The first thing you notice is the dorks. They’re everywhere. It’s “Night of the Living Dorks.” Austin, TX in early March is for computer dorks what Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory was for short, orange-haired, song-happy survivors of the Vermicious Knid invasion. It’s heaven. It’s a sanctuary. It’s a great big dork sandwich.
This morning after this panel, I saw The King Of All I.T. Dorks – a six-foot-five, bespectacled nerd wrapped around a dork inside of a geek, topped with a big scoop of nimrod. He had long, greasy brown hair (possibly blonde if he ever elected to step away from the developers’ message board and bathe himself) in a mangled ponytail and an Adam’s apple the size of a minivan.
Yep, if you want to feel normal and stable and cool, come to SXSW – where no one showers, everyone chews with his mouth open, and sometimes you’re afraid to introduce yourself to new people because you fear they won’t understand any language other than HTML. “Hi, my name is
It’s easy to feel frightened and overwhelmed by the inconceivable magnitude of dorkosity here. I’m sure these are all wonderful human beings beneath their mouth-breathing and unkempt neck hair and Flaming Hot Cheeto breath, but it took only a few hours for me to recognize that these weren’t the people I came to see. My people speak English. They use soap. And they can finish a meal without having to fish half of it out of their beard.
Prior to standing face to face with the fellow bloggers I came to meet and drink with and tease, I had no independent verification that they weren’t dorks, too. But I had reason and the circumstantial evidence to believe – based on their writing and the pictures I’ve seen – that they were somewhat less robotic and physically repulsive than the run-of-the-mill CSS junkie or Linux hack. Well, some of them anyway. (I’m looking at you, Storch) If you aren’t familiar either personally or cyberly with Kim, Marrit and Asha, you’re really cheating yourself. Not sure I’ve ever been so enamored with anyone so shortly after meeting them as I was these women, the holy trinity of warmth.
By now you’ve also read about the others I went to meet – the dweedle-dee and dweedle-dumb of “Diaper Diarists.” When I knocked on their hotel room door Friday afternoon, I heard a scream inside the room. When they opened the door to hug me, about two-thirds of Amy’s hair flew into my mouth and I had to pick it out before I could speak to her. And Tracey, for all the shit she’s had to deal with lately, is as cool and smart as they come. All you haters better recognize.
Our panel, which started at 10 am Sunday morning, was intended to articulate the ways in which parent bloggers can make money with their sites. In the Green Room before it started, we estimated the over/under on attendees for such a nonsensical topic was 10 people. I took the under, but I was pleased to see the number was well past 10. More like 35. I was just as shocked as they were to discover that the topic of monetizing a blog actually had some legs. Many people asked questions. The viability of corporate recruitment of parent bloggers for large-scale family sites was a prevalent topic. And I was able to work the words “fart” and “poop” into my diatribes, which is my way of saying I kept it real.
What really struck me about being with other parenting writers is the sense of unity we share almost automatically. Because only one of us relies upon blog income to sustain our lifestyles, we are able to avoid the trap of taking ourselves too seriously and believing that every entry we write about potty training or Elmo is powerful enough to change the world. Still, there are “issues” to confront when you invest so much of yourself in a pursuit like this. How can we take advantage of our hard work and good fortune without alienating our readers, who made us what we are, and our passion for the work? Is snagging a paying blog gig worth sacrificing the control of our own writing pace and content and self-satisfaction? There was even discussion about the exceptionally low number of dad sites (in comparison to moms’) and why that disparity exists.
A podcast of our panel will soon be available HERE.
A review of our panel on the Austin Chronicle’s SXSW blog is available HERE.
Oh, I am so jealous!! I love comraderie. I love warmth. I love funny! Looks like you had a great time. Wish I had been there so I could actually hear what you sound like when you're telling all your funny poop stories. :)
Danny, let me just say the pleasure was all mine.
No WONDER I'm not longer your favorite person on The Internet now! You've moved on to more popular, connected wimmins!
But I'm not bitter! At all!
Danny - truly enjoyed your session. It was a pleasure to actually see you all in person. I had hoped to chat with you afterwards but you were surrounded by adoring fans. Well, some guy from the dork army anyway, surrounding you with his dorky dorkness. Dork.
I have blurry photos of your panel from 3 rows back - I'll send them along once I get home. Because I'm a dork.
Soap is SO overated. Geeks rule. Twat :)
Can't wait to hear the podcast.
Blogging is the last free content frontier on the Internet. Proof that people aren't so different. The balance is TRULY keeping it real AND real good.
THANKS for inspiring us all! (and for providing those fantastic T Shirts!)
I heard that girl Kim is a little Krazee with a capital K.
The haircut looks awesome. I love how it shows off your ears.
I spoke on a panel on similar topics this weekend, but after I showed then how hard Amalah works and they gasped, I told my audience that if they wanted to make easy money from a blog they should resort to P@rn.
And Richard Schickel dissed us all, but that's another story.
Danny, is it just me or do you totally look like you're twelve in that panel picture? Seriously. You look like the kid who finally outgrew the kid table and gets to sit with the grownups. And I totally mean that in a good way, but that was my initial impression.
But maybe that's me. What do I know - I pick half of my lunch out of my beard on a daily basis.
The geeks of last week have given way to the freaks this week. This week you will see pierced adam's apples, multi-colored hair, and ensembles that would make a dumpster diver cringe. But hey, it's Austin, right?!
Loved meeting you, Hot Wife, Amalah, Tracy, Jennifer(s) and Great Big Fan Mike. All super nice folks. Y'all can come back anytime.