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Internets WTF If you’ve ever wanted to know how to make a super easy donut cake, The Glitter Guide has your answer. With instructions such as get 24 glazed donuts, place on a tray, and “Repeat until you’ve used all the donuts”, this is surely worth immediately jotting down on a notecard and placing in your Pinstagram worthy recipe box right behind ‘Late Night Bacon’.
Hey Natalie Jean Internets Lifestyle Blogging Mommy Blogging In a pretty transparent bid to attention grab away from Taza’s pregnancy announcement, Hey Natalie Jean finally revealed the over-hyped rebellion tattoo she’s been talking about getting since recorded time began. Unfortunately all she did was make the internet go “wait…that looks familiar”. Yep, in typical unoriginal Bratalie fashion, she got a design from a decorative pillow permanently placed on her shoulder. Of course she added her own ‘hipster arrow’ touch, because…yeah. Years of planning and talking and wanting and hyping it up on twitter and instagram, and this is what it was all about? Womp womp. What a failure of a thunder steal, because I’d rather talk about how Taza is going to fit three kids in that apartment.
Camp Mighty, yet another blogger conference/party/to-do list generator, may be going the way of other blog conferences. We thought about switching venues, making the weekend a little shorter, changing the pricing structure, all the things one considers in these situations. Unfortunately, Camp Mighty has become too difficult to swing both financially and logistically. Saying “the landscape around blogging has changed dramatically”, they announced that “there won’t be a Camp Mighty this year”. I have no idea what that means, unless they are trying to say the blogging bubble has burst and there isn’t really any money for conferences anymore. If things keep going this way there won’t be any blog conferences within a couple of years. I guess the mommy bloggers will have to start invading SXSW! The Babble/BabyZone clusterlol continues. Catherine Connors, now formerly of Disney Interactive, is no longer with Disney Interactive. In a too long, don’t bother reading post that can basically be summed up with “well at least I’m doing great and am still employed”, Connors found 10 ways of saying “not my story to tell”, and said, in so many words, that she can’t really talk about what happened. This is all so very vague, I know. I’ll cut to the chase: I left Disney Interactive. I did not leave the Walt Disney Company (that’s an even longer story, one that has been strange and wonderful and empowering and remarkable, and I will tell it another time), but I did leave DI, and it was, at times, hard and heartbreaking, but mostly incredibly empowering and liberating. Neatly absolving herself of any role in the current wtfery by saying “if it could have been different, I would have made it different”, Connors went on to say “someday” she will “be able to explain exactly why and how that was”. Sources say Connors’ personal journey (outlined not only in her post but in a long email detailing how she’s doing great now and excited about her future) is all well and good for her, but “people who were counting on this for income have just been tossed around like scum on a lake”. If my inbox is any indication BabyZone and Babble employees are furious, and don’t give a crap about Connors’ “journey of discovery” or “process…of reflection”. “I have two children to think about and can’t sit around waiting for the ax to fall,” says one employee. Due to the lack of communication from Disney about what’s going on many of those remaining have now quit or are on the brink of quitting “before [we] read in the news that we are all out of jobs”. “But hooray for Catherine,” the employee continued. “So glad she bravely shared her story of how she kept HER job.” Type-A Parent, arranges a bunch of conferences for mommy bloggers, revealed last month that mommy bloggers don’t actually make squat. Now AdWeek has provided a more in-depth breakdown of the responses, and it’s pretty eye opening. It seems most respondents invest more in premium blog themes and conferences than in actual advertising, and “product reviews” are number two in the list of covered topics with “causes” coming in dead last. The survey also reports that the “most despised job title by far is mommy blogger, with two out of three respondents saying they either hate it or never use it” – “blogger” or “writer” are the most popular job descriptions. Most surprising of all is the news that only 5% of mommy bloggers actually earn enough to possibly make it worth a full time job. Most mommy bloggers report earning less than $100 per month, and around 20% earn $500-2500 a month, mostly from sponsored posts. So for those of you aspiring to become the next Dooce, good luck. It sounds like you won’t be making much, and you’ll be spending most of it on business cards and attending conferences to convince other mommy bloggers to read your mommy blog. Sounds like a super awesome career.
Internets Lifestyle Blogging Mommy Blogging With questions beginning to be raised about the #StyleForJustice trip, Noonday is apparently circling wagons. Their non-response after ignoring and allegedly deleting comments asking what percentage of the money actually goes to the artisans has caused some former supporters to lose patience. International Justice Mission is changing the conversation around poverty and I wanted the women in our Noonday community to join in that conversation…We are going to CONNECT. We are connecting with the talented men and women Noonday relies on to bring amazing products to our customers. Since the comments on the rambling ‘we are like, super nice people, so like, whatever we do is awesome’ post were disabled, folks attempted to ask Noonday some direct questions on the previous post. One asked: Straightforward question. If you can’t answer this clearly and without beating around the bush, you should not be in business. Ready? What is the $ figure or percentage that you pay the men and women who make your products? While another said: By evading the simplest questions with wordy “non-answers,” you are making yourselves completely transparent to the awful motives you have previously concealed behind a lovely, whitewashed version of poverty tourism. So far Noonday does not seem to have addressed these questions or statements, and continues to appear either evasive or confused. Is repeating over and over that they are starting conversations and sharing stories and saying “but, job creation!” supposed to make everyone nod and cheer without further probing? Because I don’t think that’s going to work. Ben, a travel blogger, is proud of his crowning achievement. Through the use of miles and points I’ve been the only independent reviewer to publish reports on every single A380 first class product currently in service. Well now Etihad Airways has introduced what is essentially a flying hotel room. Called “Residences”, the ultra first class option includes three rooms and a butler. Off course, since the one way ticket for this pointless display of wealth is around $20,000, poor Ben needs the internet to fund his experience: With only one “Residence” per flight, this may very well be the first A380 premium cabin product for which you can’t redeem miles. This may change over time, but with only one “cabin” per flight it’s highly unlikely. As a result, it may be a long time before we get an independent review of Etihad’s A380 Residences. What I propose is flying the Residences product within the first week it’s in service, so I can report on all aspects of the experience. Chances are it would otherwise be a long time before we get an unbiased review of Etihad’s new product. Because obviously this product needs to be reviewed by some travel blogging scrub who can’t even afford the fare. How else will incredibly filthy rich people ever know whether the fare is worth it! I don’t really follow travel bloggers but is it pretty standard to have other people pay for your ridonkulous travel dreams under the guise of public service? And who are the idiots who have already raised over $13k for this stunt?
A Quick Sunday LOLWTF For The Recipe Lovers
Nat Reveals Tat, Internet Goes “I’ve Already Seen That”
Internets
Camp Mighty No Longer So Mighty
Catherine Connors No Longer In Charge So You Can Stop Interrupting Her Vacations Now
“Type-A Parent” Survey Proves Mommy Blogging Is Not A Pot Of Gold
Is Noonday Silencing Questions?
Ben Wants You To Finance His Luxury
