I’ve been thinking a fair bit about Internet stuff and how it affects my day to day life. Some things have happened in the last few months that shook me up and made me intensely annoyed and while I was in the middle of it, my family was getting the brunt of my grumpiness.
I was laying in bed one night and finally thought ‘Fuck it. What does it matter anyway? It doesn’t affect how I live my life.’
Suddenly, I was able to let it go. Sure, I was frustrated and angry and that comes and goes still, but what happens on the Internet doesn’t change my life. It’s like an alternate reality working online sometimes.
I’ve been featured in the upcoming “Power Moms” book and I am thrilled to bits about it. But I’m still going to the supermarket and buying no-name bread and the cheapest cheese blocks that I can find. I’m still changing multiple nappies a day, and cooking dinner and washing dishes. I still have to do laundry and take my autistic son to therapy and sometimes, it feels like the Internet isn’t real.
I mentioned to a school mum the other day that I’d been to Melbourne recently for “work” and of course, the first question asked is ‘what do you do?’
Explaining blogging is hard, for me. Somehow “I write things on the Internet and get sent free stuff a lot” doesn’t explain what I do.
To someone who isn’t part of the blogging world, how do you explain why companies are bending over backwards to get backing from mumbloggers? Or why a PR company would host a brand event and send 50 mothers home with more freebies than they could carry. How do you explain internet famous to someone who doesn’t run in our circles? Does the average person on the street know who Heather Armstrong is and why she has so much clout?
Is this even important?
I spend a lot of time online, with the thought to making money from it one day. One day I’m going to get paid to do this, the thing that I love. One day it will all come together and I’ll know how to answer the ‘what do you do?’ question.
Until then, I get to go to bed at the end of the day, knowing that whatever drama I’ve been witness to online, whatever names I’ve been called and whoever has linked to me, that stuff isn’t my reality. It doesn’t change my daily life, or make me a better or worse person.
Work relationships aren’t generally real life either. You’ll get where you’re intending to go in part because you know that. Thanks for the reminder.
You’re welcome 🙂 It’s sort of a contrived situation sometimes, isn’t it?
I’ve come to realise that, though I adore the internet, I need to spend less time on it, and more time living, and creating, and generally getting messy. It’s much more fun! (though more of a pain to clean up… sometimes!) xx
I love the Internet too, but my ability to turn it off and walk away is valuable. That said, I’m not going to give it up!
I woke up this morning to find Science@home had been hacked. An incredibly scary discovery, that someone else was crawling around in my domain (literally). But it’s been an interesting experience – I still got the girls to school, I will still be teaching this afternoon and getting dinner, but it all feels slightly unreal because part of me is being held to ransom.
Hacking is my worst nightmare. I hope you get it sorted, and soon. xx
Glad to hear that Veronica. Providing you are doing no harm you should never worry what other people think. By all means seek other ideas, solutions, opinions but when push comes to shove it’s your life, warts and all, and how you chose to live it is just that – your choice. Ditto your own opinions on any given subject, I do not always agree with every word you put out but that’s okay, the world would be a bloody boring place if we all thought and did exactly the same 😉
It would definitely be boring!
Yeah, I know what you mean in most ways, but I guess I’d say it does have reality in one area, and that is in the capacity that people have on the Internet to injure others. I know this is just an extrapolation of meat-world power relationships but my experience is that many people behave far more hurtfully and offensively online than they ever would IRL, even when not anonymised. (My partner calls this “being brave behind glass”).
Sure, it doesn’t usually change what we have to do day-to-day or the challenges we face behind the screen, and being able to recognise that and walk away is a great thing, but not everyone has the ability to do it. I’ve seen people’s mental health and stability wrecked by online crises, with knock-on effects for everyone in their lives, and that does seem like a pretty “real” outcome to me.
My approach to my online life tries to be cognisant of this risk, as well and maintaining a walk-away approach like yours. But I tread warily. Here be dragons…
I agree, exactly. Take away the element of face-to-face and it can get nasty, fast. I love the Internet, but equally, I love that I can turn it off – even if sometimes it’s like a trainwreck and I can’t look away (Total Art Soul anyone?) or switch off.
Here be dragons indeed.
I think that a lot of the confusion of blogging comes from the fact that people don’t seem to take it very seriously still, even though it’s fast over-taking other forms of media as the first port of call.The internet is (dare I say it), realistically, becoming the new “mainstream” media. Just look at it like this: You know more about the internet than those women and in 10 years they will be left behind because they haven’t bothered to keep up with the times and the technology.
Does any of that makes ense? I am trying to calm and reassure… honest.
Blogging is fast becoming the new way to find out information and opinion is the new black it seems.
So who is Heather Armstrong then?
Heather Armstrong writes Dooce – a mummyblogger with a cult like following. http://dooce.com
And a spin-off cable TV spot in the US, a six-figure income, and a business that employs her husband and an assistant fulltime. Not small taters.
life tramps on regardless………..
Exactly!
I found it easier to explain blogging at work when I said it was similar to writing a diary, but doing it online and letting the world read it.
I’m also spending less time here now and reading real books more.
I’m reading more too, and writing less. I’m calling it “research” – although how much trashy novels constitute research, I’m not sure.
What makes me laugh is those women that play games on Facebook incessantly and post ‘inspirational’ quotes as their status… they would be the first to mock me if they knew about my online life.
When I go to blogging things I just say it is a thing for mums with kids with Autism. Which is kinda true. 😉
I think that’s amusing too. I’m all “out” when it comes to the blog and thankfully, I’ve not seen many comments from IRL people about it.
I think it’s the same in any industry. If you have no experience of it, it’s hard to understand what goes on – I am constantly confused by the girl’s school who expect me to know what I’m doing. I keep telling them I have no experience of schools, I don’t know how it works.
Being my first year as a school mum as well, I know exactly how you feel. I keep asking questions and I feel like grumbling that just because they’ve all done this before…
I have the same hopes as you, Veronica. Hopefully, someday they’ll be an easy way to make an income online through writing.
I’m not sure that anything worth doing is ever going to be easy. But that’s my opinion.
No, no it doesn’t. At the end of the day. Or the beginning. But it’s a part of your life now.
Oh god yes, it’s definitely part of my life and I couldn’t turn it off permanently, but I can choose what to take on board and I can choose when to turn off.
Most people look at me like I have two heads when I try to explain about blogging. And I live in hope that one day I will make money out of this. A ‘la Heather Armstrong
I’m not sure we’ll ever match Heather, but it’s nice to dream! I’d be happy with a comfortable living, it doesn’t have to be 6 figure.
I don’t think the Mums at school really got my blog either, until I started bringing freebies to share with them 😀
The teachers and principal certainly didn’t until there was an issue with the dept. of education because of something I’d said. Ooops who let the cat out of the bag that you can part time home school in victoria, big secret was it, sorry, my bad.
Still hard to explain to those who don’t understand the internet.
It is very hard to explain to people who don’t understand the nets, or people who only ebay. It’s going to be interesting to watch the evolution of the Internet over the next 5 years. Provided we don’t all get raptured, or struck down by solar storms.
HmmMMMMmmm… just as well I don’t understand. I figure if you can be paid so much the better and you are always upfront about that in your blog. Otherwise, you’re just someone I like and sort of “know” that I visit from time to time.
Well. I like you and whatever drama is going on I hope it passes quickly. Sometimes I disagree with you on issues but I would never want you to change your thoughtfulness and passion for justice, however that plays out for you personally/politically.
MANY BLESSINGS to you. And hugs from summery Missouri. 🙂
My thing is more that I can choose whether or not I let the internet affect my mood and my opinion of it. Getting trolled is different to having a family member shout at me – I can turn trolls off and disallow them to speak to me, IRL people are different. That’s what I mean by “reality” – not that blogs or bloggers aren’t real.
And summery? I’m jealous!
This year, I have really immersed myself in the interwebs. Does it alter my reality? Yes, it keeps me busy, it is work. It is work I really, really enjoy. Does it pay? Not a lot, yet. Will it? I don’t know, but it’s a helluva lot more satisfying than any other work I’ve done. What is real anyway? I am connecting with people, I am creating, I am reaching out. I could never do that face-to-face. I am learning stuff I never learnt at uni.
Yes, there is other stuff I want to do too. I will eventually find a balance. Right now for me this is the right thing to do. Who knows what that might be tomorrow?
My thing is that drama and the issues I’ve had recently, they don’t change my life. I can choose whether to let them affect me or not, because I can walk away from the computer. An internet squabble is different to a family squabble. That’s more my point in this post.
That said, I adore the Interwebs and I love the people I’m meeting because of it, but it’s not reality and it feels like a lot of the rules are suspended, a lot of the time.
I’m honestly surprised by this, I thought blogging was supposed to be very passe at this point, too time constraining for the Twitter generation. In any event, I thought something you’re passionate about is supposed to effect your life?
It does affect my life – I’ve flown interstate more in the last 2 months than I have in the last 10 years and the good stuff is so very very good. But even when I’m getting a metric ton of traffic because of a stumble, or getting trolled because someone disagreed, my actual life doesn’t change and it’s about me choosing not to let the bad stuff bother me, about being able to walk away and not let them have any power over me.
I don’t know what the things are that’ve been upsetting you, but if it was trolls I keep hearing this: You haven’t made it until you’ve been trolled. This I shall remember, if it ever happens (clearly I haven’t made it yet).
I find the hardest thing about the Internet and blogs is the time-suck factor in reading all the great blogs out there- and there are so many! How to choose, how to walk away from the puter??
Ha, I think we just say that to make us feel better about the arseholes.
I agree about the time suck. Choosing who to read is hard, which is maybe why I don’t add many new blogs to my reader – because I can’t delete an equal amount of old blogs to make up for the time suck.
Hmmm … No, it doesn’t change my reality either, but then for me it’s a source of creativity and telling the world how I feel or what I think when I feel compelled to silence. I’m not intending to furnish an income out of it. More recently, it’s given me a chance to support those who liberty is threatened or denied.
I think for those who do earn an income from the internet, it must impact in some way. Our earning potential is driven very much by the tools that we use. For me education through practical hands on experience is the biggest thing, but so is traditional book-based study. My book may also wind up being a source of income (although it’s by no means why I set out to do it and I won’t be upset if it never draws me a cent. My focus was on education, not income).
Work is a huge part of our reality. Let’s face it, we spend roughly a third of our adult lives in the company of people with whom our only initial connection is professional. some become friends and affect our lives longer term. Some cause fraction and that can be source of an altered reality as well. Work must and does affect our lives, whatever form it takes. Without the income I wouldn’t be paying a mortgage, feeding a household or driving a car. A pity that money has to be one of the big anchors in our lives – it can be such a dirty thing.
If not managed carefully (and sometimes, even when it is … thinking of those bloggers who wind up with stalkers), social networking can also affect our realities. I am careful about what I put on FB and Twitter. I am also acutely aware that it may come back to bite me in my not inconsiderably sized butt!
I think when blogging becomes part of your “job” it is like any job and liek you said, you have a choice as to whether you bring it home or not. For bloggers we are usually at home when stuff happens and don’t have a work colleague to debrief with.
It can be intense being connected all the time. I intend to take two weeks of again around July sometime. It is the best way I have found to break the work at home internet thing!
Nic
I’ve been so busy I havent had a chance to stop by many blogs (or the interwebs!) much of late. I hope whatever has upset you haa has been resolved and you are moving into a lighter, brighter frame of mind. As you say, you can always just walk away from the Net!
You do a great job and if I was half as successful as you in the blogosphere I’d be ultra proud !!
I spend plenty of time on the internet and I earn a meager income from what I do on-line. Still, I’m pleased to get anything. It thrills me that people read what I write. I’d love to make more than pocket change from it, but I find when I focus on that too much, it takes the joy from it a bit. I keep doing it, day after day, however. I’m keeping the dream alive!
I’m not an anonymous blogger. A lot of local people have become aware of my blog over the past year. Some seem to love it, but I have found what Kelley @ magnetoboldtoo said in her comment to be true for me:
“What makes me laugh is those women that play games on Facebook incessantly and post ‘inspirational’ quotes as their status… they would be the first to mock me if they knew about my online life.”
Those women she’s talking about mock me. And I’ve had a real hard time with it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject, and I appreciate your thoughts. I have a few posts on the go about it. Wonder if I will ever get them finished? HA! I VERY rarely talk about my blog with people in my “real” life. Most of them just don’t understand, and that’s okay. The only thing I find a little hard is when I need (a little; hardly every ask for) babysitting. I’m sort of made to feel guilty if the person doesn’t believe in what I’m doing…
My husband just used the internet and the enormous audience out there to fund his movie The Tunnel (www.thetunnelmovie.net) He and his business partner, decided to crowdfund the whole thing by selling frames for $1 each and then releasing the film on line on bitTorrent.
The internet has gotten him more exposure than any of the traditional methods would have.
Your following on the internet is huge currency. Don’t discount it.
As for the trolls, I have absolutely no idea what satisfaction they get out of being bitches.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Oh I definitely don’t discount the internet. In fact, I adore the Internet. I also like that when drama is happening, I can switch it off and walk away. It’s not like my hot water cylinder exploding, or my car breaking down – things I can’t ignore until it goes away. That’s my point here.
And well done to your Hubby! That’s excellent. It’s one of the reasons I love the Internet so much – people can do amazing things because of it.
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