If you’re looking for something for free, scroll to the bottom of this post. Lazy bastards.
I mentioned last week that I decided to launch a review site about the things women buy and the things women want to buy. I have to assume that, if you’re anything like me, you gave at least a little groan at the idea of yet another fucking review site.
Review sites, in general, are stupid.
Seriously.
No offense to anyone who has one, but with few exceptions, they’re like the QVC of the blogging world. All commercials, all the time. Except worse than QVC – the blogosphere is choked with page after page of mommy reviews. Because the world just can’t get enough of talking about strollers and diapers and educational toys while we’re trapped at a baby shower. GAH!
And you know what? I get it. “Mommy bloggers”, I hear, are bombarded with offers of free stuff and amazon gift certificates in exchange for “product reviews”. Rather than kill their main blogs (or give up their Review-free BlogHer ad revenue), they set up a mommy review blog.
I get it. I do. But I am not launching a mommy review blog.
To be honest with you, the very idea has always pissed me off a little bit. The idea that women sit around and swap stories about the latest style in nursing bras annoys me. Everything you see out there that’s targeted to women is targeted to “women with small children”. And it’s not even targeted to the women – it’s targeted to the small children.
Is that the bulk of our economic value?
Are the 5 years from childbirth to kindergarten (for those of us who even have kids) the only time we exist as influences in the market place?
Bullshit.
We’re more than women with children. We are, in many households, the major decision makers when it comes to finances. And not just when it comes to buying diapers.
The Today Show did a segment yesterday on Digital Moms – and all they could talk about was a woman who twittered her labor. And Dooce. And how we talk about our kids all the damn time.
Screw. that.
I am a digital mom and I’m not just talking about my kids. I’m not spending all my time commiserating with other mothers about motherhood so I don’t “feel alone”. And I’m not spending all my money at Toys R Us.
I researched the election online. And I bought both books by our now president.
I follow fashion trends online. And I buy designer clothing when my budget allows it.
I travel regularly. I research, plan and book my travel online. And I happen to get paid to write about.
I have an SLR camera and an iPhone and a Flip. I found out about (and learned to use) all of them from the Internet.
I am more than a mother. The women I know are more than moms – and some of them aren’t mothers at all. And their financial contributions to this economy are valuable. In fact, together we spend a hell of a lot more money on anything but diapers than Pampers could ever hope to milk from us.
So, that’s what I’m talking about over there. And I’m hoping to do it in a way that will actually be of interest to the women I know. I’m hoping that it will be as useful and entertaining as when we talk about where we got that in the real world.
And I’m hoping, if you’re a consumer whore like I am, that you’ll join me.
Or at least let me give you free sex toys.
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Posted in Blogging and Bloggers - Tips, Contests and Stuff for Bloggers Tagged: bloggers, buy-her, digital moms, giveaway, internet, money, reviews, sex toys, the Internet, the today show, what women buy, women
Miss Britt Reply:
March 10th, 2009 at 9:18 am
@avitable, well, we watched it ONLINE, if that helps.
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