Let’s say you were lucky enough to be able to attend a blog conference. Your body rushed with the anticipation of hustle and bustle and acquiring things – things you may have only heard about, things in which to carry other things, things one can ingest and/or imbibe, or things that may or may not serve as lasting mementos for posterity – talking to people, and getting the word out about who you are and what you do.
Your trek to the conference venue is uneventful, except for the few moments you peer out the window at a harbor dotted with sleepy sailboats and you thank your lucky stars you are among grown adults and have the presence of mind to appreciate the quickly disappearing landscape.
You check into your hotel room and realize that it’s really quite nice – not a bed bug in sight – and you proceed to theatrically drop yourself face-first on your mattress. You sit up rather quickly, though, realizing that the comforter’s white and your makeup’s acquiesced to ninety-plus degree heat. You relish the fact that you’re a) alone, b) relaxed, and c) silent, until the reality hits that you’ve endured numerous unpleasant hardships in order to attend a conference. Resigned, you hop into the shower in preparation for your social media cotillion.
You meet a few people, and realize that no one, and I mean no one, looks like their Twitter picture. The favorable glow of sunset is perspicuously absent, the many filters that hide one’s flaws are torn away. That favorable lighting avoids you as well. You wander into the main hall, where you are presented with a choice – take a photo with a life-size Lorax or a man in a banana suit. You deem this terribly unfair, since you have been awake since five-thirty and lack the level of caffeination required to fully appreciate (or at least see the humor in) such a situation. So you settle for a canvas bag. This will be the first in a very long line of canvas bags.
You wander through the hall trepidatiously – what with all the bananas on the loose – carefully eyeing your cohorts playing enthusiastically with digital devices tethered to pedestals, sycophantically enjoying copious amounts of greek yogurt, and slurping Jungle Juice as if the franchise were closing that very day, and you begin wondering if you may have made a mistake.
You round the corner to hear the smooth strumming of an acoustic guitar, which is soon accompanied by a cacophony of twenty-somethings extolling the virtues of household disinfectant. Household disinfectant. It is at that point your wonderings are firmed into truths. But you’re alone, you’re not in pajamas, and all is still well with the world.
You meet a few people, exchange business cards, and meet others in person with whom you’d truly expected to click. You’re not sure, weakly trying to beat through façades, or the images in your head, but you resolve to let the issue lie because your feet hurt so badly that thinking makes it worse. You attend your first off-site party, a party which you can clearly see the organizers took significant time and effort to create, now covered in sweat and blisters. You stand quietly aside, chatting with a colleague as you watch people quickly swill mixed drinks and then make off with bags of product that may or may not ever be extracted from their plastic encasements.
You can’t find the people with whom you arrived, but there are several other attendees ready to leave. You are fast friends, and agree to split a cab. Inevitably, one of you only has a large bill that would need to be broken upon return to the hotel. You return to the hotel, ahem, forget to break that bill, and wander off on your way.
The remainder of the evening is filled with drinks, chatter, laughter, loud music, and glow necklaces worn around the head. You take your requisite photographs in front of your iconic objects, post them to the appropriate media channels, drink some more, and laugh some more, finally returning to your hotel room with sore feet, hair that smells like cigarettes, and a hamburger because you forgot to eat all day.
The next morning, you rise with the desire to attend an art museum and a show, but the guilt of attending the conference and the fact that your significant other, whom you know would enjoy it, is three states away. You give the next day of the conference the college try.
By 10 am, you have acquired six more canvas bags and carry them under your arm whilst rummaging through the remains of the conference breakfast for coffee. Finding none, you head towards a Starbucks in the lobby. Your urge to attend the art museum is so strong that you want to hop out of line and run out the door, but hold yourself back on account of the lack of caffeine.
While in line (for a very long time because none of the baristas speak English, and do look like brothers, now that you mention it), you try to block out the ebb and flow of inane chatter (Oh, so GREAT to MEEEET you!) and the fact that the girl in front of you had to repeat her order to her friend in line four or five times. (I’m sorry! ONE pump of mocha? One pump of mocha, right?) In the process, you learn that mocha flavoring comes from a pump. You are oddly disconcerted.
You try to distract yourself by calling home. You are sure everyone in the hotel can hear your daughter screaming in the background. You realize the phone call didn’t work. You miss your kids. You miss your husband. And you still want to go to the art museum.
You finally pick up your drink (which is wrong, by the way, but lactose tolerance be damned – you need coffee), and wander back from whence you came. You don’t like the dress you picked out, so you saunter on back to your hotel room for a quick change (thank God for overpacking), and head back to the conference. You meet a friend or two at lunch, make a few more, and prepare yourself for what initially drew you, the keynote speech.
For a few shining moments, you are engrossed, engaged, mesmerized. You convince yourself that this alone was worth the price of the ticket. And then it’s over. Back to self-governing and heavily commercialized bedlam. On the way to your next conference event, you spy colleagues taking pictures with rolls of toilet paper and sitting against walls Twittering exactly what they’re doing. You check Twitter, and realize that things truly do look better on Twitter than in real life.
You also realize that the people whom you admire are writers, thinkers, possibly antisocial, art-appreciating recluses just like yourself who may, in fact, feel similarly, thus lose the hope (and, frankly, desire) to run into them at the Toilet Paper Photo Booth or the Yogurt Satiation Station. You’re somewhat disillusioned, but still convincingly ecstatic to be away from home.
Then it’s party, movie, reception, party, party, and you find yourself yawning. You connect with a few more people, drink a few (legitimately tasty) drinks, and drag some branded merchandise back to your hotel. You half-heartedly, but well-meaningly play catch-up, tag, peek-a-boo, and hide-and-seek with a few people you may or may not wish to spend more time with, and finally call it a night with an HBO special and some cashews. You have an early train.
You’re left with a $700 hotel bill, an absence of true enlightenment, and more crap than you arrived with. You rifle through your booty and take only what will truly be of use (maybe). You walk by a mirror on the way to the elevator, take a long, honest look at your face, and admit that conferencing may not be your thing. You must reconcile with the fact that you are a writer, and belong as other writers, alone in a dimly lit room, hunched over a keyboard.
But, on the ride back, you’re oddly renewed, relaxed, and at peace with the fact that you are mature enough to be true to yourself. And comforted by the security of a four-hour train ride with no one in the adjoining seat and $8 hotel M & M’s still in your bag. And excited by the fact that you’re going back with your husband. Soon. And you’re going to the art museum.
I briefly considered attending the conference, but I actually am a somewhat antisocial recluse, and while I really do enjoy engaging with people, and absolutely LOVE a good night-long conversation, the concept of trying to make that happen in a such a massive crowd is a bit beyond me. Also my blog reeks of fiction, these days, and thus is not particularly bloggy. I probably would have looked at that room full of thousands of women – all of them surely friends I simply haven’t yet met – and ran off to the museum
i attended #Homeher12 b/c as a newbie I have no desire to attend a conference yet. Based on your experience I don’t think this conference would be my thing either. What about the sessions? panels? Did you get anything out of them?
Thanks for the honest recap.
Hypothetically, of course.
Hypothetically, it’s always disappointing when things don’t quite live up to the image in your head. Hypothetically, congratulations on not running off to the art museum.
And real congratulations for having a day all to yourself, regarddless of what you were doing!
I’m not a writer, not really, and I am an introvert who isn’t very comfortable around crowds. Tho BlogHer conferences sound fun and yes, everyone who went was ALL over Twitter about it… yet I am not at all shocked to hear it is like you describe. Hell, my Real Life friends don’t look at good as their FB pics (and I don’t either!). I cannot imagine how different my Twitter peeps are!
Thanks for the hypothetical recap. I hope you’re enjoying being home.
Thanks for this. As a newbie as well, I didn’t even know about the conference until about two weeks ago. Before that though, I worked in the fitness industry for many years and we had our own conferences of this size to attend. I always felt exhausted and somewhat let down by them afterward. I find smaller, more intimate gatherings among colleagues seems to foster a better exchange. No doubt I will get to BlogHer at some point in the future, but will probably end up shopping instead.
I hear so many mixed reviews about the hypothetical conference. It’s apparent that each person has their own experience. I’m glad you got to go and learn a little but about yourself. I think I would much prefer a writer’s conference as well.
I have never been to BlogHer or any related conference but I have been to many conferences and tradeshows. You took the words out of my brain.
Thank you for successfully curing my desire to ever attend one of those conferences. I think, like you, I find the idea appealing, but that reality sounds horrific. I’m too much of an introvert (and I don’t even like beer or wine or even mixed drinks, so there goes the one comfort of the event)!
wonderfully written, sounds like many conferences I’ve been too (not even on blogging!)
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have been writing for years, as a journalist mostly, and recently started blogging. And you heard about a blogging conference in NY, near where you live, and you decided to go. You didn’t need samples of soap or fruit cups or toilet paper, so you didn’t even go into the expo hall. You have friends to party with back home, so you didn’t go to any parties. But let’s say, hypothetically, that you wanted to learn and get inspired and you went to some very informative and inspiring panels. And met lots of people, some of whom you want to stay in touch with because they were smart, focused and committed to being better writers. And they were fun to talk to. Let’s just imagine, hypothetically, of course, that you just engaged in the way that was meaningful to you and ignored the rest. Hypothetically, you might end up satisfied with the experience.
I’ve been struggling for a response, and have come up empty. All I can say is I chose to talk about some aspects and not others. I enjoy writing satire. If you follow me on Twitter (which you do) you’d also be aware of the things that I am grateful for and enjoyed, and the people I was sad to have missed talking to.
I responded really because it seemed that many of the people commenting seemed to come away with the idea that the conference was a waste of time. And that seemed a shame. I was skeptical about going for many of the same reasons that turned you off. I just wanted to convey that there were good things there, too.
I understand. And I’ve told everyone as well that they should not take this account as gospel, that they need to experience it for themselves.
I was able to attend a small retreat of about 70 bloggers. I think that was much more my speed. Thousands of attendees quite literally makes a little naseous.
Excruciating.
We did this on Myspace – twice. The first time in NYC in 2006 was a hoot but the one the next year in Vegas, not so much.
Hey, am I the first to notice you got FP’d? Congrats! That was an awesome post – busy (expensive?) time! You deserve your day in the sun.
Thank you for this. I still think I need to experience it for myself but this is oh so true “You must reconcile with the fact that you are a writer, and belong as other writers, alone in a dimly lit room, hunched over a keyboard.”
Lovely. You go to that museum, girl! You just posted the perfect summary of a writer’s conference. I flew from Phoenix to Chicago, minus Husbot and the weebots, for AWP this March to mingle with 10,000 of my closest fellow writers–and I did spend an afternoon alone at the Art Institute. The euphoria way outweighed the guilt. And it made for some copy–my post about it appeared on Brevity’s nonfiction blog: http://brevity.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/awp-2012-walking-among-words-u-k-poet-laureate-carol-ann-duffy/
Nicely put and very interesting
Bloggers actually meet! Wow! Maybe we should try that here in the UK – but then again – maybe not – but hypothetically speaking ….
Loved this – sounds a lot like networking
I have nothing clever to say. I’m just secretly glad that all my Twitter friends maybe don’t look as good in real life as they do online.
At least you got an FP out of it. I can’t imagine being with so many other people. I think I’m a recluse. But I’m sure there was a lot for newbies to learn. I certainly relate to missing the family though. Thanks for an honest perspective.
And congrats on FP!
Conference? No clue that one even existed for bloggers. Sometimes the break from the norm is in its self the biggest bonus of attending any conference no matter how enthusiastic or NOT you are.
I’m still trying to figure out my niche with blogging, having had several blogs over the past decade, i have yet to find my voice.
This was very interesting reading. Thanks.
The same is true for medical conference. I think the ironic relaxing part comes from no responsibilities for a few days.
Thank you for posting this. Have a great day. See you around!
nice fun post
Reblogged this on .
I’m not a conferency sort of gal. I’ll just stay home with my own bags!
I’ve never been to a blogging conference, but I have been to several Singer’s Conventions, and I could totally relate to your descriptions and feelings while reading this! Thus, I don’t think feeling disconnected, awkward, lonely, and the desperate need to find justification for the expense of attending is exclusive to a gathering of socially awkward writers. Even at conventions filled with extroverted performers, it was awkward. (I especially hated the realization that I paid HUNDREDS of my hard earned dollars for the “privilege” of being advertised to every day, and hauling home bags and bags filled with “free samples” of crap I never intended to use)
Yep, Conventions are odd social experiments. I’m with you 100%! Congrats on being Fresh Pressed!
Perfect. Also applies to trade shows.
sounds a bit like attending a wedding………….
http://broadsideblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/blogher-2012-was-it-worth-it/
You’re more polite than I was in describing the madhouse we both attended. It was the first time I’d been to that specific conference — having attended many others, albeit none with 5,000 people — and my feelings are very mixed.
The swag-grabbing really disgusted me. The noise and crowds were overwhelming. I met a few interesting people and maybe two or three of professional use to me. My single greatest disappointment was the lack of any quiet place — no lobby chairs?! — to connect with, then sit and chat with people one on one or in small groups.
I did enjoy hearing bloggers read on stage and hearing from Katie Couric and Martha Stewart. Would I go again? Probably not.
my favorite part: the 4 hour train ride and no one next to you…with M & M’s no less (i hope they were peanut, hypothetically of course)!
Of course they were peanut.
Bravely said! I feel the same about work conferences. My colleagues are nice to work with but I don’t particularly enjoy spending a weekend playing imaginary ball games with them.
Never been to a blog convention, or any convention out-of-town for that matter, and after that read, not sure if I want to! Hahaha …. You have captivating writing, had me at the first word, and once I started reading, I never looked away from the story!
Haha! I guess no one wants to look bad in their profile pic. I’m half tempted to use the worst picture I have ever taken for mine so that when people meet me in person they’re like “HOT DAMN SHE MUSTA BOTOXED and lost 9,000 pounds or sumthin’!” I will then tell everyone my secret is “green tea and laughter.” My plan is all set! Bring on the blog conferences!
I enjoyed reading your hypothetical experiences.
Somehow, I am fairly convinced that I would have the same hypothetical story if I were to go.
I’ll keep to what I do best and fighting 5,000 other women to “connect” with a brand isn’t it.
And I’ll admit, my picture online looks better than the average me. Especially after I just chopped off my own hair. According to my faint reflection in the computer screen, I’ve missed a few spots.
Who knew there are real-life conferences for real-life bloggers sharing real-life fantasy versions of why they blog, and who they are. An enigmatic oxymoron of sorts; a dichotomy dressed as a conundrum; frankly, the most dubious juxtaposition of worlds I can possibly fathom. And I rather dislike this vicarious experience, to be quite honest.
Isn’t the implicit anonymity of a blog somehow distinctively integral to its very appeal? I love the possibility of a particular writer being as poised, brilliant, sharp-witted and mysterious as their social media presents them as being… Which explains my disappointment once I discovered that such a conference is not merely hypothetical…
My senior year in college, I voluntarily took a C in my Logistical Metaphysics course, when I had earned an A all semester. I had spent months entertaining the professor’s bland and mundane notions that everything “real” had a practical, logical explanation; and that everything “supernatural” also had a practical, logical explanation. I spoon-fed that instructor every bite of what he wanted. I filled his ego with all sorts of empty confirmatioms that I was actually learning something from his lack of imagination. Did I disagree with him, about bigfoot being fake and ghosts being mere psychological projections of the observer? Not necessarily. But on my term paper, I finally cracked. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I wrote simply: “Whether unexplainable phenomenon are real or not, whether supernatural occurences are logical or not, I will still show my children fluffy dragons in the clouds. I will tell them trees dance because the wind makes them happy. I will see all the wonders of the world, the ones that won’t bear witness to a brain inside a box. Life is not about reality’s essence. It is about reality’s possibilities, in all its beautiful forms.”
I would hate to discover the wizard behind the curtain. I like to believe in Oz.
I always thought how would conferences be and what happens there…your post let me hypothetically believe that i attended one!!…
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