Saturday 4 September 2010

It's mine, all mine. And I peed in all the corners.

Emily needs to get wise. She has missed one of the points on the list. That point is, Emily, pick your blogger. You can only make money out of a blogger that fits your market. Disappointing, Emily, given how much you enjoy! reading! grit's day!

Emily, with her suggestion that I tell you all about buying school uniforms, is of course entirely correct in other matters. She has seen how the future rolls on. Emily, it's rolling on without me.

Let's just call it another future I'm not joining. If you haven't checked that list yet, it provides a neat ticky list for commercial blogology. It gleefully heralds the mummy blog as promotional business product advertorial brand ambassador space with free gift, exclusive to you.

You can probably take it as a given that I won't be doing all that comes with it. Posting pictures of myself smiling with more teeth than I own. Offering the latest tidbit about Whatsherface Hilton. Reassuring my readers that breast pumps are so in they're like, hot and you all should own one right now! Say, make that three and tell everyone that grit sent you!

I won't be doing any of that stuff. No product reviews, no ads, no placement for your video, no link up with your blog brand account manager, no taking up your kind offer to provide me with copy from a professional writer, no, no, no, none of that.

Here, at grit's day, there is what there always is, at heart. A story about surviving home education. Told day by day, month by month, year by year. In all its misery, joy, broken hearts, elevation to heaven, pointless craft projects and wet fields.

So that's me sorted. In the brave new commercial blog world, I'll be sitting here, all alone. Stig of the dump. Billy no mates. Stuck in the past. One foot in the grave. My own little stewpit of blogland. Blog dinosaur. Hear me die. Fppppft.

Now, you readers of grit's day, you kind amiable people who stroll along here - I would gladly sit down for a coffee with any of you, so long as you're paying - you probably already realised that you can come and go, in and out of grit's blog, and I will still be here. Call that OCD. Call that psychosis. Call that grit. My face is set to the long term. I have kids to get through these years of home ed, and I need a space for quiet reflection, mental exercise, organised screaming. You are welcome to join me, for one day, for many days, for all days.

But Emily, if you've read this far, now's the time to give up. School uniforms are crap. They are social control dressed up in grey nylon. Burn the school uniforms, Emily, burn them. That's my advice. Burn them all.

Terms and conditions. Should grit's day suddenly and inexplicably attract audiences of thousands, Grit reserves the right to renounce all her principles and make as much money as she can from advertising to pay for Tiger's therapy bills. Grit also reserves the right to endorse any field, product, museum, exhibition, she wants, solely on the basis of the fact that she wants to. She also reserves the right to respond to any PR offering educational opportunities for the Shark, Squirrel and Tiger daughters, on the understanding that they agree to allow their client to be mocked in any way of Grit's choosing. Grit also reserves full control of her blog, having peed in all the corners.

16 comments:

Firebird said...

I actually had to force myself to read all her points. YUCKY! The second I find that a blog I'm following has sold out it will be history, off my feed, goodbye! To be honest even the term mom blogger (or mummy blogger or any variation thereof) turns my stomach. It's so patronising, so twee! {pulls face as of having bitten into a particularly sour lemon} and all that stuff about 'influential bloggers', sorry but it'd be a pretty poor show if I went around being that easily influenced.

No, I think I'll stick with you Grit, and the other bloggers who aren't out make a fast buck at the expense of their integrity.

Jax Blunt said...

@Firebird Guess you're gonna stop reading mine later today then! (If you still read it that is.)

Hohum.

sharon said...

But you mention school uniforms so often, I'm sure you could provide a wonderful post on them - after you've peed on those too of course ;-)

mamacrow said...

LOVE YOU GRIT! smooches

Jax - I'll still read you, tho i reserve the right to skip over promotional posts that I'm not interested in :D

The blogs I really dislike are the really glossy ONLY about promotional bits ones, that are PRETENDING they are about 'real'families. pah.

Kelly said...

What about those of us who weren't asked to the prom? Is it because I'm Canadian? Too political? Just don't matter? You can be honest. (And to be honest, I don't actually know what you are talking about. Are you saying there are people who put ads on blogs WITH YOUR AGREEMENT and there is MONEY involved? Wow. I just found out that when people link to my blog through email there are strange ads there, but I don't have anything to do with it. Apparently, on my blog post about for-profit colleges, and how EVIL they are, there were ads for for-profit colleges at the end when people linked to it from email. My readers thought it was IRONY! I'm just not smart enough to be that ironic. I think Wordpress must be doing it without my knowledge, and hiding it from me because I CAN'T SEE THEM!)

Firebird said...

Exactly Mamacrow, the ones which pretend and sneak their product placements in, or worse still if that article is to believed, completely sell out becoming spokesmoms. "This blog brought to you by Pampers, why not try their latest ... bla bla bla"

Jax, your reviews are as Mamacrow says, easy to skip ;)

MadameSmokinGun said...

I don't seem to understand any of it. I tried to read that list blog thing and couldn't get anywhere as it was SO BORING!!!

Sticking with the real people.

kelly said...

I didn't read it. I saw her teeth and that was enough for me.

Keep peeing in the corners ;D

RuralDiversity said...

I like the fact that this blog is made of grit and not plastic. It's as real as I am and I don't live in an advert. Keep weeing in the corners and I'll make the coffee. All welcome - the more the merrier. I'll even make a cake.

Kelly said...

Teeth? Teeth? Now I really don't understand.

Kelly said...

OK, I went to that link, to see if I could figure out what you are talking about (maybe should have tried that first?), except I still don't understand. There is Jennifer, talking silly things about mom bloggers, corporations, brands, pr and money, and then, there is grit, talking about someone named Emily and school uniforms????? Am still confused. I take it teeth are in reference to big head big hair big teeth lady picture on Jennifer's post???? But Emily, where is Emily? Oh, no wonder I can't make it in mom blogger world. Don't think I am even really a blogger, though I KNOW I am really a mom, most days, unless the no kid fantasy kicks in...but that usually only happens in restaurants. But please help. Who is Emily?

Grit said...

Emily is out there.

Emily mailed me with an offer. That grit's day could advertise for her, and tell all my readers to go buy school uniforms.

Emily offered a payment for the ad. She could offer a hundred times the amount, and I would never accept. Because Emily made a fundamental error.

Emily, I admit to baiting you a little, but telling me how much you enjoy reading this blog (on HOME EDUCATION, Emily, where even a casual reading should tell you WE DO NOT WEAR SCHOOL UNIFORM, DO NOT ADVOCATE SCHOOL UNIFORM, HATE ALL SCHOOL UNIFORM), you sort of asked for it.

Now I suppose this means I am getting a bit tired of the PR contacts who mail me with their fantastic ideas on how this blog can be used to earn money for someone else, without ever really having a sense of responsibility to what they are writing - apart that is, from the imperative to make money, satisfy a client, present some market statistics on blog campaigns, or to satisfactorily meet a job description in time for their appraisal. None of those are relevant to me.

So to all PRs, if you are going to contact me, I am a real person, and this is a blog about our lives. Please don't lie, please do not use chummy mummy language, and please do not assume money drives this blog.

Sugarplum Kawaii said...

I love you!! Funny, opinionated and principled.

Jax Blunt said...

Ah, you had one of those approaches. You see, I don't really get those. 'Cos I'm not as big as you are. But I am elbowing my way into the promotional world, and hoping to find some things that work for me and my readers.

And like Mamacrow and firebird say, if they don't work for you, you can skip those posts.

Sorry I sounded a bit whiny when I first commented, I was thinking that I was going to be loathed and despised all round...

Iota said...

I am sad that blogging is heading in such a commercial direction, but I suppose it was inevitable.

Grit said...

aw, sugarplum! cute talker!

live otherwise! i know you are in the business too of communication about home ed, and making people aware that it a normal, ordinary healthy choice. i don't judge how you do that, what routes you use.

i know the commercial tie in / ad route is not for me. not least for the pragmatic thought that i can't make a viable business from it. it would return pennies for the time i would need to invest. i also worry that i'd write to please other people with a different set of values and different agendas. and the blog ain't big, it ain't earth shattering, but it's a room of my own.

hi iota. yes, i think it is inevitable too. blogs can be a bringing together of interest groups, commercial and professional people, so i can see how they need to create brand identity for a blog and position it as a sales platform if anyone's going to make money from it. i wonder if the corporates will need to veer towards the family / lifestyle blog though, rather than the mummy blog. which means the entire family needs to agree to become part of the pitch.