I am female, I am married and my husband is in the military. All of these things generally indicate that I “should” have children and that we don’t does make us kind of the odd ones out but I’m generally okay with it. It also makes me the minority when it comes to blogging. You see, 5 or so years ago when I was in the prime of my teens I hung out in a lot of communities made up of peers around my age and more folks has blogs than did not. Teen bloggers were a sizable force but as we have grown up, our numbers dwindled and today’s teens don’t show nearly the interest that we did a few years ago. I’m okay with that, too, as I still enjoy it. It’s why I’m here and doing NaBloPoMo.
In their wake, “Mommmy Bloggers” as they are called (but who first called them that, I have no idea) stormed the scene and I’m cool with that, too. Girl power and all that. I don’t want to be stereotypical but it seems like a lot of stay-at-home-moms found the internet around the same time; perhaps the recent economic conditions contributed to more people being at home again or perhaps there’s no real reason and I’m just making stuff up. I’m not making up what a sizeable force they have become, however.
Recently, PR companies and people have started to look at the blogosphere as a way to spread word and have been offering their products and services for reviews and giveaways. As a blogger, I love the idea of being recognized for my contribution and, hey, who doesn’t want free stuff, right? But these PR folks have been majorly focusing on Mommy bloggers (it makes sense if they are doing a lot of the household shopping, I’ll give you that) and, in addition to their sheer numbers, “Mommy blogger” has pretty much become synonymous with “review blogger” even though it’s totally and completely erroneous.
There are daddy bloggers and retired bloggers and travel bloggers and grandparent bloggers and working professional bloggers and all sorts of bloggers who do not fall into the category of mommy blogger and they are being completely overlooked not only by PR folks but the community at large. A while back, I was reading an article on Blog Friendly PR about blogger-PR relationships and instead of “review blogger” it used “mommy blogger” as if there are no reviewers who are not moms. I’m a female, I blog and I review but I have no kids. I recently joined BlogHer but, to my dismay, that oversight runs rampant there as well.
I’ve visited at least a hundred review blogs in the last month (that number is probably really low but I’m trying to be cautious), about 95% of which were moms and their sidebars were filled with buttons for other mommy blogs and groups and communities but nothing general. There are not very many review communities it seems and I’d hesitate to call any of them quality but even the “general” ones have an undertone of mommy.
So here I am. I’m not a mom and you know why that works? Because I can offer unique insight and reviews about products that moms may never have a need for, because my lifestyle doesn’t involve kids which may just mean more time to dedicate to more interests, including your product.
I’ve nothing against mommy bloggers. They’re here to stay and their perspective is respected for a reason but they’re not everyone or everything. I’m just tired of feeling like the rest of us don’t matter.