I'm on a train. Wearing headphones like I always do. After The Train Incident last week if any leery sleazy man asks me (while I'm trying to listen to Tupac) if my cowboy boots are made of real cowhide I'll say "No they're actually made out of the skin of the last repulsive guy who stared at my tits and asked me a question on a train while I'm listening to music."
See now that whole opening paragraph isn't technically mummyblogging, because there is no such thing as mummyblogging. I make up words all the time but "mummyblogger" isn't even a real word. And if you're going to use it as such then at least give it a hyphen to make it more credible. Women write about things on the internet. Read: "I AM MUMMYBLOGGER" written in 2012 along with this photo:
Some of the writing done by people with vaginas is twee and shit and boring and fake. Some of it is informative, heartbreaking, real. But it's not mummyblogging otherwise everything a mother does would be prefaced with the word "mummy."
"What did you do last night Eden?"
"Well, I walked up to the pizza joint using my mummyfeet and then I put pieces of said pizza into my mummyfoodhole and when I got home I watched Lagertha kill some Frenchmen and then I had two mummyorgasms when I played with my mummyclitoris because I've been going through a bit of a mummyroughpatch the past few years and I needed a mummydistraction."
I've been online for almost ten years. I remember when twitter was invented and it was so cute! We all put it in the sidebars of our websites and just kind of fucked around on it. And when Instagram came on the scene, it was just people sharing photos. No hashtags, no selling, no promoting, no "building your fanbase" or brand no competing. Just words. Now it's all kind of changed and when I say "kind of changed" I mean SPECTACULARLY SPUN OUT OF CONTROL SIRI WHUT HAPPENED.
Because of my website I've been featured in countless newspapers, magazines, radio shows, news websites, tv programs (The Project, the Morning Show, Lateline, some political show I can't remember, and even bloody Mediawatch.) I've spoken at numerous conventions here in Australia and overseas. Interviewed then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Kirribilli House. And the biggest and most meaningful thing I'm most proud of is my work for World Vision. I did a lot of good for that charity. (It took a lot out of me but it was worth every dusty, sad, hopeful, boring, incredible day.)
I'm not tooting my own horn here I'm just saying I've been around. I know all this shit like the back of my hand. Strangers come up to me in the street. A lot of people know who I am. A few years back, there was a very defining moment where I could have turned my whole website into a giant juggernaut what with my whole "online persona." Thing is I don't have a persona - I'm a person. Not a businesswoman, not a social-media maven, not even really ambitious. Some - a lot - of people are, and have succeeded at successful online business. In theory, I have not done that. I only ever started writing online to document my IVF process. And then post-natal depression, PTSD from the cancer the father of my children faced, then I relapsed, then I came back fighting, then my stepdad died, then I got admitted to psych wards, then my brother killed himself, then I left the family home, then I relapsed again, then I came back fighting again, then I was diagnosed with serious fucking mental health issues, then came separation and divorce and custody and I lost my ever-loving mind. And now I'm back fighting again again lol, you never know what's going to happen in life and you never, ever can truly understand something until it happens to you.
So because of all of this documentation, because I've written and written and became the writer I knew I was all along ... I kind of accidentally "helped" people along the way. I also faced heavy fucking criticism, rape threats, vicious jealousy, etc. These days when people tell me I've saved their lives I try always email them back with something - anything, we all secretly deep down want to be acknowledged and valued and feel worthy. It's taken me a long process of realising I've never saved anybody's life. Maybe for one hour or one day I've helped a fellow-traveller out but jeez, I couldn't save my brothers life. We have to save our own.
This post is rambling into a different direction like things always do on here but one gleaming pearl of wisdom I can impart to any person who puts themselves out on social media in any form is this: take care of yourselves and roll with the criticism. Learn from it. Cop it on the chin. These days when I say "I really don't care what anybody thinks of me" I actually really mean it. Which is alternately a dangerous yet also freeing place to be. Losing everything left me with nothing left to lose and the art of not giving a fuck is the best thing I've ever had to learn. What did Homer Simpson do in a 90's Nintendo game when he's pulling backwards out of his driveway and bashing into everything in his path even mowing down and killing Flanders on the road? He puts his head out the window and yells "MISTAKES WERE MADE." Story of my life, probably the story of yours. If you really do identify as a mummyblogger - well, one day your kids are going to grow up. One day your life might fall apart and us online crazies who write about that shit can take huge hits mentally because aren't the interesting crazy ones some of the best reads anyway?
Last week I was sent a You Tube comment notification on a video I put up recently about how people shouldn't tell people (online or anywhere else, really) to "go kill themselves." And so this one comment was "KYS." And I thought oh that's pretty nice, somebody is saying "kiss" to me but it's not "kiss" it's short for "Kill Your Self" because these days people can't even be bothered to write out proper words it's all abbreviation. I thought it was funny. Stuff like that doesn't bother me in the slightest anymore but if you're new online or young or sensitive, it can be hurtful and dangerous.
This entire post is written in response to the recent "mummyblogging war/stoush" the press recently picked up on and documented. (I'm not taking sides .. well I could but I just can't be bothered.)
We can't all get along in real life or in online life, we never will, we're humans and there'll always be drama and crap. Learn and move on. And if you happen to "hit it big" and end up with a lot of "followers" then it means people are following you.
So you've got to ask yourself .. where are you going to lead them?
::
PS Cake. I lead you to cake. Black humour. Living with and in the darkness but mostly I just don't take myself too seriously anymore, can't afford to, life's too serious to take it seriously and at this point I have run out of all mummyfucks.
PPS Just wrote a whole social commentary post coz it feels so empty Without Me but now I'm free and I promise to not use my social media powers for bad or revenge anymore because "I just settled all my lawsuits FUCK YOU DEBBIE!"
(Comments are off but if you click on any of the categories at the bottom of this post they'll take you to other posts I've written about on the same subjects.)
PPPS I've let all of my children listen to Eminem's uncensored songs for all these years and I don't give a fuck I want them to harness their shit and be bold #mummybloggingfail
See now that whole opening paragraph isn't technically mummyblogging, because there is no such thing as mummyblogging. I make up words all the time but "mummyblogger" isn't even a real word. And if you're going to use it as such then at least give it a hyphen to make it more credible. Women write about things on the internet. Read: "I AM MUMMYBLOGGER" written in 2012 along with this photo:
Some of the writing done by people with vaginas is twee and shit and boring and fake. Some of it is informative, heartbreaking, real. But it's not mummyblogging otherwise everything a mother does would be prefaced with the word "mummy."
"What did you do last night Eden?"
"Well, I walked up to the pizza joint using my mummyfeet and then I put pieces of said pizza into my mummyfoodhole and when I got home I watched Lagertha kill some Frenchmen and then I had two mummyorgasms when I played with my mummyclitoris because I've been going through a bit of a mummyroughpatch the past few years and I needed a mummydistraction."
I've been online for almost ten years. I remember when twitter was invented and it was so cute! We all put it in the sidebars of our websites and just kind of fucked around on it. And when Instagram came on the scene, it was just people sharing photos. No hashtags, no selling, no promoting, no "building your fanbase" or brand no competing. Just words. Now it's all kind of changed and when I say "kind of changed" I mean SPECTACULARLY SPUN OUT OF CONTROL SIRI WHUT HAPPENED.
Because of my website I've been featured in countless newspapers, magazines, radio shows, news websites, tv programs (The Project, the Morning Show, Lateline, some political show I can't remember, and even bloody Mediawatch.) I've spoken at numerous conventions here in Australia and overseas. Interviewed then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Kirribilli House. And the biggest and most meaningful thing I'm most proud of is my work for World Vision. I did a lot of good for that charity. (It took a lot out of me but it was worth every dusty, sad, hopeful, boring, incredible day.)
I'm not tooting my own horn here I'm just saying I've been around. I know all this shit like the back of my hand. Strangers come up to me in the street. A lot of people know who I am. A few years back, there was a very defining moment where I could have turned my whole website into a giant juggernaut what with my whole "online persona." Thing is I don't have a persona - I'm a person. Not a businesswoman, not a social-media maven, not even really ambitious. Some - a lot - of people are, and have succeeded at successful online business. In theory, I have not done that. I only ever started writing online to document my IVF process. And then post-natal depression, PTSD from the cancer the father of my children faced, then I relapsed, then I came back fighting, then my stepdad died, then I got admitted to psych wards, then my brother killed himself, then I left the family home, then I relapsed again, then I came back fighting again, then I was diagnosed with serious fucking mental health issues, then came separation and divorce and custody and I lost my ever-loving mind. And now I'm back fighting again again lol, you never know what's going to happen in life and you never, ever can truly understand something until it happens to you.
So because of all of this documentation, because I've written and written and became the writer I knew I was all along ... I kind of accidentally "helped" people along the way. I also faced heavy fucking criticism, rape threats, vicious jealousy, etc. These days when people tell me I've saved their lives I try always email them back with something - anything, we all secretly deep down want to be acknowledged and valued and feel worthy. It's taken me a long process of realising I've never saved anybody's life. Maybe for one hour or one day I've helped a fellow-traveller out but jeez, I couldn't save my brothers life. We have to save our own.
This post is rambling into a different direction like things always do on here but one gleaming pearl of wisdom I can impart to any person who puts themselves out on social media in any form is this: take care of yourselves and roll with the criticism. Learn from it. Cop it on the chin. These days when I say "I really don't care what anybody thinks of me" I actually really mean it. Which is alternately a dangerous yet also freeing place to be. Losing everything left me with nothing left to lose and the art of not giving a fuck is the best thing I've ever had to learn. What did Homer Simpson do in a 90's Nintendo game when he's pulling backwards out of his driveway and bashing into everything in his path even mowing down and killing Flanders on the road? He puts his head out the window and yells "MISTAKES WERE MADE." Story of my life, probably the story of yours. If you really do identify as a mummyblogger - well, one day your kids are going to grow up. One day your life might fall apart and us online crazies who write about that shit can take huge hits mentally because aren't the interesting crazy ones some of the best reads anyway?
Last week I was sent a You Tube comment notification on a video I put up recently about how people shouldn't tell people (online or anywhere else, really) to "go kill themselves." And so this one comment was "KYS." And I thought oh that's pretty nice, somebody is saying "kiss" to me but it's not "kiss" it's short for "Kill Your Self" because these days people can't even be bothered to write out proper words it's all abbreviation. I thought it was funny. Stuff like that doesn't bother me in the slightest anymore but if you're new online or young or sensitive, it can be hurtful and dangerous.
This entire post is written in response to the recent "mummyblogging war/stoush" the press recently picked up on and documented. (I'm not taking sides .. well I could but I just can't be bothered.)
We can't all get along in real life or in online life, we never will, we're humans and there'll always be drama and crap. Learn and move on. And if you happen to "hit it big" and end up with a lot of "followers" then it means people are following you.
So you've got to ask yourself .. where are you going to lead them?
::
PS Cake. I lead you to cake. Black humour. Living with and in the darkness but mostly I just don't take myself too seriously anymore, can't afford to, life's too serious to take it seriously and at this point I have run out of all mummyfucks.
PPS Just wrote a whole social commentary post coz it feels so empty Without Me but now I'm free and I promise to not use my social media powers for bad or revenge anymore because "I just settled all my lawsuits FUCK YOU DEBBIE!"
(Comments are off but if you click on any of the categories at the bottom of this post they'll take you to other posts I've written about on the same subjects.)
PPPS I've let all of my children listen to Eminem's uncensored songs for all these years and I don't give a fuck I want them to harness their shit and be bold #mummybloggingfail
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Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell