He’s trying to get Lily and Steve to be more brand-friendly dammit!!!…
Bianca Bosker, in the Atlantic, on “Instamom: The enviable, highly profitable life of Amber Fillerup Clark, perfect mother and social-media influencer”:
One morning in early November, Amber Fillerup Clark sat at her dining-room table, which serves as her desk most days, peering at her laptop. She had professional photo-editing software open, and was using it to tweak pictures that her husband, David Clark, had snapped of their toddlers dressed up as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The children had rotated through several costumes before Halloween—11-month-old Rosie wore a lamb outfit; 2-year-old Atticus dressed as a dragon; the whole family donned matching superhero getups—and Clark had photographed each one for Barefoot Blonde, Fillerup Clark’s blog about motherhood and fashion. As we talked, she adjusted the colors in the pictures, giving them the warm pastel hues characteristic of wedding portraits. She assured me that she stops short of Photoshopping appearances, then reconsidered: “Sometimes I’ll whiten teeth.”
Fillerup Clark has shared enough holidays and milestones that she and her husband can predict what types of images will charm her followers. “Before we post a picture, we can usually tell how good the engagement will be based off the content,” Clark said.
“If it has the whole family in a pretty place, traveling, that’s going to do the best,” Fillerup Clark said. On another occasion she’d told me, “We always have to think of our life as ‘Where can you take the prettiest pictures?’ ”
Not so long ago, Fillerup Clark was a broke student in Provo, Utah. Today, at age 26, she is the equivalent of internet royalty: a “relatable influencer,” someone whom hundreds of thousands of women trust as a friend and whom companies pay handsomely to name-drop their products. Stepping for the first time into her living room in Manhattan, I found it intimately familiar, thanks to the up-close-and-personal Instagram photos, YouTube vlogs, Snapchat videos, and blog posts Fillerup Clark shares with her 1.3 million Instagram followers, 227,000 YouTube fans, and 250,000 monthly blog readers. I knew from the redecoration “reveal” she’d posted a few months back that the velvet side chair had been provided by West Elm, and I recognized the tangle of curls on a shelf as clip-in hair extensions from Barefoot Blonde Hair, Fillerup Clark’s own line of products, which sold out within 72 hours of its debut in October. I could even name the stuffed dog on the couch: That was Chauncey, it belonged to Atticus, and it had been named after the family’s real golden retriever…
Fillerup Clark’s portrait of domestic bliss has earned her a top spot among the second generation of so-called mommy bloggers. She joins a clique of stylish women, among them Naomi Davis of Love Taza and Rachel Parcell of Pink Peonies, who have acquired loyal followings (and incomes rumored to be in the seven figures) by showing themselves excelling as ordinary wives and mothers. If the feats these blogs capture are familiar—dressing well, attending to children—this is a key part of the appeal; the women epitomize a new breed of celebrity, as public fascination expands beyond the rich and famous to the well-off and above-average. “We’re seeing people following almost idealized versions of themselves,” said Rob Fishman, a co-founder of Niche, an ad network for online influencers that is now owned by Twitter. “It’s this attainable perfection.”…
Fillerup Clark says she juggles about five photo shoots a week, not including impromptu picture-taking when the family happens to be doing something photogenic. It was the Clarks’ second visit to Central Park that day; the earlier trip, which they’d deemed a casual family outing, not an official shoot, had generated content for an Instagram photo, a Snapchat video, and a blog post…
Yeah, eminently mockable, but it is hard work, in its own way; there’s a feminist treatise to be written about the perennial niche in “conservative” media for women willing to work hard at being traditionalists. (For a far more toxic example, Phyllis Schafly made a rich career out of explaining for money that real women should stay home with their children, while leaving her own six kids in the care of housekeepers and her husband.)
Via Get Off My Internets, which has successfully monetized (although I’m sure not at the seven-digit-figure level) the second-level mocking of monetizing one’s private life online.
Mike J
Since it has come up so much recently:
Gaslight will be on TCM at 4:45, so fire up your DVR if you’ve not seen it in a while.
sharl
Only recently have I discovered Norf Norf Mom*, and now there is no room in my heart for any other traditional conservative American woman. My best wishes to Ms. Clark.
*some of the audio is NSFW (visuals OK)
opiejeanne
Wait, this isn’t a parody? I thought “Fillerup” was just part of the gag.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: I did at first glance too, but… I guess some people just have names like that.
Villago Delenda Est
Never heard of any of these women. I guess I’ve been hanging around the wrong sites.
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I read the rest of the article and now I am gagging. I read Dooce a few times years ago and her blog was somewhat interesting because it was pretty real, but I really wanted to see the posts she had removed that had offended her Mormon family.
Fillerup is what is referred to as a Molly Mormon by other Mormon women, and it is not a term of endearment.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: I think the author focused on that name to mock her a bit.
Hey, I hope you’re continuing to work on your book, because I want more and will buy your book when it’s published.
seaboogie
Big white Teeth! Sunglasses! Thigh Gap! Trendy consumable goods! Want!
Not really much different from the “Mad Men” era. Trying to feed the hollowness inside.
I bought a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses in the 80’s, and they did not fix one thing in my life.
Mart
When I moved to the Lou I decided to buy Schafly beer when I learned Phyllis was suing her nephew for producing anti-xtian demon beer with her last name on it. An insult to Baptists and Mormons who only drink when they are not being watched. She lost the suit , threatened to escalate, then thankfully died.
EBT
Those kids are going to be so fucked up.
Aleta
Is this like a do it yourself reality show?
Or a way to have complete control over the (narrowed down) world?
EBT
@EBT: Oh they are Latter Day Saints? Definitely gonna be fucked up.
? Martin
There’s an article out about a study looking at educational attainment for immigrants that might shed a bit of light on the current immigration debate.
Bottom line, immigrants that come to the US were from the more successful strata in their home country, and return to that strata after time in the US. What that means is that immigrants routinely leapfrog Americans that are in lower social strata. That’s an obvious opportunity for resentment from those in the US, however, denying immigration opportunities will do nothing to change the status of lower social strata Americans.
For states like California, that have such a large fraction of immigrants (about ⅓ are first generation immigrants if you count undocumented) and that have largely overcome seeing immigrants as a threat, embracing them is a way to bring (statistically) high achieving individuals into the state, which should over the long term strengthen the economy. The new legislation being introduced in CA to give residence status to refugees plays into that.
But for states that reject immigrants, they are possibly undermining their own success. The study doesn’t explore how living in a community of immigrants impacts non-immigrants, but it’s possible that immigrants raise the expectation of success in such a way that non-immigrants work to meet it. Anecdotally we do see that here. Cities with high immigrant populations tend to have overall higher educational attainment even among non-immigrants in the data that I have. It’s possible that income is the real driving factor (that’s what we always thought it was) but this might be a contributing factor as well.
Raven Onthill
Finally saw Hidden Figures tonight (and you should, too.) It’s a great and inspirational movie.
But, being my basically cynical self, I was left, well… There was a time when dreaming big dreams was part of the USA and, well, that’s gone. I am thinking of a button with Donald Trump’s duck tail and the legend, “For this we gave up the earth and sky?” Because likely we will. They want to shut down NASA’s earth sciences program because it produces evidence of climate change and ecological destruction. What will be left after all the cuts and most of the research funding is gone will not be much. Those labs and their staffs took generations to build. If they are shut down, it will not be possible to rebuild them without the kind of investment that we do not make any more.
Ah, well, it’s late and I am croaking. Maybe I will feel differently tomorrow.
? Martin
Another republican effort in Congress is to repeal the labor department regulation changes under Obama that allowed states to automatically enroll private sector workers into public savings plans who lacked an employer-provided retirement plan. In California that program is called Secure Choice.
The state will operate a public retirement plan that employers can choose to use instead of finding their own plan. Think of it as a public option to the exchanges. If the GOP repeals those rules, this program would presumably be illegal, though I expect the state would sue since the legislation has passed and the program is currently under development.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: Now that’s not what the President* tells me, he says they don’t send their best people. Who should I believe, you or the President*?
*Of course the President is the illiterate Dolt45, so I guess you win Martin.
Aleta
@Raven Onthill: People who don’t believe in science shouldn’t be allowed to use TV’s or GPS’s or microwave ovens or computers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I saw on the local news that folk protesting the pipeline in the Dakota’s were shutting down streets in DTLA during rush hour. A suggestion, why not head down to Palos Verdes and shut down a golf course and resort down there, it’s run by the Trump fella.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: Or drink Tang.
Raven Onthill
@Aleta: snicker. @?BillinGlendaleCA: I could do without Tang, though.
Raven Onthill
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Why not occupy the AG’s office?
? Martin
@Raven Onthill:
I disagree. That may be the view from elsewhere, but not out here in CA and I imagine not in places like WA. There’s a lot of visionary work being done out here, and a sense that not only will there be a bigger and brighter future, but that the US will produce it – from clean energy to EVs and autonomous cars to cheap access to space to improved democratic processes to a more tolerant and open society.
Sure NASA has gone off the rails a bit thanks to conservatives that believe in little other than padding their pockets, but we had an immigrant entrepreneur pick up on their work and do this, and they’re planning on doing this next. Cutting the cost to get to space is hugely important.
By this summer we should have a private constellation of satellites that are imaging the entire earth continuously in medium resolution (3m) and can target high resolution video on specific sites.
Here’s roughly where we are on autonomous vehicles.
Products like the iPhone have fundamentally changed the developing world.
This is all emanating from the US. The internet is effectively operated by the US, from services like Google and Amazon and Facebook to devices from Apple and Microsoft to underlying components like Intel. We are leading on clean energy. We are driving global emissions and environmental standards. We are by far the largest food exporter in the world and do so more efficiently than any other country on earth. We can feed entire countries on what we export and we teach other countries how to more efficiently feed themselves.
Yes, the federal government seems to have lost their way, as have the people that voted for this current crop of flunkies, but that’s not true of the nation at large. Its definitely not true here on the west coast. We are dreaming big out here. We’d like the rest of the country to come along for the ride, but we can’t force them.
? Martin
Moderation help, please. Too many links, I suspect. Raven needs a peptalk.
ThresherK
I am not gonna dive into the subject of the post, but she sounds more on the up and up than Faith Popcorn (original surname Plotkin), a trendsetter (sic) who did Brooksian levels of talking with a cabbie trend research.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Raven Onthill: I’m suggesting making more personal with Dolt45, and not pissing off the general public. The AG’s office, in LA? The only AG’s office in LA would be the CA AG and he’s on our side. The US Attorney’s office is in the new cube, not sure what that would accomplish.
Raven Onthill
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was thinking DC.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ha. I think I just remembered Space Food Sticks.
EBT
@Aleta: And now it has come back to Dip n Dots.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Raven Onthill: I did say “local news” and DTLA in my original comment.
Applejinx
In short, another power-law demographic: count upon it, there are hundreds of women losing money trying to be like these, and possibly ONLY the three examples listed by name are doing okay. It’s the way of the internet and of total connectivity: the #1 makes seven figures (maybe for just a moment, then it’s scrambling to retain that), the #2 makes six figures, the $3 makes five figures, the #4 through 6 make four figures, the #7 through #10 make three figures, the #11 through #99 make two figures, the #100 through #999 make one figure…
Aspirational? More like a scam or a pyramid, really.
I’m in the top 5% to 5.99% earners on all of Patreon. That’s mid three figures a month right there. On track to make five figures a year if all goes super well… after ten years of work establishing what I do as a regular commercial venture.
Granted coming up with these things and monetizing them is a creative, innovative pursuit, but none of it is more than a capitalism lottery. It doesn’t work, in practical terms. It’s not like being the fifth welder on Buick doors at GM. If you’re the fifth mommyblogger in the eighth most popular media market, you can’t live and can’t pay for the salaries of others in real jobs.
Aleta
House Oversight Committee letter to GSA for full unredacted information on T’s lease. https://mobile.twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/829505734081667072/photo/1
Morzer
https://newrepublic.com/article/140470/can-left-win-qa-zephyr-teachout
I think the lady has a number of good ideas and useful insights and it might be worth listening to her, rather than the advocates of more and bigger SuperPACs running more and bigger commercials that nobody bothers to watch these days.
greennotGreen
The quoted article about Amber Fillerup Clark is relevant to a question I’ve had for sometime. I check Pinterest at least once a day for craft ideas and recipes, mostly. I’ve found that a lot of source blogs use an identical template: introduction of the blogger – an invariably attractive young married woman with kids, a disclosure of affiliate links, and lots and lots of pictures relative to the amount of text. My question is, are these women even real? Or are they the same 3-5 Macedonian teenagers filling out several blog forms to collect maximum advertising dollars on minimal content?
raven
@? Martin: raven on the hill please
EBT
@greennotGreen: They want those sweet advertising fractions of a cent. Those affiliate links are a “scam”. Thousands of clicks get you a few pennies while you give away free advertising space.
Tokyokie
@seaboogie: Well, other than not having to squint when outside on a sunny day. (Says the guy who’s worn the same pair of vintage tortoise-shell Wayfarer IIs for about 15 years.)
@EBT: She’s from Provo. Of course she’s LDS.
Kat
News you may not have seen:
“Let the Leaking Begin” — Longtime NASA Watchdog Welcomes New Rogue-Agency Tweeters
Keith Cowing’s NASAWatch.com is a precursor to Twitter accounts like @RogueNASA, @Alt_CDC , and @AltHHS. They are all trying to do the same thing for their organizations: Protect them.
The FBI Is Building a National Watchlist That Gives Companies Real-Time Updates on Employees
Will the FBI’s Rap Back service notify your boss that you got arrested protesting the inauguration?
The FBI’s Secret Rules
President Trump has inherited a vast domestic intelligence agency with extraordinary secret powers. A cache of documents offers a rare window into the FBI’s expansion since
greennotGreen
@EBT: Therefore my argument that it’s a bunch of Macedonian teenagers.
Brachiator
@Raven Onthill: Science and scientific research has been suppressed before. It always comes roaring back in societies which encourage it. We will get through this. It is amazing, though, the hard headed business people who stifle science because it gets in the way of profits.
Brachiator
I have not heard of any of these people, and think that the branding BS is overrated. There are always people who look for magic formulas and shortcuts to success, and who exaggerate examples they find.
Amir Khalid
You learn something new every day. I didn’t know before this that Fillerup was an actual surname.
jonas
The Onion, of course, was there first. The episode on choosing the correct “mom stick” is a classic.
Ohio Mom
@greennotGreen: No, no, They are all real USAians, these lifestyle and DIY decorating and Mommy bloggers. I have followed some of the decorating sites on and off over the years because I like looking at pretty homes.
Just as with lefty-political bloggers, the ones who were in the first generation have higher profiles and correspondingly larger followings, and more advertisers, and therefore more lucrative blogs. It’s hard for a newbie to break in this racket.
A disproportionate numbers are Mormon moms, for several reasons. First, the LDS culture/church encourages diary-keeping — these women have been writing about their lives since childhood. Writing a blog about yourself and your life is an easy evolution.
Blogging about your life makes for a good stay-at-home-mommy track career, for obvious reasons.
I think at least some of them see their efforts as furthering the Mormon goal of converting others. They show themselves as having perfect, enviable lives, they are an advertisement for the desirability of the LDS life.
Another aspect of this is that they help each other out, for example, by linking to one another. Think about how other ethnic groups have taken over certain industries, like Korean grocers in inner cities, or Indian motel owners — it’s a similar dynamic.
I also sometimes stop by Get Off My Internet when I am in a catty mood. It never fails to amuse.
Starfish
@EBT: The kids decide that they do not want to put up with all of mommy’s demands for costume changes and photos once they hit their teens.
Capri
@greennotGreen: I know one rural/farm/cooking/mommy blogger and know she meets regularly with other similar bloggers. (http://www.myfearlesskitchen.com/) They are real.
Take a well educated, assertive woman who has decided to stay home with her children yet still make something of herself and you get a mommy blog.
Starfish
@greennotGreen: You forgot to add that they are all white women.
Citizen Alan
I’ve often thought that Obama had an advantage over Clinton when it came to minority support because a sizable percentage of women benefit from and fully support the patriarchy, whereas the number of racial minorities (outside of Cuban-Americans, perhaps) who benefit in any way from white supremacy is statistically negligible. Case in point: I generally see more women online who are aggressively anti-choice then men.
artem1s
@Raven Onthill:
I saw it last week and had pretty much the same reaction you had. NASA took years to build up the staffing they needed to ‘science the shit outta’ those programs. They had to adjust some of their institutional prejudices so they could take advantage of the most qualified staffers. I can’t imagine what their programming is going to look like after 4-8 years of only being able to hire Liberty University grads. /FFS.
Also, I am so glad those women’s stories are getting told. They were the product of public schooling. They had to fight to get their rights after Brown v Board but at least the ruling was there to help them. Betsy DeVos is going to kill with thru ignorance. again FFS
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: GOMI’s coverage of fashion blogs is priceless.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
Wouldn’t it be more helpful to hear from a winning candidate than a two-time loser? I would rather see if the current Democratic governor of Louisiana has some insights.
BellyCat
The antidote blog: Scary Mommy.
Unvarnished truths here and gut-busting laughs for the breeders in the audience.
Seth Owen
Believe it or not, “influencers” are a thing. My stepdaughter has more than 130,000 YouTube followers and already makes a living at it at age 21 — in Italy. Just because us old fogies don’t get something doesn’t mean it’s not a thing.
Raven Onthill
@Morzer: Been sayin’ this, been told I was incoherent and racist for sayin’ it.
Feh.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: That goes along with my reaction, which was “rather convenient that the candidate touted as the model for taking an unapologetic left approach but who lost anyway finds that the reason why was clearly that she was sadly hampered by other people’s neoliberalism.” Why doesn’t _she_ get “SHE WAS A FLAWED CANDIDATE WHO RAN A TERRIBLE CAMPAIGN”-ed into submission? Blow it out your ass, Zephyr.
Raven Onthill
@? Martin: But these are dreams of, mostly, a small group of wealthy men, not the work of the people of a democracy, united. And even so, these things could not have without the big government labs and government-funded research at the big private labs. These things are going to be shut down if the Republicans have their way. California is big enough to fund quite a bit on its own, but that doesn’t compare with the resources that built NASA and the national labs.
There’s a reason for the pseudonym, but can anyone here truly say I am wrong? You’ve seen the proposed budget. If the Republicans have their way, there will be nothing left of the federal budget but military funding.
chopper
gah, the food blog side of this whole thing really drives me up the wall. I’m looking around for a little help with a recipe and I end up at some wannabe Martha Stewart’s blog that crashes my browser because it’s got 50 pounds of ads and pictures on it.
and all of the pictures aren’t of the actual ingredients or technique, they’re all the same framed shot of the cake or whatever on her nice expensive table with the pretty furniture just so in the background and all the comments are all “OMG I love your house you have such style” and I’m all I’M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO ADJUST FOR NON-DUTCHED COCOA YOU SHITS
quakerinabasement
@opiejeanne: Not just Fillerup. Amanda Fillerup. Bet the boys back in study hall had a time with that.
J R in WV
@seaboogie:
“I bought a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses in the 80’s, and they did not fix one thing in my life.”
Not even eyestrain due to bright light? Get your money back!