This panel, Next Level Naked, is a continuation of last year's "How to Get Naked" at BlogHer and "We Got Naked, Now What?" at SXSWi.
[I missed the very beginning.]
Politics. Lauren (founder of Feministe. Taken more seriously in political blogosphere when people read her as a man. She is blogging under a male persona now as an experiment.
SJ of I, Asshole. People would email me "Hey, man with a dick. Hey, dude." Thought I had been blogging so much about my vagina. And there was a point where I almost ran with that and grew the dick.
Jory: I appreciate that. What are some strategies for taking it to that level...
Mecca Ibrahim - Annie Mole - because I blog about what's considered to be a male subject people assume I'm a man - like trains and underground. But also because it's a an- subject, I don't know if you know the term.
Audience: put hearts over your "i"s *laughter*
Denise: I have a question from the chat room. from Nerd's Eye View. Accused of being a man? Why accused? Why should being a man be something negative?
Lauren It's an experiment.
Mecca: It shouldn't matter what gender you are...
Denise: Maybe by blogging as a man you're giving yourself the possibility of your real voice.
Lauren: When I started Feministe it was one thing; now it's been not about getting naked, it's been about putting my clothes back on. A professional voice. Somone in the identity panel said she feels like she has to put her suit on when she's blogging. There's so many things I have to leave out now that I have a male persona. . .
Phil: (?) when you start talking about raising kids, people assume you're female. As a father who raise three children on my own... would people assume I'm female!?
Jory: I think we probably agree on that. Let's shift and talk about expectations in a different way. Have you felt pressure in your blog to write a certrain way?
Maryam: Yes!
Jory: Can you elaborate?
Maryam: I'm the conference wife. People would talk to me and say, "Hey, I want to link to you but you don't have a blog." And then Robert kept saying "You should have a blog!" And then I started blogging and the first thing that happened was Robert said "You should stop blogging!" And people would hug me who didn't know me, because they loved what Robert wrote about me. And so I wanted to have my own voice. ... Blogging our fights.
Jory ...
Maryam: I love Robert to death, but sometimes I really love him to death! *laughter* So I try to restrain myself from blogging angry, because I know his co-workers, family, his boss, will read it the next day and I won't necessarily feel that way tomorrow. So I write but I don't hit publish.
Nicole Simon: I was one of the people saying have a blog because you're so much more fun than Robert. *laughter *
Robert: It's true.
Nicole: And she's more interesting and was an English major. But the unfair thing was people trying to bring fights to Maryam's blog that they couldn't do on Robert's blog.
Jory: So, flaming.
Maryam: Yes, there were times I would get flamed. And also about Iran. And it's my blog and . . .
Rina from Surrender Dorothy. Stuff that you wanted to talk about that you didn't expect to talk about. I started blogging about my daughter but now want to write about how we raise children. Starting in one direction and changing.
Mecca: Very much so with the Underground. I blog about fashion victims, I blog about funny drivers' announcements and pigeons on the tube. But with the bombing the whole nature of the underground changed and I was blogging about death, and terrorism, and suspicion, and race, and politics. And I didn't want to blog about them but that's what it turned into, from a funny happy safe place, to a place of suspicion. I know you think that London is a place of reserve, but not so much as you think. And gradually I'm back to the light fun tone. One situation, I'm not so open with my personal view, and I read a poem dedicated to the victims, celebrating their diversity... and this poem described how different they all were. And I burst into tears. I hadn't cried beforehand about the bombing.
Jory: People all weekend have been talking about integrating more or less emotion into their blogs. How can you make these identity shifts? Maybe it's not about keeping your audience.
Lori Edison. I blog with Debbie Notkin - our blog is Body Impolitic and it's a body image blog. What I've noticed as the year progresses, as we're talking about certain things there are certain things that come up from my personal life that I feel a moral imperative to incorporate into the blog because they relate so strongly to what we blog and care about. What happens inside you, when more and more personal parts of you become exposed in a blog? And there's this huge audience of people who know you more and more intimately? Every now and then I talk about things that except in the context of our work I would never talk about in public.
Lauren: It's changed now that I have a new persona. You either trust the universe or you don't. And if I put stuff out there and really bad stuff happened than I'd quit. And there were things that I'd rather not repeat. But mostly it was all very good and I linked with people I never ever would have met before. My mom was bitching about my coming out here and she was worried that the person I was staying with was a serial killer. And I said, "Oh no mom I know him!". But, really, I don't! And then I figured oh well, if I die at least everybody will blog about it. *audience laughter*
Woman from "It's not about yourself" blog. Wall Street Journal... business coach guy... I'd never even been in a cubicle. My father of all people called me up and said, "What are you doing? This is crazy! This isn't even you!" The WSJ guy picked me for the Blogwatch because of who I am and what I write about, not because of my expert status. I even apologized to my readers for the brain fart. *laughter* I'm ready to strip down another level. And start talking about myself and my own process. I heard someone here say she doesn't want to hear people's chatter. But stay true to yourself. If it's you, do it. But if it is, then push yourself, strip down another layer. I had 3 people unsubscribe from me last night and thought "AAaaa!"
Kathy Brooks Guidewireconnection.com podcast. Fun stuff is at otherthanthat.com. I think transparency is great. Be honest. What about social disinhibition in the blogosphere? People sharing stuff that maybe isn't okay. Being nasty on the internet, hiding behind anonymity? Being socially responsible and civilized.
Maryam: My 15 year old niece read my blog, and my 70 year old father in law. I won't write anything that I won't say face to face.
Lauren: My mother did read feministe so I always kept it clean enough. I enjoy a little flame war, it stirs things up, it gets people looking. What I think it untouchable is people's kids. Keep out of that.
Mecca: I know for a fact that the London Underground reads my blog every day. So I have to be careful what I say. I have a duty to my audience to give an honest story. Everything I blog about them I try to be fair. Though I've said very negative things at times they have never told me to stop. Flames and comments, yes. I got really personally offended and was like, "How dare you disagree with me in public!" Which is a really silly thing to think. Now I welcome disagreement. I deal with them a lot better than I used to.
Jory: What about Yahoo.
Mecca: I think because I blog for Yahoo as myself, there isn't this tension. I blog about social networking products for Europe. I try to sometimes put a human voice in it. But a lot of the time I have to blog about product stuff or outages or something new. They are aware anyway that a lot of people at Yahoo blog personally.
Heather: I write about anything I want on my personal blog. I was writing from my point of view about a personal situation. I ended up taking the post down. I was trying to express myself and thought really hard about what I was writing and from my point of view and not accusatory. But I got a horrible negative reaction. I really identify with putting your clothes back on. I had a huge feeling of writers' block. And I thought, "if I write from my authentic self, I'm going to be attacked personally."
Jory: Keeping it fresh. As a writer, I have a personal reckoning with my writing about once a year. The three of you have had things that renewed your writing. What about burnout?
Mecca: Well obviously more me it was a horrific thing that I would not have wished for. And it became very intense. But I felt a sort of responsibility and felt the audience was expecting something of me. I'd take a break. And then, people would say "Hey, why don't you blog again?!" which was nice, and people are spurring you on in the comments because they don't want you to stop. Your readers come back with renewed interest and vigor.
Maryam: There is pressure, you read other bloggers who inspire you, you look up to. I think about [Jen] and how honest and funny she is. And about Robert who is so passionate about writing. And then I think, "God, I can't write!" and then I talk to my friends. And it's about being genuine in your voice. It's the way you say your story, not the story itself, it's the storytelling. I would like to hear from all of you what does naked mean to you and what . . .
Debbie Notkin: That takes me back to what I wanted to say earlier to this woman back here. About social disinhibition and anonymity. Nasty anonymous letters are as old as writing. And social disinhibition is about Ann Coulter and nasty people like that. You cannot be genuine if you're hiding who you are.
Amy Garahn: from contentious.com At last year's naked session I came out as polyamorous and people are okay with it except for colleagues who said "you're committing professional suicide!" So I did a survey. And the vast majority didn't care about that. I started a personal blog but I burned out on it. It's not something I want to blog about. I go to forums. And I go to blog about it and I freeze. Maybe a blog isn't always the best way to go about it. I have a link on contentious.com to that survey, interesting results because people freaked out much more about religion.
Melissa Gira: The idea of safe space. We have responsibility to our readers to represent ourselves authentically but also to create safe space in our comments for them. I have some distaste for that term from years of working in rape crisis - "don't talk about sex, don't talk about being queer, this is a safe space." It is a term used against women.
Lauren: I expect to be treated with repsect and to treat others with respect, responsibly . And it's hard to do so without censoring points of view.
Mecca: I don't have a comment policy. Disagreements in comments. Sometimes people air differences and work them out offline later and let me know. You do have some responsibility to your commenters that they don't get attacked...
Nabil at nadyalec.com i want to ask Maryam about getting flamed about Iran. There were sort of pre-blogs if you googled for queer and Arab, and with 9/11 I got a lot of hatemail. It didn't have to do with particular posts but just flaming based on the word "Arab". Just yesterday about what was going on in Lebanon. I wondered if anybody has... the stuff with the Middle East and terrorism that are a little more intense than getting called a slut or seomthing. When you realize you're going to get called sandn****r or anti-semitic.
Maryam: I am from Iran and I have family in Iran. For people who share the same last name and live there and I don't want to get them in trouble. And there are times when I just can't shut up. And I get a lot of support and yet I also get flamed. I take those comments down. I worry a lot about it. I feel for you. And it just freaks me. I keep it a short post and to the point as possible.
Mecca: I think what was said before that you're going to get these comments in real life anyway and the Internet just makes it easier. Another London blogger who was on one of the trains that got blown up. She was totally naked about the fear and terror and solidarityy afterwards. And sometimes she gets the most horrible people commenting. I'm speechless sometimes at the comments people make on her blog.
Lauren: The use of filters is a really smart thing to do. But they're useful especially in sex blogs. I use a Wordpress thing on Feministe so you make one comment, are approved and then you're in. It reduces the drive-by commenting.
Shuna. Eggbeater, a food blogger. Comment. I'm really interested in this... My industry is very straight and male-dominated. Thought I don't identify 100% as female. Which is interesting at this conference which is geared towards the girly straight girl. But a lot of my friends have wanted to me to address that I've found a way, not grammatically correct of course, to identify myself as dual gendered. So it's interesting to me that you've chosen to blog as specifically male. People take my photo and how I write to decide my gender for me. I'm interested in this concept that the gender.... Me personally I feel we choose our gender, maybe that's just me. I'm going to go home and try to blog about the gender that I have chosen. So I want to thank everybody here. *audience applause*
Halley Suitt: I have a blog called "Halley's Comment" with no comments. It's okay to not have comments. I get tons of emails from people saying please blog about this, and I'd rather, if you read me and there's some response, blog about it! I don't have time to maintain the comments. Sometimes comments are lazy and too easy. Put the time in and create a blog and write your opinions! I'm kind of an anti-comment person.
Jory: It comes to feeling responsible to your audience. Where do you set your limit? Comments is one way, content is another.
Maryam: I love comments! I respond to every single comment! Unless they're calling me a slut and then I just delete them. *laughter*
Jory: is it a lot of trouble...
Maryam: They have to go through a huge process to register to comment. So I owe them.
Lauren: There was a time when my cat got sick and I had no money... And someone said, "put a Paypal account up". And in a couple of hours I had a couple of hundred bucks. I spent that night in my office bawling. I couldn't believe it. People have offered resources, money, job references even, my god!
Mecca: Yes I feel a responsibility to my readers and to blog about what was going on when the bombing happened. And I took the responsibility to blog on a half-hourly basis from 7 in the morning till 10 at night. News from the street, an ordinary person's reaction to the situation. How to deal, how people were trying to get home. Remember, 3 million people use the underground every day. It was an awful logistical problem. A lot of comments from around the world. It was quite humbling, the generosity, and the comments... My readers actually send me prizes to give away for quizzes, it's so sweet, and nothing can match the pleasure from that...
Jory: Lauren, you never knew how popular your blog was until you checked stats. How does popularity affect you?
Lauren: It was the "where are the women bloggers" thing. And we started talking about how to push up the people who were almost there. But finally it got sad obsessive and I decided to stop. I thought, "What am I doing!" So I stopped! And then somebody emailed me later that I was at like, 98. And then I was like "Woooo!" But then I was there and, so now what? It was this invisible growth I didn't realize was happening. That was a pressure it was difficult to respond to. There was a level of visibility I hadn't exepcted and I felt very exposed. The more out there I got the more I pulled away from staying personal.
Maryam: It's the pressure of staying interesting. The first day Dave Winer linked to me and 3000 people came. And what if they come and don't like it? What if they like and what if I can't keep being interesting! Day after day after day! So I call my husband and say, "Do something funny, I want to write about it!" *laughter* But if you create a situation are you being dishonest?
Robert: We compete...
Jory: (pointedly) Did you want to say something Robert?
Robert: We compete for stories! We race into the house and maybe I get to the keyboard first!
Miriam: That's how our life is!
Jory: Quote: "he always scoops your news and takes the fun out of it for you. ... " Jory reads Maryam's blog entry about how everyone knew Robert was leaving Microsoft. *everyone laughs*
Leah Jones, Accidentally Jewish. It became my blog about converting to be a Jew. I used to be a travel blogger. I became a political blog. I have commmenters who read friends of my mom and they politically flame me about Israel. It's a choice that affects children I don't have yet. And now I got a job at Edelman PR from this personal blog. It's been a wild ride these last few months.
Jory: Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because, wow.
Leah Jones: I'm writing about the second level learning. And I feel I'm trying to wrap my brain around 4000 years of history. I feel a responsibility and I'm okay with saying I don't know. I link to other bloggers who know more, to carnivals which I might not agree with, but they are ways for my readers to learn more. And, I have this job now, which, do I have to censor myself? But they hired me because of the blog, so why should I change it? And of course I still blog about my dates or whatever. I think it's okay as a blogger to say "I don't know, but here's what I'm reading about it."
Nicole Simon: I'm getting asked to answer how Germany thinks about things. I don't know, I don't know about politics, I write about podcasting. Stopping blogging, but we subscribed to the feed. We knew in 15 minutes this guy had started blogging again. So, make your readers subscribe to your feed.
Guy in front: The last couple of comments. When things get real personal. Where my readership is a tight social group, all local, all my friends. And one of us committed suicide. And no one is talking about how she died. People talk about it among themselves. But there's no [public] conversation. So I need to start a blog called, "Our friend committed suicide."
Jory: What are the elephants in the room?
Maryam: For me, parenting.
Lauren: I've written about things that have been really hard and crappy. I'm not sure how that would change if my readers all were local. I lost 3 friends and 2 family members in a short space, and 3 of them were suicide. I had to pull away and take a break. When my grandmother passed away, I felt free to talk about it, in a short-lived blog space. I wish I'd saved it but I was stupid and deleted the whole blog.
Jory: Mecca, any elephants, limits for you?
Mecca: I think because I don't blog so personally I have not too many areas that are off-limits. I didn't want to blog too much about the guy who was shot by the police when he was suspected of being a terrorist. Then, the one-year anniversary of the bombing, I just invited my readers to talk about it. You can make the shortest and most objective post you can, and your readers welcome the opportunity for the space to talk about it. Not priming them about how to think but they can think for themselves
Lauren: That's a really really good way to open up readers on a difficult subject.
Robert: I wrote about my mom dying. And got over my fear of writing about non-tech stuff. A journalist who works for Al-Jazeera wishes she had the opportunity to go through it, she wasn't there when her dad died. That kind of human connection was very powerful and I was very happy that I shared that out.
Jory: Why do you think people were so okay when you opened it up?
Robert: I'm not sure, I think people were happy to share... People had their own experiences waiting in the ICU, when you open yourself up, you don't know what to expect... My book co-author said he went through that, 2 weeks in a hosptal room alone with no community, no wireless, no one.
Jeannie: Blogging since 2001. Since ... there was a hole you could drive a truck through. There was all this goofy stuff about me and my husband. Fun place to hear about wacky stuff that Jeannie's done. Then our relationship fell apart. Literally 5 posts before we were fun and wacky. And suddenly... everyone wondering, why is Jeannie freaking out? And it was two things. Writers block of "if you don't have anything else don't say anything at all" And also the assumptions of what I was writing about. And then the few times I did write about it, like fyi, divorce really sucks. And then I would write that and then .. nothing... I'd love a comment or a hug. I don't know if I freaked them all out. But then in person, or in email, they'd come to me. Years later I can finally post anything I want and can casually mention him without this drama that i impose or that other people impose.
Robert interrupts to say that his exwife just started blogging.
Jen: I'm Jen (Zug?) and i started blogging to talk about my stepfather who was dying of cancer. Grief. He died when I was 7 months pregnant. Post partum depression. Just in the last couple of months I'm comin out of that. I write really well when I'm depressed. *audience laughter* It's not like it's an audience captivation thing because it's like my 40 friends. But I have to find something else to talk about. [Paraphrase of what I missed: It's an artistic and writerly pressure, not a market pressure].
Jory: I can relate to that actually.
Farah: Hi my name is Farah, I'm from Saudi arabia and my blog is Farah's Sowaleef. I find myself representative of my country not myself. And other Saudis will write to me if I'm negative, and be mad... I'm writing in English.... If I say something positive then other people jump all over it and call me a princess... [I can relate a lot to what Accidentally Jewish said earlier about pressure.]
Woman in the back: Divorce - my blog started as an academic blog. And then I found out all of his family was reading my blog. The only defense I had was not to say anything about him, ever at all. My in-laws told me that they'd print it all out and give it to my kids when they got older.
Jory: Is it worth not speaking? Or speaking as somone else? I hope we've delved a little ways into that.
Lauren: I had a previous blog brought into a custody case with my son. And I just decided there were some things that could not be talked about. There were things you could argue for. If you can get in front of a judge, and defend why you were writing about this, then, yes, they'll decide for you. But there are some things, better not.
Mecca: You may very much regret them afterwards and the Internet has this horrible way of creeping up on you when you least expect it.
Maryam: Personally to me naked people are not that attractive. And covering up a little so your readers can use a little imagination.
*laughter*