I’m a couple days late as I only saw your blogger slamming video yesterday morning. Before I start, for any of you – like me yesterday morning – that have yet to see
Martha’s unsavoury statement and wanna know what my impending rant is in regards to, this is what Martha Stewart recently said during an interview –
“I do have a minor gripe about that too {social media} because who are these bloggers? They’re not trained editors at Vogue magazine. I mean there are bloggers writing recipes that aren’t tested, that aren’t necessarily very good or are copies of everything that really good editors have created and done. So, bloggers create … uh … kind of a … uh … popularity. But they are not the experts and we have to understand that.“
Oh Martha, where do I start? You let your verbal diarrhea get the better of you. Allow me to compare what you said to that of a school teacher. You’re at your desk in class when your teacher all of a sudden not only fails you, but stands up on his or her desk, points and ridicules you in front of the entire class. That’s what your statement does, Martha. You made bloggers feel unimportant and wrong for no reason whatsoever. We thought you got our backs.
But I do feel sympathetic towards you Martha, I really do. You don’t know what it’s like to have a blog. You have a writhing team of people to do it for you. You have an indisposable amount of photographers, stylists, editors, writers, designers, and coders. Us bloggers however, are the stylists. We are the photographers, the editors, the writers, the Photoshoppers. We mindlessly arrange and rearrange a space to get a photo to look just right. We are hunched over our computers in our pyjamas with no bra on, Googling code with needy cats on our laps, endlessly editing our posts and tutorials.
Here’s a cute picture of my cat to break up all the text.
May I ask you Martha, when you started your catering business, did you start off using someone else’s recipes? Albeit you maybe changed an ingredient here and there but as the legend of Martha Stewart goes, you started off
baking cookies in your basement. I’m no expert when it comes to cookies, but I’d say there’s about 6 or 7 ingredients that go into a cookie, and chances are, your first cookies were a copy of someone else’s. I’m not placing the blame game here Martha, but if you’re going to go down that route, you best be taking a long hard look at yourself first.
I’m not the only blogger to write about Martha’s statement this week. Most bloggers, like myself, can barely keep their hands still over the vast amount of expletives they’re shouting at their computer screens. Some bloggers chose to write about how Martha in fact
supports bloggers, but to that I say Martha’s
brand supports bloggers. She sure doesn’t sound like she likes them. She even kinda
backhandedly apologized on Twitter.
The thing that gets to me the most Martha is that if you were starting off now – you and your homemade cookies in your basement – you would have started a blog about them. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve always been in awe at your creations, creativity and what you’ve achieved from such humble beginnings. But for now, that open wound needs to scab over.
p.s. As more bloggers have stepped forward and voiced their opinion, Holly Becker of decor8’s post inspired me the most. After my blood pressure resumes, I’m hoping to do as Holly says, and take it as constructive criticism {not that I consider myself an expert in the first place}.
A-freaking-men!! As I constantly remind myself, Martha is just a little Polish girl from New Jersey. In other words, me. Only with minions. She's lucky she had a Rolodex full of posh contacts when she was starting out. And yeah, she'd totally have a blog.
I actually spotted an absolutely ace comment on another blog from a lady that used to live down the road from our dear Martha. All she said was "Martha was NOT a good neighbour" and that made me feel so much better.
Thanks for your comment Barb 😉 xx
The thing that bothered me (and I posted about on FB of course) is that Martha hawks her wares in SO MANY sponsored posts so many DIY blogs. So in essence she's biting the MANY HANDS that feed her. The sponsored posts for Martha Stewart brand products on these countless blogs is endless and these bloggers who she probably considers mediocre and creating inferior and copycat crafts are the people selling HER STUFF. Or maybe she isn't aware of the sponsored posts and the many DIYs being spotlighted with her products. I often wonder if many of them would live up to her expectations.
That's something I've been wondering over the last couple of days. A lot of people who wrote sponsored posts are feeling very conflicted right now, and for good reason. And that's a very good point – I wonder if she even realizes her name is sponsoring so many bloggers. She has some serious backpedalling to do and I have a feeling she directly won't be doing.
amen, sister.
Bahaha! I unfortunately missed this little nugget, but I sure do enjoy your take on it.
I would agree that a brand and the person at the head of that brand are not always on the same page. It is an oxymoron to base your business on how to DIY, then to berate those who document their trials and tribulations that were first encouraged by that business in the first place.
I wonder if they would notice if all bloggers – and specifically requested that Martha Stewart ads be removed from their blogs?
Thoroughly enjoyed this post!
Thanks Pat. Yeah, you said it, she's an oxymoron. Seriously, did she not think before she opened her mouth?!
And if you watch the interview, all she does is drop big names. I wondered if she was sponsored to do so! Martha is resilient so even if bloggers refuse to deal with her, she'll still thrive.
Ain't that the truth. Heck, she went to prison, and still came out the other end smelling like a rose. Wonder if she met any nice lady-friends on the inside?
What a shit storm she created with those comments, and I missed all of this! Mind you I don't follow her but holy crap she needs to mend some fences after that one cos her comment on twitter was even more insulting. Good on you for writing a response, everything you said was valid too.
I've always enjoyed her work but I don't follow her on any social media. I only saw that tweet after I heard all the 'hubub'.
I don't think think she'll make an apology, which will reflect even worse on her than her original statement. As some people have said, maybe she feels threatened because we're in her territory?
Nicely written article with a lot of valid points.