tiny bit of euphoria. It can be very stressful and maintaining a website. Sometimes she will get an email or message if she misses a day asking her why she’s not writing because it’s her job.
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Stephanie: She would miss the commenters and the support. She’s not just writing blogs, she’s writing books and memoirs and TV. But it’s not the same feedback. Being able to vent to people who don’t know you personally is helpful. Hearing another point of view on it is amazing.
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AM named Jill: Are you doing it for yourself or for the readers? How do you balance what drives your writing?
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Stephanie: She’s done both. Sometimes she won’t post something if she knows people can’t relate to it. Sometimes she feels that she just needs to do it for her. In the beginning it was just for her, but once you know you have an audience reading, you start to care more.
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Heather: Feels like she has a special relationship with her readers. Every decision she makes on her website is made with her audience online. (What are their best interests?) She believe her audience is a part of what saved her life. She first writes for herself because there is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing exactly what you’re going to write about and you can see the post in the head and loving it. The fact that she still has those days every week that is what keeps her going. If she ever stopped feeling that way, she wouldn’t do it. She’s also keeping a record of her life for her daughter. She gets a whole picture of her childhood.
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Elisa: “I think blogs are creating a beautiful cultural record for all of our children”
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AM: Do you read every comment? Do you notice regular readers? How does it feel when you do a post that maybe gets 100 comments vs. 10? Does that mean anything to you?
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Heather: The only entry she hasn’t read every single comment on was the one where she gave away Wii Fits. But every other entry and email she reads. She considers it a part of her job. Her audience was crucial in saving her life. She wants to have an organic relationship with her readers.
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Elisa: How do you manage the guilt of not responding to emails and comments?
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Stephanie: You can’t. There’s not enough time in the day to respond to even your family and friends. She reads every single comment, but she doesn’t have the time to write back to everyone.
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Heather: A lot of people in her life want her to install an automatic response for her emails. She can’t promise you will hear back from her, but she guarantees she reads everything. She couldn’t live her life if she responded to everything.
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AM: Thinks Heather was a different person at BlogHer 06. How do you reconcile who you are in your private life and who you are publicly?
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Heather: A lot of people expect her to be much more abrasive. In general she’s a polite, friendly southern woman. They expect a raw and unfiltered person, but in her head she feels like the blog is an extension to her personality. She will tell you anything about her. There really isn’t a line.
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Stephanie: She believes she’s the same person online and in person. A lot of people say she sounds a lot sweeter and girly in person. She’s not a big laugher, where as people online think she’s funny and has a great sense of humor. Overall she thinks she is who she writes about.
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AM: When you get negative feedback, it’s good to take a second to pause and creating something positive out of it. Do you have to take that pause for yourself? Do you have a conscious way to work through the negativity and not take it to heart?
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Stephanie: “Yes it’s called hitting the delete button. You don’t have to respond to everything.” She’s had spin-off sites come out and sites built for hating her. She’s never responded to any of it. It’s not her style. Come at them with kindness…
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Heather: She doesn’t respond to any hate mail. She collects it in a folder and will eventually publish a book. Every 2-3 months she’ll do a hate mail post so people can see what happens when people stop being nice and start getting real.
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AM: Do you delete those comments? If not, why do you leave them there? The rest of us would never ever read anything damaging to you.
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Heather: If they’re toward her audience, friends or family, she will delete them.
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Stephanie: It depends on my mood. Sometimes she doesn’t think much about it and will delete. Sometimes other people might have something to say about it and she’ll leave it out there. She gets a lot of honest feedback via email rather than in comments sometimes.
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AM: Are you surprised which posts generate more commentary?
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Heather: No. Sometimes she’s surprised because she didn’t know people would be so upset about her diet.
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Stephanie: Doesn’t think it matters a lot about the number of comments on a particular post. You never know how one thing you write will affect one person. Don’t let the popularity of some post dictate future posts.
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AM: Assuming you add blogs to your readers, what makes you add them?
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Elisa: Most of the blogs she adds are relevant to BlogHer.
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Stephanie: She has a lot of blogs that she doesn’t have time to read. What gets her to add them is topical. One week it’s technology, another its scrapbooking. It goes by the mood she’s in that day to read.
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Heather: If someone has created or writing about characters in way that makes her really care about them. When she finds that tug at her, she’ll add them immediately.
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Elisa: That indicates we’re all characters to each other in a way.
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AM: When you write about women and care about women, it is very threatening to our culture. We need to support each other and remember that this is not something people will like. We are pushing the envelope.
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Audience applauds.
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AM Accidentally Jewish: If you could make one rule for the internet, what would it be?
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Heather: You can only post anonymously if you’re blowing a whistle on a horrible government program.
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Elisa: What percentage of hate comments you get is anonymous?
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Heather: 60-70.
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Stephanie: 90% She’s a no rules kind of girl. Do onto others as you would want to you. That doesn’t apply to her husband. If he started a blog, she would die.
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AM: Is it this medium that’s making us extreme or the audience’s reaction? Blogging brings out all ends of the spectrum and not a whole lot in the middle.
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Stephanie: “Blogging gives people a voice. Sometimes its a voice we don’t necessarily want to hear.” It’s a vehicle. We’re so accessible as bloggers, people don’t have to think twice about shooting off an email. We will hear about it. It is amplified about it. But if someone’s doing it in a book or in the press, you won’t hear as much backlash about it as you do in blogs.
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Heather: People go to great lengths to leave anonymous comments. It’s an opportunity for their ego to just crap all over something. There is something fulfilling about that for them because they know she will read it. They know they will get her eyeballs because of the blog.
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Elisa: She doesn’t think the blogosphere creates this type of person, but there is an element of amplification. It’s the beauty of the blogosphere. You get so much support and love, but it can be dark at times.
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AM: What do you say to people when they question what you write about? Many ask if you’re missing something in your life so you feel the need to blog about it.
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Stephanie: Nothing is missing in her life, but sometimes she just wants to capture everything that is happening in her life.
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AM: How many hours a day do you spend on your blog?
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Heather: Depending on what product she has going on inside of her blog, it can reach 10-12 hours a day. She’s worked harder at this blog than any other blog in her life. Are you dedicated to working your ass off? It is way more than a full time job.
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Stephanie: She doesn’t blog everyday, but she’ll post everyday. She will dedicate days for only blog material and store it to go live at another time and she’ll spend other days working only on a book or TV show. She can’t do everything in one day. She found herself blogging on cocktail napkins because you never know where something will come up that you want to say/remember.
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Today is Heather’s birthday. Elisa asked everyone who celebrated a birthday this weekend at BlogHer to come up to the stage and the audience sang “Happy Birthday.”