Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Why I stopped following BlogHer on Twitter

I have mixed feelings when it comes to BlogHer. Sometimes I find the site and/or group of women on the site to be extremely rude and snobbish. Sometimes I find them to be very insightful. Sometimes I find them to be all about money. So my outlook on BlogHer was to follow them in Twitter.

I don't have time to sit at my computer to read blog pages and community pages. I rely on Reeder (for blogs), Apps for community pages) and Twitter for everything else. BlogHer tweets require you to click thru to their page to read their posts. I get that, I do it to. Most of my reading is on Reeder like I said, and BlogHer's feed are not full. They only give you a paragraph then you have to click thru to the site. I read solely on the train (no data underground) so I can't read thru. But I do pay attention to the titles on Twitter.

What I notice about their titles are they are based on hot topics that catches attention. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's darn rude. So this brings me to why I'm writing this post. I am sitting here on the train going they Twitter and I see the following tweets from BlogHer:

@BlogHer: Why is #SmartBlackWomenOfTwitter trending? This - > Smartest Women You Should be Following on Twitter http://t.co/XVUH97IwQs -Momo

And

@BlogHer: (And, they're almost ALL WHITE.) The Smartest Women You Should be Following on Twitter http://t.co/XVUH97IwQs -Momo

I took offense of these tweets. Yes I didn't read the article. It may be an uplifting article but the way the tweets are written I find to be a bit "racist". I know they are trying to gather attention so they can get click thru's. I just think this type of attention seeking is just wrong. Why alienate races in the tweet? The tweet pits Black women against White women. Why do that? It just makes online community more defragmented. Isn't BlogHer supposed to bring women together so we can uplift each other? These tweets don't sound so. Do I want to be a part of this community? No. Give me a community where we can all come together for the common good.

I will end this post with the following: No race is smarter than the next. It's all about who wants to apply themselves to learning and bettering themselves.

So long BlogHer, it was an experience.



2 comments:

Momo Fali said...

It's so good to see feedback like this. I crafted those tweets and I realize why they seem offensive, but in actuality they were to bring attention to a list of "The Smartest Women You Should Be Following on Twitter" by Fast Company - which didn't include a single African American woman. The hashtag #SmartBlackWomenOfTwitter was trending and as the voice of all women in the blogosphere, we felt it a timely and important message to share. We appreciate your feedback, honestly, and if you ever have more concerns, please email me at momo@blogher.com.

Tiger's Lair said...

Thank you for responding. I understood why you crafted them, just didn't like seeing them. I can't read the articles so I am sure there was a good reason for the title. But I don't like the sensational tweets. It doesn't feel genuine. I know it supposed to attract the readers. Anything sensational will. Thank you. I am still a member of BlogHer but I don't like the sensational titles.