Sanitized, Pasteurized & Sterilized: The neutering of my blog. (Small Biz Rant)

I was texting my buddy Alek yesterday (apparently he was in Daiso, and clearly that means you text your Asian friends with pictures of Asian things), and I mentioned I had this blog entry queued up in my Drafts, but I hadn’t hit “publish” yet, because, while it felt good for me to write it,  it also seemed like a RANT that nobody else would give a flying fishfinger about. But that’s sort of what the whole blog entry was about, too….so I decided to push the button! Anyway, it’s Saturday. Most of you are probably outside enjoying the real world!

***

In the very early 2000s, I had a deskjob. I was an assistant, and I answered phones all day, took messages, faxed things, wrote letters, and read manuscripts. I’d often be the only person in the office, and I’d listen to my CDs quietly – Kitty Craft, Dressy Bessy, the Gerbils, to set the scene. I was a very GOOD employee. I didn’t surf the net on personal adventures, and I hardly used the computer at all. But I remember Yahoo’ing something for work (we used Yahoo then not Google!) and randomly stumbling across somebody’s Diaryland diary. It was bland, written poorly, and completely inane. I WAS HOOKED!

What was this? People sharing their personal lives on the internets? Everyday, boring-ass people nobody would care to read about? You ate chicken today? I FIND THAT VERY INTRIGUING! I was in publishing. I was looking for GOOD writing not CRAP writing, but I was totally intrigued by the REALNESS of blogging. Who was this person? Why were they eating chicken? Would I blog about eating chicken? I signed myself up. My blog had a bright yellow background, plain black Times New Roman text, and no pictures. We didn’t have pictures back then. Blogging was about writing.

My best friend at the time had moved away. I thought this blogging thing would be a cool way to K.I.T. with all your pals. You could share a story once and keep it fresh and funny and not have to repeat it over and over to different people. I was an English/Creative Writing in Fiction major, and blogging also seemed like a good way/excuse to exercise the muscles everyday, even if you were writing about the stupidest things. Well, I’ll tell you: NONE of my “IRL” friends read my blog in the beginning. It just became something I did to entertain myself, make myself laugh at my own self, and maybe draw strangers in to laugh with/at me. It was fun to form little blog posses (that word looks really weird right now…did I spell that right??? POSSIES?? POSSEEZ?) and keep up with the adventures of your invisible internet buddies (Carlyn of Canada….WHERE ARE YOU NOW!?) who were probably all 45 year old men.

Back then, I was trying to out-me me. I wanted to be the funniest, smartest, wise-crackingest me, the cleverest me. I’d write about a night of drinking on the town and start the blog entry from the end of the evening and recount all the events backwards to the moment I decided what to wear, when I knew it would be a bad night, because none of my outfits looked good. I’d write snappy, bullet-pointed lists of the day’s adventures. I’d talk about who I was dating (with code names) and what it was like to be ME. It was personal (with code names). Blogging was supposed to be personal, right? That’s what made blogging good, right?

Fast forward a few years, and I got busted for writing too personally about somebody and revealing things I was not able to reveal in person. (I guess that ended up working out for the best, but it was still mortifying to be busted. Hello, The Turnip, if you still read my blog, and I hope you don’t!)

Fast forward another year or so, and I got busted for writing about another somebody else, not even someone I was dating, and not even anything negative about their character (still using code names). Yet this somehow led to online passive-aggressive threats of violence and the fact that I should go back to China. Anyway. I deleted my blog. Blogging was powerful…AND EVIL! Drama is like a black hole. Sometimes you don’t see yourself getting sucked into it. I wanted to be rid of it.

I made my new Livejournal account friends-only for a while. No drama for me! But when I started my crafting and my business, I wanted to share news with everybody, so I’d make the non-personal, craft-related entries public. Soon, all my entries were non-personal and craft-related and public. I think that’s where I am now. Non-personal. Public. And sometimes craft-related.

I’ll read my old blog entries from 2002 and think OHMIGOD I USED TO BE SO FUNNY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!? What happened, is that I didn’t want to get in trouble anymore, didn’t want to step on anyone else’s toes, didn’t want to offend anybody or hurt anybody’s feelings (blogging about eating chicken can get you in trouble now!).

I felt like blogging suddenly came with RESPONSIBILITY, because people were ACTUALLY READING IT. Once I discovered that more teenagers and pre-teens AND THEIR MOMS were reading my blog, I didn’t want to cuss anymore or mention alcohol or reveal that I might have mean thoughts sometimes. I drop the F-bomb a lot in real life. Don’t even be eavesdropping on me when I’m driving in the car alone and swearing at every driver on the road! I’ll call people “dick hole” and “dick butt” and hope they have diarrhea that night. My mom was driving me somewhere the other day, and the car in front of us was about to do something scary, and I just blurted out, “OH SHIT!” and realized, that’s not the greatest thing to say in front of your mom, but she was like, “Good thing you said, ‘Oh shit!’ cuz I didn’t see that guy.” But I digress.

I am very aware that my blog has become kind of a ghost-version of me, for all the reasons I rambled on about above. On a similar note, I sometimes do get bummed that I am not fully 100% a crochet blog, or craft blog, or DIY blog, and I wonder, do I want to be one of those things? Those things win awards. They sound so much more important, like they have a reason to exist, for the good of mankind and to save the planet and its small cute animals.

I have to go back to the year 2000 and remember why I wanted to blog in the first place. It was for me. It was completely selfish and self-serving. It was to delight myself and maybe by doing that, delight my readers. My blog was supposed to be for me, and I know that we should allow ourselves and our goals to change, but I want to keep my blog pure, not forced. I still have to figure my way around how sterile I need to or want to be. Now that I am starting to work with other companies, I’m afraid they will be like, “That girl said ‘Oh shit,’ to her own mom. We don’t want to work with the likes of HER. Plus, I THINK SHE MIGHT EAT CHICKEN.”

So I don’t have the answer. My blog has also never been about answers. I always ask the questions! My blog will never be an advice blog, because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing ever. I’m just here. Blogging. And maybe you’re here. Reading.

I was going to close this entry by referring back to “the neutering of my blog” in the blog title, using the metaphor of how I hoped it would grow its balls back without hitting anyone in the face, but, my dad reads this blog, too, so I’m having 2nd thoughts. One time in high school, I said the word “crap” at a restaurant, and he told me I was being too proletariat.

 

76 Comments on “Sanitized, Pasteurized & Sterilized: The neutering of my blog. (Small Biz Rant)”

  • Heidi

    says:

    I love you so much 4eyez. I admit that I really miss the personal aspect of your blog but I completely understand why you’ve evolved away from it. I feel the same way about mine. I can’t even bring myself to write sometime because I don’t want to deal with shitty comments about my life. But even if all I ever read are little bits and pieces of what you’re doing, I love and appreciate that. I’m honored to be a small part of your life. And if I ever finally get my ass back to the bay, we are so hanging out. And then we’ll BOTH blog about it!

    <3

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Everyday I marvel at how wonderful and how awful the internet is, and how people behave on it. I will never stop being surprised by how people can be so freely negative to a complete stranger! I don’t get a lot of hate mail or troll comments, but I’ll always keep in mind that if 50% of the people love you and 50% of the people hate you, that you’re doing something right 😛 hehhehhe. You’ve been through and are still going on an incredible journey, and people need to realize that you (and rest of us) are just human!

      I mean, it is totally logical these days to not empty your soul out to the internet, but I feel like, back in the day, you kind of could, and it was really liberating and therapeutic. You could be on your worst behavior. Now you have to be on your best. The therapeutic part of it has sort of died! Can I still tell the story of Manda kept saying Cocklate Chip Pancakes on accident at IHOP? I DUNNO!

      Love you lots!!!! xoxoxoxox

      • Heidi

        says:

        This is so dead on. The therapeutic aspect is just gone. Which is really upsetting to me because I just feel no motivation to blog anymore.

        • TwinkieChan

          says:

          Yeah, you do have to step back and think about what it all means to you still. But if I stop blogging for a month, I always come back to it. It’s kind of weird and freakish! heheh

  • Alyssa

    says:

    I like blogs that are personal. I love getting an insight into everyone’s daily life. That’s why people love twitter and instagram. It’s difficult though to know how personal you should be. Anyway, it’s interesting to think about.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      There is a certain blogger I won’t name who I think is really ballsy, and she just blogs about her life and her opinions on things, and she is REALLY opinionated, but it’s so funny and fascinating. I am sure a ton of people hate her, espesh since she can make a living from her blog. The internet is a funny beast!

  • Vanessa

    says:

    I really like reading your blog, and it is the only blog that I actually read. I check here everyday to see what you are making, and hoping that you will say something funny about why you decided to make what it is that you’re making. You shouldn’t worry about what people will think of you because if they’re judging you, you shouldn’t want to be around them anyway. Also, I totally just ate fried chicken for lunch!

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      HAHHAAH best closing line in a blog comment award!!! 🙂

      Yeah, I am often bummed I don’t post more about what I am making, but so often these days it’s for a project I can’t reveal yet, so it’s like…omg…. what *can* I blog about today!!! 😛

      Thank you for reading!! 🙂

  • Ellyssa

    says:

    I understand this you never know when too personal is too personal. I never knew Twinkie chan dropped the F bomb, but that makes you even more awesome! Thats funny I call drivers dick butt too! I have a couple of friends that blogged talked about their friends in a perfectly normal way and the friends got pissed! Blogging does come with responsibility now, and Twinkie this is. Blogging. And I’m reading. Your a great blogger and this blog is very random and this is why I love it!

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Thanks, Ellyssa 😛

      Sometimes I wonder if there’s a point to blogging anymore if you are not really blogging about what you really want to blog about. I guess at that point it’s to promote my business, but I have no idea how much it actually helps in that respect. I am really happy people read and comment, though. That gives me a reasons to keep doing it!

  • Nicky

    says:

    I think you are still totally witty and funny! But I can see why you wouldn’t want to have your blog be as personal as it used it still always a pleasure to read. With great blogging comes great responsibility!

    Also when you said “push the button” all I kept thinking in my head was “elevator go down the hole!” 😛

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      I feel like my life is an open book and I don’t mind sharing, because I think we learn from each other’s stories, but yeah, sometimes the consequences are not worth it! 😛

  • rae

    says:

    i feel the same way a lot of the time. i love reading blogs where people are totally out there and cuss and are funny and right about the mean things they think. but then i remember my mother in law reads my blog and i think “well what if a future employer reads this..” and then i get nervous. i love reading personal blogs though. i know what you mean. it should be totally boring to see pictures of someones cabinets or their sock drawer or their breakfast but i’m rivited! that is what i like most about blogging.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Yeah I guess what bums me out the most is that our blogs are technically supposed to be records of our lives? But, it ends up being like .0001% of our real lives and thoughts. Kind of a bummer!

  • I can completely relate to this post.
    I used to have a blog with codenames, had a mouth-via-fingers like a pirate, and didn’t really care what people had to say. Then I realized… I can still write this stuff down in a diary, but the whole world doesn’t have to see it!

    In an ideal world, I’d have a blog where I’d be really funny and silly and make fun of everything under the sun with all of the words in the “french” dictionary… but maybe it’s for the best that we save our hilarity for the people we see on the day to day.

    also- dick butt is such a good road rage insult!

    love, chelsea

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      HI Chelsea!
      Actually, I still post secret entries to a private friend group on livejournal, but often times…it’s not even that funny hehhe! Just a place to vent about my personal life or keep track of business things that I can’t share here. It’s mostly me being frustrated about the universe!!! True venting!

      • girl, if i didn’t vent, I’d probably freak out and crochet people to trees/cars/etc. like an angry yarn spider

        • Twinkie Chan!

          says:

          Uhhhh THAT WOULD BE AN AMAZING PHOTO SHOOT

          • IT WOULD!!! gotta save that one for later 😉

  • Danielle

    says:

    Ahhhh, I remember Diaryland! Oh my gosh. Then I did Deadjournal, haha. I miss the “Golden Age” of Livejournal, I made so many friends there, many of whom I still talk to and a few of which I sometimes hang out with. Good times!

    Anyway, it is pretty hard to figure out how much to really share without stepping on toes… as soon as I get any sort of negative feedback my first reaction is to want to shut my whole blog down forever.

    Honestly though, I’ll happily read whatever you write, whether it be a long rant or a television show recap or whatever else, because I think you’re great! And you still make me laugh. 😉

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Yeah you kind of need a thick skin if you are going to put yourself “out there” be with a blog, or an Etsy shop, or your art, or whatever!

      Thank you for the sweet comment!!! I will try to keep my ranting to a minimum ehehhheheh 😛

      • Ellyssa

        says:

        I like your rants! Their informative and Ian’s interesting!

        • Ellyssa

          says:

          Bleh just ignore the Ian’s thing, my iPad has a mind of its own.

  • Amoxelle

    says:

    I think after blogging after a certain period of time you start to have to neuter yourself online because its a natural part of growing an online identity. I’ve been blogging since middle school through various avenues, erm I think it was 1998, and growing a professional persona online it happened naturally for me.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Yeah I see the need for self censorship sometimes, but I still think that on principal it is kind of a bummer, since I think blogging used to be such a personal space. Now, not so much.

  • chynna

    says:

    I love your blog and the bits of personality that I see, even through the censorship. You’re so funny and interesting, I can’t even begin to fathom how awesome IRL Twinkie is! I know it’s not always the right attitude to have, but companies who wouldn’t want to collab with you and your amazing vision over an F bomb or chicken dinner, would be just plain crazy and unworthy of your talent.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Thanks, Chynna!

      Yeah, there was a certain incident with a certain company that made me really stop and wonder if what I do and what I bring to the table are worth something to somebody. I won’t get into the details, but it was really jarring and kind of eye opening. I had to think a lot about it!!

  • RachelG

    says:

    I think your blog should be an all BeeBee blog… or is it BiBi? Clearly it has been too long since you have posted about her, as I have forgotten the spelling of her name! However, I do appreciate the picture of her in your pvc frame. Seriously, your dog is a cutie. 🙂

  • TwinkieChan

    says:

    I’ve definitely thought of giving her her own blog! But I didn’t know if the time/effort would actually be worth it or gain readers. She has her own Twitter and Tumblr but I still don’t make the time to post photos to those! Eep! 😛

  • Kuripan

    says:

    Read this all the way through. I’m pretty sure anyone who blogs will.
    LOVE.IT.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Aw thank you!

  • sporkii

    says:

    I’ve been feeling this way for so long, and I still don’t really have an answer to what I want to do.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      I guess there is always a paper journal. It’s just not the same, though. Sometimes it’s nice to get a response from people 😛 but then you’d have to make a zillion different filters!

  • LOVED this post. i follow your blog on my google reader and love looking at the cute things you post. i dont alwayes read everything but this GRIPPED me. you are funny! you are cute! you are a hoot!
    more like this pllllllllllllllllllllleeeez. I wanna hear more about your love of chicken…

  • LOVED this post. i follow your blog on my google reader and love looking at the cute things you post. i dont always read everything but this GRIPPED me. you are funny! you are cute! you are a hoot!
    more like this pllllllllllllllllllllleeeez. I wanna hear more about your love of chicken…

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      HAHAHHA 🙂 Actually, there was an old post to which you responded “more personal posts!” once, and it really stuck with me, as I had kind of forgotten that I had stopped being that personal here.

      Did you ever read Dooce.com? I really admire that lady just for the sheer fact that she built her blog/business based on her life, her kid, and her honest opinions. I was never a regular reader, but I was always in awe of what she had managed to do with this medium for her family.

      There is def. a lot of hate on the internets. It’s kind of a bummer, dude! But lots of love as well. I guess that’s life! 😛

      xoxoxoxo

  • ps yes its hard tho… especially when you are blogging to support a business or it IS your business. i swear like a trouper and i rant and rave to my friends… and hell, i think im FUNNY but i cant really put these things on my blog. i cant be dealing with the drama either! “OMFG rocknrollbride had an OPINION and it was different to MINE. I HATE HEEEEER. how *dare* she.” etc etc

  • Janna Lynn

    says:

    Oh my….I totally get what your saying!! 🙂 I started my blog when I started my Master’s degree (which is totally finished) but I’m still blogging…it is also where I connect with people about the trials and tribulations of not only my banal existence but also my struggle to start my own handmade clothing brand/company. So…I know my professors still read my blog, my father works at the place I got my grad degree from as a dean….his coworkers read my blog, my parents read it, my extended family members, and a lot of great people I’ve met in the blogiverse. I would never want to hurt/offend any of them…but here’s the deal…to know me is to love me…so I only share stuff that I want everyone in the world to know about….this still leaves me a LOT of content because I’m pretty genuine and do not often do things or say things (including swearing) that I wouldn’t want the whole world to see. So…I found my balance but before I did…it was uber intimidating! I love how you worded it. Be confident, be you, and do you really want to work with a company that gets upset that you eat chicken or say the word shit…if so they are tooooo small minded for you! I adore you and so do many of thousand others!! Hearts, Janna Lynn

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Thank you, Janna Lynn!
      I always loved blogging and reading blogs to learn from everyone else’s experiences, so, I get bummed a lot that if we water ourselves down, we’re kind of robbing each other of the real stories. Not really sure what the answer is to that….!

  • Twinks I love you, we had like parallel bloggy lives. I started on Diaryland too and then migrated to LiveJournal and had the time of my life meeting so many amazing people (you and Lindsay for instance). And now I’m on WordPress and I pretty much blog purely for therapy. Since then, I’ve amassed an amazing collection of readers which I have found tends to happen when you do the more personal types of blog. when you do the niche stuff you do get a lot MORE readers but I don’t know that they’re the same loyal quality type that you start to attract with the personal stuff. I’ve resisted monetizing my blog for this reason and although my own readers push me to make money off my blog, something about it still bugs me.
    Anyhow you do as you damn well please woman. Whatever you need is whatever you need to do.
    P.S. INSTAGRAM! Yay, you’re on it and now I’m stalking you (@mutantsupermodel like duh)

  • lol! your blog is delightful…b/c it’s you! even though you think it’s become a ghost version – one of the big draws for me personally is that I never know what you will be talking about but I cant wait to read it!
    I have the same delima – I have the mouth of a sailor – and I make so much inappropriate (so society says) things for children – b/c i have a weird sense of humor…but I figured – there must be other parents/people out there like me, with this same sick mind…And I was right! And you have a loyal cult following that loves your wares b/c they have the same quirky personality that you do! We love you!

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Yes, you make a good point. There is a niche for everything, and we have to remember, we can’t be SO weird that there’s nobody who will get us, right?! heheheh xo

  • Nicole

    says:

    I adore your blog. 😀
    I’ve only been reading for a few months now, but I think you’re pretty awesome. Just sayin’.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Well thank you so much! I appreciate it! 🙂

  • Emily

    says:

    Oh MAN!

    Isn’t blogging WEIRD? I always have a quandary about what to write in the “website” portion of these comment forms. (You may notice it is left blank). I am not a pro blogger, so should I put my Livejournal (the “realest” version of myself, mostly friend-locked), my gentle wordpress (created for my former students & co-workers) or my sad attempt at a better wordpress (mostly about books, some swears, no personal life stuff)?
    Maddening!!

    Often I wish I could blog like Shrinkle or Jess Fink, who are cool with posting things like “I just drank a bunch and had a mad dance party with crazy folks”, or “I find this thing sexy and I am gonna make a poop joke”. They seem very honest and true to themselves & their brands/branding of themselves. I feel like, how can I say true and honest things online without a solid “brand” identity (a strong personal identity) to back it up?? Sure, I could make a separate blog for that stuff, but does that make me a coward then? It’s still me writing, isn’t it? What if someone at work reads my blog and sees me say something true and honest that I would NEVER say at work? Interacting with people in real life, we get a choice of what we show or don’t show them. But online we have little control over who sees what (unless everything is locked, but then, what’s the point?)

    Anyway, I love reading about people’s personal lives, if they are good writiers. If there ever is a Twinkie blog separate from this crafting “.com” blog, I would read the shit out of it.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Well, I do have my IEatYuckyStuff.com blog that I never update, but is all about the gross stuff I end up eating out of desperation heeheh. These days if I post a picture of salmon, all the veggies and vegans go into an uproar, which I get, and am not mad about, but the times: they are a’changin’.

      I think my view on blogging is a bit skewed because I blogged before I had a brand, so I think that’s why I’m flustered about whether or not I ever needed to change the way I blogged in the first place. I guess you need to think about WHY you’re blogging, too. IF it’s just for you, then you don’t need to post the URL anywhere :P. If it’s to promote a brand, or the blog IS your brand, then, yeah, you would have to really consider what goes on there and what doesn’t. Actually it was Shrinkle who told me that if she tweeted about pooping or farting, she’d lose followers hehehehheheh. But yeah, I guess it depends on whether or not you care!

      Journaling, at its core, is a private thing. Blogging made it public, and my Auntie NIta said to never put anything on the internet that you wouldn’t want in the New York Times. I don’t know if I exactly followed her advice, but I think about it all the time!

      • Omg. The advice “IF it’s just for you, then you don’t need to post the URL anywhere” is pretty mindblowing. I WANT to blog just for me. I want to do it just because it feels good and makes me happy. I think I just might have to try that. That’s deep, dude. Thanks. <3

  • Amazing, beautiful, so exactly what I needed to read. What a nice confirmation of what I’d just been pondering today… If you play life like a video game you don’t care about dying and having to start over. Be fearless/don’t care about what other people think and you’ll get into the flow of the game where all the revealing of personal stuff is natural and doesn’t feel scary. Plus, if someone’s reading your site, they’re the ones asking. You are being open and honest about who you are and anyone who has a problem with that is not. And nice comment typeface too. <3

  • Ariane

    says:

    Oh, fuck yes, this post was amazing. Let’s keep freedom publishing alive, by being free! If they don’t censor us, we censor ourselves – not anymore! 🙂

  • I struggle with this TOO! My blog started out nearly 3 years ago as a gluten free food blog. Then it was food & health (totally legit). Then I started the “plastic trash challenge” and thus had a weekly post detailing my plastic consumption, so I added a blurb about relating what you eat & health to the health of the planet. We’re all interconnected yada yada… and now I’m doing a yoga teacher training program, so I’m linking more & more often to yoga related stuff…

    I’ve lost all focus.

    As much as my hopes & dreams once upon a time were to use my blog as a platform for my consulting “business” (holistic nutritionist here!) it’s totally not going to happen. And I absolutely don’t have the time to write separate blogs for all of my topics of interest. I hardly keep up with the one flighty blog I do try to maintain.

    As you can see, I can’t retain focus even for a paragraph…. I guess what I’m saying is that you’re not alone.

    And it’s okay.

    <3

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Heheh. Yea. I mean, really we can do whatever the heck we want! I think it really only becomes any sort of issue once you start trying to make money off the blog, or, as you say, turn it into something that promotes a certain business. The business of blogging is at once a wonderful and weird thing!

  • Oh god, so true. I was an early blogger too and somewhere in there my real thoughts got moved to a protected LiveJournal and my blog got boring. I was blogging back in high school (same time, around 2000) – although I called it a “personal website” back then, despite it being blog format – and remember getting busted. Remember being told by my SCHOOL that I could get in trouble for what I wrote online. And even long after graduation, I would encounter different kinds of drama, this time from strangers, whenever I posted something that felt real (and, as a result, controversial).

    I’m a “mom blogger” now (? how the hell did that happen!) and it’s even worse in that community. It’s like you’re nothing if other mom bloggers and THEIR audience don’t like you. You don’t want someone to click from a bigger blog to yours and be offended! And so, stifled.

    It’s something I’ve been thinking about especially the past couple months. I think I’m done playing it safe. I hope you are too.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Ah wow, I can’t believe your school intervened! I recently almost worked with a company who had a “morality clause” in their contract, and it really made me start to wonder if they cared about stuff like what I blogged about. I got really scared for a second.

      I know it’s kind of quick and easy to say, “Ah, screw em!” But some industries, like the craft industry, are still quite conservative when it comes down to the big companies, so can I really screw ’em? I’m not sure yet. Still figuring it out 😉

  • Claire

    says:

    Jesus christ this is exactly how I feel. I feel like I’ve started checking my swearing, stripping out my personality and trying to be a super version of me. Sod it. I am going to publish the draft post about running in which I talk like a real human being.

    *rants on* Thanks :0 Good to know other people feel like this.

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      IT is definitely different now. People getting in trouble with their jobs for what they post on the internet. It’s a bit sad, kind of understandable, and kind of a bummer!

  • Chrissy Cupcake

    says:

    Dearest Twinkie,

    I, too, am an ex-livejournaler (oh, horror!). I started out much like you, although I was an angsty teenager in 2000 and needed a place to vent. So all my entries were friends-only, and I had no friends on LJ, so they were basically just for me, until I got some fun people following somehow, and ended up making some very good friends. However, I quit journaling when I got my current job in retail, because I stopped having all kinds of in-depth thoughts and started just having drama and stress and silliness, and I didn’t want to record all that on the internet. It seemed less important, somehow, than when I was an angsty teenager.

    Point being, I kind of miss having a blog. I still don’t feel like I have anything to write, but reading blogs written by you and girls like you makes me happy. When I have a little break during the week and I get to scroll through my feed reader, it’s a nice little treat.

    And no, your blog isn’t overly personal — but it IS personal, whether you realize it or not. I sat and watched while you ate yucky things, I got to see you construct your little booths for craft fairs, I am slowly getting to know Manda and Hairy, and I’m following along with you as you go from lonely crochet girl to creating the very first Earth Cozy (dude, we’re going to need one when that global warming shit hits). And so is the rest of the pink-and-sprinkle-covered-English-speaking world. And we love it. So keep doing what you do. I don’t see it in any way as unprofessional, and if someone does… well, then they probably shouldn’t be working with a girl who has flamingo hair and cartoon tattoos. Cause they’re LAME.

    Lovingly Yours,
    Chrissy Cupcake

    • TwinkieChan

      says:

      Thank you for this very thoughtful note :). I will sometimes wonder if I no longer have anything to say on a blog, but I can’t seem to shut up ;).

      Thank you for reading along!!! <3 xoxo

  • Liz

    says:

    Thanks for writing about this…

    You know one of the weird things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the fact that the rules of life that we all grow up with: “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” somehow doesn’t apply to the web. We could all do with a little more kindness.

  • Gabby

    says:

    I don’t think I’ve laughed more during one of your posts than I did reading this. I especially liked the part where you talked about cussing while driving. I thought it was hilarious, I do that all the time.

    I agree with a reply you made to someone else about don’t put anything on the net that you wouldn’t want in the NYT. I also think that you mix your personal/craft portions evenly. You tell enough about you as a person so that the reader gets to know you and can form a bond with you but you stop it before we know what you’re doing at every hour of the day.

    But it’s not just blogging that changes as you change. Before I was married I posted whatever I wanted on FaceBook, but once I did and my husband join the Air Force I have to watch what I say just in case his bosses or bosses wives are reading. And even talking about other Mil wives who’s husband’s are the same rank, they tell their husband and it just goes down hill from there. Things always end up coming back to you. And the negative travels faster than the positive…

    That got kinda long….. and I know I’m a month late, but I really liked this post. xp

  • Clare

    says:

    Wonderful post. Something I struggle with too. Thanks for your honesty.

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