A Man's Perspective on the 2011 BlogHer Conference

August 09, 2011, By Jason Avant 3 comments

Jason Avant

And so I dove headlong into the BlogHer experience. It became immediately apparent that BlogHer—despite the many panels, speakers and sessions—is not about the panels, speakers and sessions. As with most conferences, there was an expo, where brands and vendors talked about and gave away their wares, in the hopes of attracting the eyes of the attending writers, who’d sing the company’s praises to their readers—their communities, really. The expo hall was busy, but rarely packed. Swag didn’t seem to be much of a factor (although I did pay a few visits to two sausage vendors who were giving out free food, which didn’t dispel any perception of me as a typical guy at a conference). I did make it to one session, and after talking to a few attendees, that seemed to be the norm.

The conference wasn’t about The Conference, as so many are. Women who know each other as well as anyone can know another greeted each other like sisters who’d just had lunch together the day before, despite the fact that time and distance dictated that they only see each other once a year for a few short days. The energy was infectious, and if I told you I wasn’t thrilled when smart, talented people recognized me and came up to me and talked about the challenges and joys of writing, I’d be lying. You hear the word “community” bandied about quite a bit in the blog-o-sphere—I did it myself, a few sentences back—but I’d never gotten much of a sense for what it actually could mean until witnessing it firsthand at BlogHer.

I was thinking about the idea of community in the crowded lunchroom when the music started. Most bloggers, myself included, will be lucky if we make enough money blogging to buy ourselves a nice pair of shoes. Of course, it hit me awhile back: I wasn’t at a conference with 3,000 or so women; I was there with a bunch of fellow writers, all of whom are drawn together by the same experience—we gather our thoughts, we put them on a screen, we hit Publish, and we do so because deep down, we know that we’re not alone, even if no one’s reading.

And then it was 12:18, and Lady Gaga’s bold and brassy voice belted out the first lines of her song “Edge of Glory.” My friend Theresa stepped out, alone in front of a sea of faces, and started dancing. The crowd stared, then immediately started digging for their smartphones and handheld cameras. Then Beth and the others joined her, and while it wasn’t a Broadway-caliber performance, it was utterly joyous, done from the heart, as befitting the writers they were and hoped to be. And when they were done, the cheers shook the floor.