Ellen: So October has come and gone and we need to explain why we didn’t jump up and down hollering that it was our First Blog Anniversary.
Erin: Because, really, we are those type of girls. And if you look over at the Archives it appears that we started in October 2011.
Ellen: But that, while not exactly a liar, liar pants on fire moment is not really accurate either.
Erin: The switch really got flipped . . .
Ellen: Let’s be clear. We really don’t know how the blog went live. Bless you for your help, Colleen.
Erin: Alright then, our blog was available for perusal on January 11, 2012 at 5:47pm. It was our Blaunch — Blog + Launch!
Ellen: For the last time that sounds like a cat puking. The post we wrote about it was “Happy BLirth-Day.”
Erin: What started in October was us trying to get our idea going.
Ellen: Really. I’ll save you a trip to the Archives to prove our point. This is ALL we had going on in October 2011.
Erin: That was it. For the entire month.
Ellen: But that content took us about 5 hours to figure out how to load. I thought the picture resizing was going to kill me.
Erin: And those three comments? They were made in JANUARY and FEBRUARY. We had so little content on the blog, that it did not take people interested in our BLaunch much time to run through all of it.
Ellen: So in actuality we are around the nine-ish month mark. And I totally noticed that you said BLaunch.
Erin: Whatever. But still, we are a little fresh at this and still finding our groove. But what I remember most vividly is our ridiculous notion that we were going to write these posts and people would just flock to read them.
Ellen: Not so much. Without a lot of tweeting, status updating, and blog visiting, your precious word gems thud like trees falling in the forest with no one to hear.
Erin: A huge part of blogging is working the social side, finding your niche, gaining your audience.
Ellen: You know, starting to blog felt a little like starting at a new school . . .
Erin: A feeling like you’re the new kid in the cafeteria holding your tray, not knowing where to sit, or what the unwritten rules are. Sooo, to celebrate our Blogiversary 0.75, let us regale you with . . .
Ways Starting to Blog is Like Starting Middle School
1. You begin clueless and self-conscious. You are not even sure how to find blogs you want to read, let alone find people who will want to be your friends, we mean readers. You feel lost and untethered. You wonder if you have on the “right” shoes and blog banner. Does this font make us look fat?
2. There are clubs to join! Bloggers love to join circles and tribes. You find like-minded bloggers and have great things to read. Your new friends visit your blog. It feels like popularity. But then you realize all of your time is being taken up by the same people. Newcomers aren’t feeling so welcome to your blog because you’re twisting your work to fit in. Imagine us trying to fit in with the goths. We just don’t have the lank hair for it. Although we are rockin’ some epic under eye circles.
3. Go to parties! Meet new people! There are link-ups and blog hops where you can add your post to a list of other blogs. You conga line from blog to blog mingling and reading. There is dancing and laughing. Everything is great until you forget to do your homework. You’ve been so busy eating Cheez-its with the blogarazzi that you didn’t get your homework done. You have no blog post for next week. And report cards are coming out: New pageviews – 5. Your party rockers are nowhere to be found. All reading and no content means you’re a grounded blogger. Now you have to do extra credit to catch up. In blogging terms, a nice viral meme would save the day.
“Tombstone Credit”
4. There are popularity contests! There are votes to be had: Funniest Blog! Top 25 Squirrel Blogs! Best Use of Witty Caption Asking People To Follow! You get sucked into begging everyone for votes until no one is returning your calls, they are blocking you on Facebook, and they nominate Sisterhood of the Irascible Moms for Homecoming Queen out of spite. But then you discover you can make your own lists and groups and that is cool until you get left off of one and are consigned to sit with Polly Pintersuck at lunch, drowning your sorrows in your Capri Sun.
5. Then there are the haters. These are the more energetic cousins of the leaver-outers. They steal your tofu wrap, write about you on the bathroom wall, AND tape a “Kick Me” sign to your back. No wait, they just bomb your Facebook wall, take a dump in your comments, and send you accusatory emails and tweets. If you’re lucky, they organize a cyber-gang against you, too. “They hate ya, cuz they ain’t ya.” Either that or they are trying to increase traffic to their blogs.
♦
But overall, blogging is a blast. The good definitely outweighs the drudge that can sometimes sprout from cyber-cohabitation. And our blogger friends? They are some of the smartest, funniest, most fun-loving people you would ever hope to meet in cyberspace or Colonel Leghorn Middle School. We’ll take you at our lunch table any time. And by our lunch table, we mean join in our “Tombstone Credit” meme!
Do you feel like you never receive credit for something you constantly do that makes this world a better place to be? Of course you do! Feel free to copy our photo and add your own caption. Be clever! Put it on our Facebook Wall (make sure to “Like” us while you’re there.), then put it on our Pinterest Board. We’ll show you all kinds of love. But be original or we’ll totally trash you to the chess team instead.
