Being Amber Rhea

Haven’t we heard this before?

Rob Peters, a reporter from Vancouver, says:

Some difficult truths have been brought to light by the personal blogging blitz of the last few years. One such revelation is that most of us aren’t as interesting as we think. Waking up every day and jotting down some deep thoughts about breakfast is a difficult way to sustain any kind of readership.

I could not disagree more. What blogging brings to light for me - and I know I’m not alone in this - is that people are infinitely interesting.

Not every single person is going to be interesting to every single other person. But that’s not news; that’s a fact of human existence, and why would we hold blogging to ridiculous, unrealistic standards that we don’t apply to other aspects of life?

And anyway, why is anyone still publishing this recycled tripe? Every 6 months or so, some know-it-all writes a piece on the “death” of blogging, or how it’s causing Very Bad Things to happen, or how it’s lost its innocence, or whatever other cliché they’ve dredged up for the moment. I guess maybe it’s a guaranteed will-publish if you’re having a dry spell?

On a personal note, I’m not having the best day - in fact, someone on a blog just saw fit to inform me that they “don’t appreciate anything about [me].” Do I blame blogging, though? Give me a break. I think you know the answer to that one.

That reminds me - a post on civil communication is in the works, too.

On Friday, Rusty and I will be heading to Baltimore for Balticon. We’ve never been before, but as I understand it, Balticon is like a mini Drangon*Con. I guess I’m showing my Atlanta-centricness here; maybe Baltimorans(?) would call Dragon*Con an overblown Balticon?

I’m going to be on four panels, which I’m very excited about. Here’s where I’ll be:

• “Sex Tech, Now and Future” - Saturday, May 24, 11:00 p.m.
• “Erotic Podcasts and Sexy New Media” - Sunday, May 25, 12:00 a.m. (a.k.a., midnight Saturday)
• “Don’t Be That Guy: Advice From the Women of New Media” - Sunday, May 25, 2:00 p.m.
• “So You Want to Be a Sex Podcaster” - Monday, May 26, 12:00 a.m. (a.k.a., midnight Sunday)

All of these panels are in the Chesepeake room (which I always read as “cheapskate”).

Here’s an episode of the Balticon Podcast that talks about the “late night” (a.k.a., sex) track. I would’ve called in via Skype but they recorded it on the evening of May 9.

On the latest episode of Mostly ITP, Rusty and I talk about how it’s funny that some people now classify our podcast as a sex podcast simply because we occasionally talk about sex. We’ve been pegged… right into the pink ghetto?

Anyway, we are very excited about Balticon. I’m looking forward to hanging out with Regina Lynn (we didn’t get to talk nearly enough at Sex 2.0) and meeting Nobilis and Helen Madden. And I’m also very excited about spending most of Saturday with Jenny! It seems weird to say we haven’t seen each other in over a year, since we keep in touch so much through email, IM, blogs, and now Twitter. Yay social media!

From Bound, Not Gagged:

So we told them how the blog started. We told them about long, teary, angry all-hours-of-the-night phone calls that Melissa and I shared while as sex workers we were sitting in our own isolated worlds watching the media tell our stories through the lens of the “DC Madam Scandal.” That we desperately needed a space to respond and share our own opinions, to tell of our own exploits and scandals and to confront the stigma and harassment that we experienced with every twisted, slanted and salacious ‘hookers-to-the-elite’ story emailed out over our various list-serves.

And yes, “semantics” do matter. And I will happily pick news stories apart word-by-word, because it’s important.

Saturday Keynote: Changing Your World with Blogs

It’s the second day of ConvergeSouth (and the first day that Rusty and I will be here for the entire day). Sue Polinsky is introducing Elisa Camahort, and I’m going to attempt to live-blog it, until my MacBook battery dies, anyway. Sue is saying there aren’t a lot of women bloggers with “credentials,” so it’s hard to fill panels with women. I disagree… there are tons of women bloggers with all kinds of credentials out there. Next Sue said, “Or maybe we just don’t know about them.” That’s more like it!

9:17 a.m. - Elisa points out that they had 136 women speakers at BlogHer ‘07.

9:21 a.m. - Blogging is good for your health, because of the connections you make. Elisa cites the example of Millie Garfield’s blog.

Blogging (and podcasting) offers us the opportunity to have a record of our lives, our parents’ lives, and our grandparents’ lives that we never had before. Elisa says she wishes she’d had an opportunity to record her grandmother’s story before she died.

9:26 a.m. - What’s the definition of a blog? If someone is an active commenter but doesn’t have their own blog, are they a blogger? What about Twitter, or Facebook? The definition of what it means to be a blogger is changing and evolving, because it’s all about the community that forms.

9:32 a.m. - Elisa addresses the (sometimes flip) sentiment, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” So what’s wrong w/ making money from your blogging endeavors, if you can? Blogs are changing the way we do business.

Now Elisa is talking about Chloe Spencer, “teen pro-blogger.”

9:36 a.m. - Elisa disagrees w/ what a lot of tech bloggers say, that unless you have a very specific niche, it’s hard to build an audience. She says it’s about having a unique voice and a way of telling your personal story that makes people laugh, nod their heads, or just be interested. I agree.

9:40 a.m. - Is it going to be harder to make a living via blogs as the blogosphere becomes more saturated? Elisa is talking about Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes, who makes six figures per year from her blog. Of course, the part people don’t mention as much is that Elise started her blog four years ago when there were maybe ten food bloggers, and now there are tens of thousands.

Other people are using blogs to move their careers forward in other ways - not just making money via ads on their blog. Example: Megan Garnhum got her dream job w/ WeeWorld after she was inspired to do something she loves (write a blog about shopping) which made her visible and gave her her own playing field. That visibility got her recognized by WeeWorld, where she now works.

9:47 a.m. - Politicians are starting to realize that they ignore people outside the political blogosphere at their peril. (Answer to rhetorical question of why did Elizabeth Edwards come to BlogHer ‘07 even though it was not a huge media opportunity for her?)

9:51 a.m. - Example of blogs impacting real-world action: Grace Davis started a Katrina relief blog after a woman in Mississippi posted on Craigslist that she could drive around to different shelters in Mississippi, but didn’t know how to get the word out; all she had was her car and her cell phone. Grace called this woman and said she’d start a blog. The woman in Mississippi then would call Grace and tell her what shelter she was at, its address, how many people were there, and what they needed. People would see it on the blog and ship directly to the shelters. Because of this blog, supplies were getting to the shelters before FEMA.

9:57 a.m. - Guy in the audience says he thinks people in their 20’s and early 30’s don’t need face-to-face connection. I spoke up, of course. Heh.

As a nice on-point epilogue, Elisa used Rusty and me as an example! ‘Cause you know, we met via reading our blogs, and look at us now.

At this point, I’ve been to half a dozen social media unconferences, and at almost all of them, there has been much discussion about how/why/if PR and marketing folks should “reach out” to The Bloggers.

Should PR and marketing departments be embracing social media? Of course they should; and fortunately, a lot of them seem to be past the if and focusing on the how. But for some reason, that’s where there seems to be a major roadblock to understanding.
Read the full post »

Another episode of Off The Bus has landed! This one was filmed at the Fred Thompson support meeting/rally(?) last week. Rusty and I actually went, so that Grayson wouldn’t be all alone and because we had a kind of morbid curiosity about how the other side lives. We make quick cameo appearances toward the beginning of the video.

Looking forward to episode 3!

The title of this post was going to be something like, “Maw! I’m on the TeeVee!” but Griftdrift already did that. So instead I went with basic and search engine friendly.

Grayson will be creating videos for the Huffington Post’s Off The Bus section on a regular basis, and you can see the first one here. It was recorded Tuesday night at everyone’s home away from home: Manuel’s Tavern. Her intro spiel cracks me up. And oh yeah, I give a sound bite in there, too.

(And here’s hoping for fewer old white guys enamored with the sound of their own voice in future videos!)

See also: Rusty’s interpretive Photoshopping of his sound bite from the video.

Last year, Rusty and I went to Dragon*Con for the first time for either of us, and we had a blast. Derek and Swoopy of Skepticality fame had worked tirelessly to put together a podcasting track, in addition to the first Parsec Awards. We participated in three panels, recorded four podcasts, and blogged about it. Here we are looking Very Serious Indeed:

This year, the podcasting track and the Parsec Awards are back, bigger than last year and with a lot of good energy that’s getting more palpable as D*C gets closer. We’re on the schedule for four panels, but unfortunately, it now looks like we might not be attending at all.

Last year we were able to acquire media passes, thanks to our friend (and D*C veteran) Thomas knowing who to contact and what info to supply. You can see the evidence here. Naturally, we figured we would be on the list for media passes again this year. However, when Thomas contacted The People In Charge to make sure, he was told:

As I explained last year, Podcasting is not considered Media. They are really tightening the belt about free badges and keeping very close tabs. I did you a personal favor last year and unfortunately I just can’t do it again this year. I’m so sorry.

You will have to get your badges thru the Podcasting Track or purchase them. However if you get badges elsewhere, I can give you Press Ribbons to allow you Media access.

A few things here.

First of all, if the badges were a personal favor last year, how is it that we didn’t know that at the time? That little bit of information was news to us.

Second, this person says “as I explained last year,” but I don’t recall any such explaining.

Third, I find it odd that this person would be able to give us press ribbons to attach to our badges as long as we get the badges somewhere else. What does that do for (here comes the C-word) credibility? Either podcasting is media or it isn’t. This makes it sound like podcasting can be media, as long as it’s someone else who dirties their hands with the issue of actual badges.

Thomas has sent a follow-up email, making the case that embracing podcasters as media is very good for Dragon*Con - much moreso than just relying on local radio stations and print publications. Radio coverage will likely be limited to 5-10 minutes of “Let’s make fun of the furries,” courtesy of the Wacky Morning Team, and print either won’t cover it at all or will run a sarcastic blurb alongside a photo of a furry in full costume.

Or, as Thomas put it in an email (emphasis mine):

With any luck, the Podcasting track will be able to get more participant recognition next year. Because the truth of the matter is that Dragon*Con stands a much better chance of being covered fairly and accurately by people in the podcasting community, right down to the individual track-by-track level.

I’m sure you’ve gotten the yearly media requests from the local television and radio stations, but if history is any indicator, I’m pretty sure I know what they’ll do. Local television will show up at 7am on Friday to catch early risers in costume, then come back over the weekend to get footage of the big parade on Peachtree. Local radio will (at best) do some kind of remote broadcast for half-a-day or (at worst) send some morning show personality to interrupt players in the gaming hall and record their reactions, like WNNX did a few years back.

I’m disappointed, but what do you do? In fairness, it seems as though the person with whom Thomas was corresponding was not the decision maker here. I don’t know who ultimately makes the call on stuff like this.

In all likelihood, we’ll still try to go to the podcasting track. We might be able to attend the panels without a badge and just not go to any other part of the con. Or maybe we could get temporary or one-day badges at a discount. So, currently our attendee status is up in the air, with a hopeful outlook.

This situation also raises an interesting issue that D*C will have to grapple with soon: if everyone is the media - and certainly, a large percentage of D*C participants produce some form of web-based media - then how do they go about doling out media passes? They’re either going to have to stop giving them out altogether, or let everyone in for free (and the latter, of course, is not realistic).

This October will mark the third ConvergeSouth unconference, which I believe (and don’t quote me on this, ’cause I might be wrong) was the first new media unconference in the South. Rusty and I were there last year and it proved to be the gateway drug for what’s developed into an unconference addiction on our part; we’ll be back for another fix this year, and this time, I’m a presenter.

I’ll be leading a session titled “Podcasting and Beyond,” scheduled for 1:00-2:00 (I think; the schedule is a little hard to read) on Saturday, October 20. It’s listed as a how-to session, but I don’t plan to get too deep into the nuts-and-bolts of the technical side of podcasting. If people want an Audacity demo, we can do that before or after; but in unconference fashion, I would like this to be more of a discussion about what the “beyond” is. If you’ll be at ConvergeSouth, let me know if you have any ideas of what you’d like to see in this session!

Also, for any of y’all who are handy with a digicam, ConvergeSouth will have a film festival component this year. In particular, several local folks come to mind for the Citizen Journalism category:

We are looking for self-produced videos that are newsworthy stories. Can be but not limited to stories about historic events, local politics, corporate accountability, personal documentary, current events and similar. No more than 15 minutes in length.

Submit your videos by September 25!

Last night’s Social Media Club meeting was certainly better than last month’s! It was a smaller group - six of us - and I feel like we started to make some progress on investigating the issues of new media vs. traditional media (including, of course, the question of whether it has to be one versus the other) - but there’s a lot still to unpack. The thing that struck me the most last night was the use of certain terminology to both disparage new media and prop up traditional media. The word in question last night was “artistic.”

A guy named Mike, whom I hadn’t met before, criticized vloggers/vidcasters by saying they aren’t professional, they aren’t trained… etc., etc., all the usual stuff… but then: “Professional videographers know how to find the art in a shot.”

So, videographers in traditional media are artists, not just amateur hacks. And that’s a good thing.

But - remember last month’s meeting? - bloggers are artists, and that’s a bad thing. Real reporters are much more serious, you see. They’re not just artistic. They’re professional.

Honestly, I am baffled by this.

“Artistic” is, at once, a compliment to certain people, and a dismissive wave of the hand to other people. Bloggers are unprofessional, irresponsible, unreliable, amateur hacks - and part of the problem is that they’re too artistic. But, vloggers/vidcasters are also unprofessional, irresponsible, unreliable, amateur hacks - and the problem is that they are not artistic enough.

I mentioned this disconnect to the meeting participants, but the discussion ended up going in a different direction, and I never heard an explanation of why artistic is sometimes good and sometimes bad in media. I wonder if people just say these things without really thinking about what they’re saying. I’m not sure, which is why I would’ve liked to discuss it further. Interestingly, Mike and a few others seemed to get very defensive when I asked the question. I don’t think I asked it in a confrontational or accusatory manner; I was honestly curious. Like I said, I think there’s a lot to unpack here. And yeah, it might get uncomfortable at times, but really, that’s part of the point.

I don’t want to just write it all off as, “Well, old media types are scared, and they say reactionary things, using whatever terminology suits at the time.” Because I really do think there’s more to it than that (although certainly, there’s quite a bit of that, too). I think it’s worth exploring in more depth.

Other quick thoughts from last night:

• Why the continued emphasis on drawing and maintaining lines between “bloggers” and “journalists?” Why is the divide so important?
• How and why do certain bloggers (e.g., Michael Arrington, Arianna Huffington) come to be known as journalists, not “just” bloggers? What is the tipping point? Why are labels important, anyway?
• I’m tired of being discussed as a third-person concept. Bloggers this, bloggers that. HELLO. I am a blogger, and I’m sitting right here. Instead of making a bunch of grandiose generalizations about bloggers, talk to me. And listen.
• Frankly I’m getting pretty tired of being verbally kicked around and talked about in dismissive ways because I’m “just a blogger.” Well, I’m a person. It’s really not cool to sit there and talk about how stupid and unimportant a large, diverse group of people is, when a bunch of them are in the room - and expect them not to notice or not to mind.
• Why do some people see “bloggers” as a monolith? Is it honest ignorance (just not knowing much about blogging), or willful ignorance? Again, why is it important to maintain this monolithic view, and the distinction of “blogger” and “not a blogger?”
• Somebody said last night, as if it were a bad thing, “We could’ve been having this conversation in a bar” - ostensibly to lament that there weren’t more people, or it wasn’t more structured, I guess. But I was thinking, “Yes, we could - and that would be awesome!” I love having conversations like that, at a bar or anywhere else - let’s just leave the egos, the stupid little power trips, the weird superiority complexes, all the rest of it, at the door.
• When managing online communities, don’t start from a place of condescension or assumed superiority. It puts people on the defensive and (rightly) pisses them off. Also, people rise to the expectations set for them.

Would write more, but gotta get going for now. Looking forward to more conversations like this - some at bars, some in conference rooms. :)

ETA: This Gaping Void cartoon makes me laugh. I thought it was somewhat relevant to, well, not really last night’s meeting in particular, but just a general type of conversation that tends to go on at social media events and unconferences.

See? If you wear a chicken suit and hold a politically charged sign, the mainstream media will flock to you!

Click To Play

Way to go, Shelbinator!

Last night, Rusty and I attended an Atlanta Press Club event entitled “New Media”: The Changing Media Landscape. Panelists were Mark Bauer, WSB-TV; Lea Donosky, AJC; Lila King, CNN I-Reporting Team; John Patton, ThePort Network; and it was moderated by Grayson.

The room was packed with people from a variety of traditional media backgrounds, public relations, marketing, and even a few people who just wandered in off the street out of curiosity. Oh, and a bunch of us bloggers sitting in the front row (in addition to a few other bloggers in other parts of the room). J. Brotherlove asked what the median age was of the audience, but it’s hard to say because it was really all over the place. One woman who spoke up and asked a question was a recent college graduate; there were other audience members who had 30+ years experience in the media industry. The room also had a surprising degree of gender and racial diversity.

I “live-twittered” the event to an extent. Most of those tweets showed up in yesterday’s daily Twitter digest posting, and the rest will show up tonight. I also took a bunch of notes in a sort of old-school live-blogging exercise, which I’ll scan and post later.

Grayson did a wonderful job of making the event very unconference-like. I got the feeling that this surprised some of the audience members who may have been expecting a more traditional question-and-answer routine from moderator to panelists, but people got the hang of it quickly and soon were speaking up with nearly as much zeal as at PodCamp Atlanta. Grayson and the panelists kept a good handle on things, not letting any of it spiral out of control (and there was one audience member who, had she gotten her way, I think would have willingly led us all down a dark path of unadulterated blog-bashing).

Overall, I think the event went well. There were a few audience members who were seriously rude and antagonistic, but a pleasant surprise (and in contrast to last week’s Social Media Club event) was that the panelists themselves were open-minded, eager to learn - and willing to call bullshit when they heard it. And they did, in response to some of those aforementioned audience members!

It wasn’t all roses, though, and I’m not going to sit here and give everybody a cookie just because it managed not to come to blows. There were a lot of people in that room who just did not get it (blogs are “entertainment” and apparently bloggers are obsessed with Lindsay Lohan?) and frankly need to wake up and answer the clue phone. There were people who apparently think it’s fine and dandy to say extremely rude, dismissive things about the entire spectrum of blogging, and then expect bloggers to bend over backwards to hand them content and do hard work for them.

But, all in all, it was one of the most productive discussions of this kind that I’ve participated in. I’m hoping that things will continue to get better.

I’ll write more later, going into more detail of specific things that happened and things that were said. Just wanted to get an overview post up for now, though.

Here is the podcast of the event, on the Georgia Podcast Network.

Other posts about the event:

• Rusty: Atlanta Press Club panel podcast/thoughts
• Amani Channel: Hangin’ Out At The Atlanta Press Club
• Griftdrift: Facing the Beast, A Blogger Answers A Few Questions, and A Question For The Traditional Journalists
• Grayson: Shout-Out To MY Social Network Peeps
• Sara: Blogger Navel Gazing

Update: Sara’s post articulates some of the problems I had with many audience members’ assumptions last night. I’ll still probably write about this more later.

Via the GDBF, I found out that Doug Monroe - the “haggard old man himself” - is moving to New York City!

(”Get a rope.”) <– obligatory

I can hardly believe it!

Doug’s blog, Peachtree Screed, is one of the best sources of information about local goings-on, especially transit issues and the machinations of the DOT. He also has a lot to say about old media and new media, and you should listen because he knows what he’s talking about.

Best of luck in Brooklyn, Doug! I know you’ll have a wonderful time. I should introduce you to some of my friends up there… I bet they’re not the people you’d normally rub shoulders with! (And I am?)

Come to the Red Light Café Saturday night to bid Doug adieu. Rusty’s got the info.

Just a reminder for all you Atlanta-area podcasters/bloggers/anybody - come to Manuel’s at 6:00 tonight if you want to hang out with some out-of-town guests and whoever else happens to show up! I’m wearing appropriately geeky apparel for the occasion - my “I’m Blogging This” shirt and my <head> </head> earrings.

Oh and apparently Scoble is in town today too, but I doubt he’ll be at Manuel’s tonight. Just a weird coincidence.

If any of y’all can make it out to Manuel’s next Wednesday, come on out!

He calls it “Steve Across America” like it’s some big deal, but really it’s just 10-15 people sitting around drinking.

Out-of-town guests will include Steve Garfield (obviously), Michael Bailey, Justin Kownacki, and Vergel Evans. The weather will probably be too warm for Michael to wear his Secret Service trench coat.

Real quick post about my burgeoning conference idea: What would be a good venue?

To get events like this rolling, having a venue is clutch. It’s all downhill (mostly) from there. I have no idea what type/size/location I should be looking for. The Miller-Ward House was a perfect venue for PodCamp Atlanta, but for this conference we’d probably want something a little less “old world.” Ideas? I know the guy who owns the Spring4th Center, but I have no idea what the inside of that space is like; I think it’s more of a nightclub situation. Guess I should just contact the guy and find out.

If anyone in/around Atlanta has thoughts on this, please leave a comment!

As some of you know, for the past couple of months I’ve been kicking around in my head ideas for a new conference to be held here in Atlanta. Last night I finally got around to having an extended brainstorming session and fleshing out some of the germinating ideas (thanks to Rusty for helping with this process) and I wanted to go ahead and let everyone know what I’m thinking of. I was going to try to organize all of this into nice, grammatically-correct paragraphs; but then I decided, no, I’ll give you the straight-up stream of consciousness post I typed last night. So without further ado, I give you…

Random disjointed ideas for a feminism/social media/sexuality conference.
In light of some of the 101-and-below level conversations that go on at other social media conferences, and all the amazing, awesome stuff women are doing online that isn’t getting enough offline (positive) attention - We need a new conference.

Tracks:
- media
- education
- business
- hippie shit (personal growth, self expression, self acceptance, community building, etc.)

Goal:
- How can we support one another and give back to the larger community?
- Providing education
- Raising awareness
- Mobilizing for social/political activism

Web filling the gap left by US government (and other countries’ governments) mandating abstinence-only education and/or taking a “moral” approach to sex education. Example: Scarleteen. How to support these kinds of sites/projects and help reach more people? Is it limited to just teens when we talk about the education aspect? How can we leverage the power we have thanks to the Web to reach people who don’t have Web access or have limited access?

Analogy comparing the above to new media filling the gaps left by traditional media (e.g., local coverage - “hyperlocal”).

Topic likely to spur lots of debate and discussion: The Web empowers women to start and run their own businesses and do it on their own terms, owning the production and the presentation. E.g., cam girls, porn sites run by women, etc. (Dacia’s book Naked on the Internet also offers some examples.) This could cause debate bc some people still see it as exploitation simply bc there is “selling sex” involved (also a debatable terminology).

Positive: new media in general tends to cut out the middle man, for better or for worse - in this case better, e.g., cutting out skeevy porn makers who treat the workers like shit. -Or is this only an illusion and the reality doesn’t support it most of the time? Need to hear people’s diverse personal experiences.

People might start debating the merits of capitalism vs. other social systems and the question Octogalore raised, should women be benefiting from capitalism in this way if possible? (I think yes but it’s open for debate.) Plus, in some ways this is like socialism in that it puts the means of production in the hands of the workers - so I’m not saying I’ve just got a total gung-ho “yay capitalism, boo socialism” attitude.

Name:
Need a good name that conveys it’s women-centered but not some earth mother moon juice BS; feminist and sex-positive. Men are welcome bc part of the focus is sexuality and the internet, and we want to hear men’s stories and experiences as well - how has this been freeing for them, for example. But it’s not centered around men; like BlogHer with more sex. And of course, the experience should not be like a “walking into an Inserection” version of sex. Should be much more like Babeland!

Would you come to such a conference? Add your thoughts! This should be community-driven.

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Take Back the Blog! post coming later today. We’re going to hit the Inman Park Festival this afternoon, so it might not be until after that.