Ok, so I only made it to one BlogHer conference, and I am clearly not a subject matter expert on this, so feel free to disregard, also disregard all of these commas because Mayberry Mom is probably appalled at my lack of punctuation skills by now and these COMMAS, but as I keep reading tweets and posts about BlogHer kicking off I keep coming back to a couple of my experiences there. Ok, one in particular that I'm still kind of pissed off about.
I went to BlogHer 10, a.k.a., the year of the swag whores. At least that's what you would have thought by hearing some of the stories, which were in my humble opinion greatly over-exagerated. For the most part.
Shortly after I arrived in Chicago I realized I had some time on my hands before my scheduled visit to the Estee Lauder event on the Miracle Mile. I heard rumblings about a Social Luxe event at a nearby hotel and how it was supposed to be SUPER! FABULOUS! so I followed the sea of bloggers down the street, up some steps, into a hotel and down into the basement where the event was being held and where chaos was evident. There were not enough staff, long lines where no one really knew what they were in line for and the elusive swag bags. The deal was if you RSVP'd, you could have a gift bag, but no one knew that, there were hundreds of women swarming around the basement and some bloggers took bags that probably shouldn't have. So after that, everywhere I went, all anyone would talk about were the bags. Bags, bags, swag, swag, blah, blah. What was in them, how many there were, what a tragedy it was that some people didn't get them. Were you there? Someone cut in front of someone in line. Can you believe it? Did you get a bag? Blah blah.
As the Estee Lauder group gathered back at the BlogHer hotel lobby, I looked around and recognized a few faces, including one very well known parenting blogger. As we all made small talk in a group she announced to everyone that she was one of the hosts at Social Luxe, had anyone been there because OMG y'all, (that's a clue. She's southern) she received a swag bag that was worth FIVE! THOUSAND! DOLLARS! She told everyone what was in it, including from what I remember: A Flip Camera, expensive wine, shoes, make up and lots of other stuff. My first question was is all of that really worth five grand? My next question was why in the world is she telling us this?? It seemed to me, like it was probably not really true, it was adding fuel to the smoldering swag bag fire and just overall not cool. You don't need to tell a bunch of women holding a bag with mascara and a chocolate bar in it that you have a bag in your room worth 5K. So you if you get a bag worth FIVE!THOUSAND!DOLLARS! Don't tell everyone! Keep it to yourself. People will like you better. Also, they will not fantasize how good it would feel to to steal your room key and take your swag.
Cut to the Estee Lauder event: The same OMG y'all big time blogger is standing next to me. Intros are going on all around. I turn to her and offer my hand, I tell her who I am and I say to her "I know you! I read you all the time." and she looks at me, I can tell by the look on her face that she has no idea who she is and she says "I'm a big fan of yours too." LIAR! I know for a fact that she's never commented and she's likely never read my blog. I think about that every time I read her blog or her column. I've tried to let it go and consider that maybe she wasn't lying, exactly, perhaps she thought I was someone else? Had me confused with a different blog that is clearly better than mine? I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I am bitter and can't help it and every time I see her name I think LIAR! So, don't tell someone you are a fan unless you know who they are. People will like you better. Also, they will not think you are a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.