Being Amber Rhea

Clearly I’M not in the corporate world!

Dan Greenfield commented on Toby Bloomberg’s “Atlanta Women In Social Media Marketing” post from yesterday (the one I’m in) and that reminded me of something.

In the post, I mentioned the anecdote of the guy who was completely condescending and dismissive toward me at SoCon07 and seemed to view social media as the realm of silly young-uns who haven’t entered the real world yet and when they do, they’ll leave childish things behind so they can be taken seriously. Surprise! He showed up at SoCon08, only this time he was a “social media expert” running a “digital consulting company.” (I see now he is also calling himself a “brand therapist.”) That experience is never far from my mind as I view the glad-handers keen on building their personal brands with a wary eye.

SoCon07 wasn’t the first time some “professional” know-it-all looked down their nose at me, and it wouldn’t be the last. For example, the one I remembered after seeing Dan’s comment:

About two years ago, Rusty and I went to a Social Media Club Atlanta meeting (this was when SMC-ATL was in its first incarnation). I didn’t mention it in the post, but the guy, Mike, who I talk about in that post? I remember him saying something exasperatedly to me about how, “Well, those of us in the corporate world don’t have time for all this stuff!” I was so fucking pissed off. Look at those assumptions. I didn’t try to conceal my irritation when I told him, “Hi, I’m in the corporate world, too. Why would you assume I’m not?”

I remember he was visibly surprised. I guess he assumed I just spent all day in my pajamas, maybe had a part-time job at Starbucks. People and their stupid assumptions.

Social Media Club reflections

Thursday night, I led a discussion at the January Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic was Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo – and yes, there was a real Bingo game. I was pretty proud of the cards, if I do say so myself; although I realized yesterday I left out a good one: “folksonomy.” Rusty did the design in Photoshop and I just love it. Note the iPhone-style letters at the top, and the Beta violator as the free spot. Here is J’s winning card:

The markers, btw, are magic beans which, if planted, will sprout a series of tubes leading to Robert Scoble’s house. Hardy har har.

The first two people to arrive at the meeting were new to Social Media Club, and one of them asked me if the Buzzword Bingo thing was a joke or for real. I said, “Well, it’s all in good fun, but yes, I really did make Bingo cards.” The point of the Bingo cards was to hopefully give everyone a self-referential laugh while at the same time getting people to stop and think about some of the language we use when we talk about social media. As I explained at the beginning of the meeting, one of the biggest problems I see with these conversations (G-47!) is that people use these words but we don’t have a common understanding of what the definitions are. It’s the same problem my BlogOrlando session addressed. I’ve seen similar problems happen in feminist circles when there isn’t a commonly-accepted lexicon (e.g., words like “objectification” and “degradation” can mean any number of things to different people). If we don’t share a common definition and just assume the other person knows what we mean, we end up talking past each other.

After explaining the Bingo game, I started by reading an excerpt from Sarah Dopp’s totally completely absolutely awesome post, “Why I Write About My Life On the Internet.” Here’s the part I read:

I write about my life on the Internet because it creates a space for these connections. What else could make a complete stranger feel safe emailing me to say, “I’m queer, and I can’t tell anyone, but I wanted to tell you“?

I’ve been writing about my life on the Internet for about nine years now. I’ve learned by trial-and-error what works and what doesn’t, and I manage my presence in a way that nourishes me. Sometimes I make mistakes and have to face negative consequences, but they’ve never come anywhere close to outweighing the benefits.

…

I write about my life on the Internet because it changes the way I connect with my own experiences. In order to write down a story, I have to sort through all of the details and focus on the ones that made it significant for me. I believe our stories shape us – the way we remember something affects who we are and how we relate to the world. Writing things down empowers me to consciously decide how I want to remember something, and to me, that’s an act of personal revolution. Then, when details get echoed back to me in someone else’s words – either through a comment or another blog post – my way of seeing things gets a little bit stronger, and my voice gets a little bit more steady.

Later, in response to something a participant said, I read this part as well:

I’ve worked through some very hard stuff through blogging, and I’ve made some powerful connections in the process. People have thanked me for telling stories that opened doors in their own lives that they didn’t know they were missing out on. Other bloggers have done the same for me.

I believe in telling stories, I believe we’re more powerful when we’re connected, and I believe in telling fear to f*ck off.

I couldn’t read the hyperlinks, of course, which just goes to show part of what is great about social media – the social aspect!

What motivated me to read the second part was a guy who seemed to be having trouble with the idea that forming relationships and deep connections is a valuable thing. I tried my best to hear him out and see where he was coming from, because I really cannot conceive of not seeing that as a valuable thing. I was trying to suss out whether he was confining it to just social media, and I pointed out that this really isn’t something that’s limited to social media – it’s what humans have been doing for millenia. It’s about socializing and connecting. I truly cannot understand how someone would not see that as valuable, but I acknowledged that even though I don’t understand it, I can grant that it’s possible. (It still boggles my mind, though.)

Something I really want to get at in these conversations is that the questions being raised are not new, or unique to social media. They’re the same issues we’ve always grappled with: What, and how much, do we share with whom? How do we make that decision? What if someone finds out something about us that we don’t want to be public information? The difference now is simply that social media is giving more people the tools to speak their truths candidly, to whatever degree they want. At the meeting I mentioned the transgressive potential of social media, how it can enable members of traditionally marginalized groups to speak without a filter. I said that’s something we need to always remember, instead of just falling into the trap of replicating existing power structures online. This was met with a lot of blank stares and I was afraid people were either bored or lost, so I stopped. But I really feel passionately about this.

As I said on Joseph’s blog, it frustrated me how much of the conversation focused on business, as these conversations often do. The topic of my BlogOrlando session was directly related to the concept of “professionalism,” but the idea behind the SMC-ATL meeting was more general. Certainly, business plays a huge role; but there are other reasons people self-censor as well. I think some of those deeper reasons need to be examined, because it seems like sometimes people use business as a go-to excuse (“my boss might see!”). I do get the sense, whenever I facilitate a discussion like this, that a lot of people really do feel held back and as if there’s something putting a gag on them. I see people really yearning to break out of all that and speak their truths. I see an internal battle happening because often these same people are defending compartmentalization, using words like “professional,” and bringing up red herrings such as not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings by writing something mean about them. But I can see the struggle in their eyes. I know that sounds really corny, but it’s true.

In a new post entitled “New Brand World: What’s Your Brand?”, AV Flox says:

Image matters. How other people perceive you is as important as what you’re actually doing.

I have to take issue with this. I think there are two very different issues being conflated here. For example, you might think you’re Jesus, but everyone else knows you’re a crazy person; in that sense, I completely agree with her statement. But it’s the other issue that bothers me: that we should measure our success or failure by what other people think. Don’t you remember hearing, back in grade school: “Don’t worry about what others think of you. Be yourself.” That’s sage advice, and again, this is nothing new to social media. When people start basing their identity on external perceptions, it’s a dangerous road to go down. Surely we can all agree that basing your self-worth on something other than external validation is a good thing.

It’s also part of being a grown-up. Children and teenagers seek external validation, and teenagers in particular are in the process of forming their own identities, and as such take a lot of cues from external feedback. Or, in layman’s terms: they’re awkward and self-conscious.

But as you get older, you start to get more self-confident, and you realize other people’s perceptions don’t matter and if you spent all day worrying about them you’d be exhausted. It’s why the 18-year-olds in the locker room hide behind their towels and surreptitiously change inside their clothes while the 50-year-old women walk around stark naked without a second thought.

I have a negative reaction to all this “personal brand” business on a very fundamental level, and I think AV Flox’s statement gets to the crux of it. Saying “how other people perceive you is as important as what you’re actually doing” leaves out the essential question of, which people? I did not spend 10+ years in therapy working through this shit to see high school rehashed on the web among a bunch of adults. And yes, everyone deals with self-consciousness from time to time, or feeling discouraged by what someone said about them; to pretend we live in a vacuum where we’re not at all affected by others’ opinions would be foolish. But that is a far cry from giving precedence to what other people think over what you know. Because, as my favorite therapist once said, “You are the expert on you.”

I also got a bit flustered when, as I was talking about this very thing, Dave mentioned something about how you have to aware of how your actions and words affect other people. Well, YES, of course! I was flustered because to me that’s such an obviously, completely different thing. Yes, self-awareness is a GOOD thing and is part of what it means to have basic social skills. For example, if you identify as gay, you probably won’t explain the detailed mechanics of gay sex to your conservative Christian grandmother. Know your audience. However, that’s a very different thing than being in the closet and being afraid of your sexual orientation being “found out” because someone might be made uncomfortable. (I admit it’s a clumsy analogy but hopefully it gets the point across.)

Finally, one thing I tried to make painfully clear at the meeting was that I would never judge someone negatively for the choices they make in what information to share or not share online. That is each person’s call to make for themselves. I know I probably got repetitive with this at the meeting, but I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no misunderstanding. As I said to Nikki a while back, the point is not to mandate that people must have a certain level of openness online, but rather for all of us to respect each other’s choices and boundaries without prejudging. That means that if I don’t prejudge you because you don’t write about sex, you also don’t prejudge me because I do.

At one point Dave brought up the different (mostly inadequate) methods of restricting online content to only certain people, and he mentioned that I’ve written some password-protected blog posts. After addressing the technical side of things, I talked about how I’ve been dismissed as a hypocrite because of my password-protected posts – and why that dismissal doesn’t parse for me. Yes, I am fairly open with what I write; but that doesn’t mean I don’t have boundaries. The failure of some people to grasp this, and instead their insistence on a black-and-white view, confounds me. I mentioned that a lot of my password-protected posts were about my dad’s death. It’s simply not something that I want to be available for public consumption. That’s my choice to make. Someone else might prefer their writing on their father’s death to be available for all. That’s their choice to make. Both are equally valid.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the meeting and helped make it an interesting discussion. People weren’t talking much at the beginning and I was worried the topic was a flop. But eventually people got warmed up and the discussion really got going. I wish I could’ve stayed all night to talk about it! These are not questions that have easy yes or no answers or problems that can be solved and done away with; we’ll continue to deal with this stuff as social media trends evolve, just like we’ve been dealing with it forever.

Wednesday

Lots of things on my mind… I suppose I’ll just start writing and keep on until I’m too tired to type. And no proofreading!

~*~

In the “HOLY SHIT I’M AN ADULT” department, Rusty and I put an offer in on a house yesterday. It’s the first one pictured in this post. I haven’t blogged or Twittered about it much because I don’t want to jinx anything, and because I’m freaking out a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is the right decision and all that jazz; but it’s a BIG decision, and a major commitment. Signing a lease is one thing but getting a mortgage, that’s an entirely different level of “you better know what you’re getting into.” It looks like everything is going to work out w/ this house, but still, I appreciate any and all crossed fingers. The next few weeks will be a flurry of activity leading up to closing, and I intend to enjoy all of it! Then, after closing, there will be a flurry of activity leading up to moving in. Followed by a flurry of activity leading up to having the place looking decent enough for a housewarming party!

Priorities before closing: home inspection and termite inspection (duh); figuring out where the furnace is.

Priorities after closing: Security system; Orkin super-dousing because I don’t play around with roaches; personal pole studio; many bird feeders in the backyard.

A REQUEST: Please do not offer any unsolicited real estate “advice” in the comments!

~*~

I love Rachel Maddow. She and Suze Orman are two of my heroes. Initially I found Suze Orman annoying, but that was before I’d ever listened to anything she said – I just thought she was annoying because she seemed to shout so much. Then I realized the shouting is part of what makes her awesome. But, back to Rachel Maddow. How freakin’ cool is she?? However, I don’t like how in this New York Magazine article she says “I’m not very pretty.” Why the self-deprecation? No, she doesn’t conform to the general media-dictated ‘beauty standard’ for women, but so what? There’s no need to cast that as her not being pretty. It really bothers me. She is pretty, but it bugs me that there’s any discussion of it at all, honestly; when would you see a male pundit’s looks being such an issue?

~*~

I love love love this post at Shakesville, about Congress finally switching to gender neutral language. What is absolutely not surprising, of course, is the reaction to this news from a hell of a lot of people – whining that it’s “not important” and the feminists have their hair on fire again, blah blah. This is a perfect example of how privilege works. Inevitably, in every “conversation” like this, some dude will pipe up and say how there’s not some conspiracy against women and why don’t we feminists just shut up already, it’s just language, get over it. Well, first of all, I’m not fooled by anyone trying to lecture me on the way language works – I’ll bust out the learnin’ that earned me my linguistics degree any day of the week. But the main point is: no, OF COURSE there’s not a conspiracy – THAT’S THE POINT. No one is sitting in a smoke-filled room, rubbing their hands together maniacally as they devise ways to oppress women through grammatical rules. No one “means anything by it.” Everytime someone poses this as an “argument” it just makes me roll my eyes, because it’s like hello, you have just PROVEN THE POINT. The question of intent does not figure into this. The fact that it’s normalized, the default, we just accept it, nobody “means anything” by any of it – that is the problem! I can’t tell you how sick I am of people trying to argue intent against someone pointing out privilege in action. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall because they don’t seem to realize that LACK OF INTENT is the point!! If I hear one more person talk about how someone didn’t mean something maliciously, I’m just going to… well, I don’t know what. Beat my head against a brick wall?

Brief note about Old English: the commenter at the Shakesville thread who mentioned wyf and wer as the Old English words for woman and man, and man as the Old English word for human, is correct. The Old English word wyfman, which became woman, literally meant “female person.”

Also, I love the commenter who mentions how you’ll see exactly how big of a deal male-as-unmarked-case language is when you switch the genders and start using “she” as a general-purpose pronoun instead of “he.” It will blow some people’s minds, and some will get REALLY fucking hostile about it. The Regender tool is also a really interesting way of demonstrating how gender stereotypes are encoded in our language.

See also X: A Fabulous Child’s Story. Thanks to Catherine for showing me her original 1970s copy of the book; the illustrations are wonderful!

~*~

As I mentioned yesterday, Caroline has been doing a bang-up job with the UK prostitution law news. I have briefly glanced at the F-Word thread and even left a few comments at the Feministe thread, but for the most part unfortunately I haven’t had time to participate or do much blogging of my own on the issue. But from what I saw at the F-Word thread, it’s all the same bullshit “arguments” that give me a pounding headache. Kudos to Caroline, Ren, Natalia, and others for fighting the good fight; I’ll be back at it once I have some time, I promise. Even though these conversations with the antis feel SO repetitive, I believe it is extremely important to keep having them, because people’s lives are at stake, and if we don’t speak, then the people in power will continue to actively and passively commit violence against sex workers. Being uncomfortable or annoyed is not a justification for permanently disengaging from these issues. Absolutely, everyone must take breaks, because it is vitally important that we take care of ourselves. But that’s why it’s crucial to have many, many people involved in the sex workers’ rights movement, so that there’s always someone there to speak, and so that everyone can properly care for themselves.

Fundamentally, I just don’t get it, with these “arguments.” At the F-Word, for example – how much clearer could Caroline be? It’s not about whether you think sex work is right or wrong. It’s not about how it’s constructed in our society or why it exists or where it comes from. It’s not about wondering whether sex work would still be around after The Revolution. It’s not about discussions of “normalizing” prostitution, questions of whether sex workers can choose their work, debates about what exactly is being sold. IT IS ABOUT SAFETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This should not be a source of debate. Feminists should be united on this, completely. It should be a foregone conclusion. That the conversation always drifts back to ideology, what prostitution “means” and that kind of thing, really disgusts me and astounds me. And this constant conflating of sex work and trafficking? STOP, ALREADY!!! This is what Sex in the Public Square held a week-long forum to address, but I guess most of the antis didn’t bother to read that, now did they. The way trafficking is ALWAYS brought into these discussions, such an obvious red herring but one that always leads to derailment, just floors me.

Sigh… Ren, I’m going to need another Typical file.

~*~

To say this essay by Latoya of Racialicious is powerful would be an insulting understatement. It’s entitled “The Not Rape Epidemic” and is the original version of the essay which appears in the Yes Means Yes! anthology. She has a trigger warning on it, so be aware of that if you’ll be clicking through.

And you certainly should click through, because I think this essay is a must-read, especially for men. The essay resonated with me on a very deep level, to a degree that I feel I can’t articulate. Women experience this shit all the time and most of us don’t say anything – because we know from experience that if we do, it won’t help and will likely hurt. One time a male friend remarked that he couldn’t really see a mutual female friend the same way after learning she’d been raped; I was so bothered by his statement that I said nothing. What I was thinking was, if you truly knew how many of your female friends and acquaintances had experienced sexual assault, you wouldn’t be speaking to most of them if you have such a problem with “seeing them the same way.” Men don’t realize how prevalent this is. They might hear the 1 in 4 stat but often I don’t think it really registers on a “yes, this has happened to someone I know” level.

I want to write more about Latoya’s essay but I can’t find the words. What I want to say about it is beyond words.

~*~

Tomorrow night I’m leading the Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic is “Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo.” You can RSVP on Facebook or Upcoming – or just show up! (Though RSVPing is always nice.) Here are some links I’ll be using for reference material, if you want to read up ahead of time. There won’t be a quiz but there will be a Bingo game, with an appropriately self-referential prize.

• Sarah Dopp: Why I Write About My Life On the Internet
• Nelson “Nelz” Carpentier: The Real Nelz
• Penelope Trunk: Good blogging is simple: Write good posts (and be thankful)
• AV Flox: Hiring the Information Generation
• Caroline McCarthy: What I don’t get about all this hullaballoo over personal branding

And finally this gem from Laura’s LiveJournal, which is short enough that I can just post the whole thing. When I put the link in my browser it wanted me to log in, so I don’t know if the post was friends-locked or what, so I’m not linking; but I doubt she’ll mind me sharing this chunk of wisdom…

Just an observation from Twitter

Robert Scoble is a self-promotion machine. It gets tiresome.

I’m sorry, but I am about to un-follow ever media marketing PR link-spamming mongol because I am sick of their shit. The only topic more boring is…oh, I can’t think of any topic more boring.

That is all.

Heh.

I’m excited about the meeting, but also a little nervous! Please come out and help make it an interesting discussion. (It’s all in good fun, so I hope no one gets pissy about the words on the Bingo card.) Here’s the description again:

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

• Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
• What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
• Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
• Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

Note: this is what a dauber is.

~*~

And that’s a wrap. I’m getting sleepy, so it’s time for bed. Rusty and I are getting up a little earlier than usual tomorrow so we can go over to our potential new house and see what the traffic on Moreland is like at the usual time when we head to work. If we have to adjust our schedule to account for it, I don’t mind; I actually like getting to the office early. We just want to be aware!

This post is going to have a million tags.

Social Media Club ATL January meeting

One week from today, I’ll be here; will you? (note: link is a Facebook page)

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

• Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
• What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
• Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
• Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

If you would like to add to the topics or join Amber in a panel format – please contact Peter or Tessa about your interest.

January sponsors needed! Please contact us if you can offer event food and beverage support.

Like the description says, if you’re interested in doing a panel-ish format, get in touch w/ Tessa or Peter (or me!) in the next day or two.

Quick social media thoughts

I’ve just come from the December Social Media Club Atlanta meeting and am feeling both discouraged and motivated at the same time. Discouraged because social media has reached that tipping point where people are just trying to cash in on it but losing the original spirit of what it’s all about (and those same people scoffed at it 2, 3 years ago – and yes, I have specific individuals in mind), and because yet again tonight some dude tried to tell me I’m “too open” online and “guys are jerks.” Hello, how is this my problem or my responsibility?? As for blogging losing its original spirit, see also Cecily and Tiffany. And me, over and over again.

But I’m also motivated, because I like encouraging people to think about things, really examine them. That’s why I enjoyed my BlogOrlando session so much. I could really (but not literally!) see the wheels turning in some people’s heads. Every time someone would use a buzzword, I’d stop and say, “Let’s define what we mean by that.” Because without a common understanding of definitions, there’s no way to have a productive conversation. And too many people use buzzwords as verbal shortcuts, effectively saying nothing. And there were so many buzzwords tonight. I lost count at some point. But I talked with Tessa, and she’s open to the idea of me leading a meeting and focusing on this. People really need to deconstruct some of the stuff they say. It’s the same reason I asked the question tonight about, sure we all sit here and talk about monetizing and tools that integrate with Twitter and etc. etc., but really, would you WANT your Twitter stream to be full of that? You, as a person, who uses it on a day to day basis – not as the figurehead of a company or god forbid a “social media expert.”

I’m just dashing this off before bed, so I’m sure it doesn’t make much sense, particularly if you weren’t at the meeting tonight. But I hope to be able to write more tomorrow or this weekend.