Spoiler alert: Yet another post about you-know-what

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Been ruminating my little arse off this week. How about you?

I’m a hyper-local blogger. I’m on the Bloodhound Blog because of a contest Greg and I teamed up to compete in- my being here is kind of a fluke, and frankly the only reason I’m still here is because this is such a great pack of dogs with which to run, at this point I can’t imagine giving up this gig. I have no desire for fame or fortune in the RE.net, best evidenced by the infrequency that I post here. My focus is to build a fantastic and profitable hyper-local weblog. Does hyper-local weblogging work? As someone once said: That’s another post for another day. 

What I do is blog to a very specific group of people. I don’t blog for the RE.net, and if you check your MyBlogLog widget you can confirm that I rarely visit your blog. In my limited time, I visit blogs in Dayton Ohio. Those are the blogs that matter most to me and my local blog. 

I do Twitter though, and from that I’ve met quite a few RE.net bloggers, and I have completely enjoyed making Twitterfriends with each and every one of them. One of my favorites (yeah I got favorites, don’t you?) is Daniel Rothamel. There are very few RE.net bloggers I respect more than Daniel. We’ve had several offline conversations, and that is a RE.net relationship that I value. Earlier last week when he tweeted that he just posted a video, I didn’t hesitate to take a look. I like Daniel’s video. I did then, and I do now. I thought it went well as a link to a post on my home blog, so I added it without hesitation. Then Jeff Brown posted about it and fast forward to all hell breaking loose.

As I said, I don’t spend much time in the RE.net. I had no idea how much hell could actually break loose. At first I simply sat back and watched, taking my place among the elusive ninety and nine. Daniel and I even shared a gentle joke over the fuss. But then, (apparently true to form) I did begin to ruminate and by Saturday morning I was thoroughly confused.

Two things were happening here: The first, and most important to me, was that I could somehow unintentionally offend my readers. I didn’t see how anyone could possibly be offended by Daniel’s video, but when Greg, Kris, Russell, and then Cathy all agreed that it could be offensive, I had to take that seriously. Last night Greg, Cathy, and I, shot some emails back and forth. The end result for me was that I was going to respectfully agree to disagree with them.  At the same time all this emailing was going on, I was Twittering and Mariana Wagner and I started following each other.

I know the name Mariana Wagner. I know she is a respected real estate blogger. I was curious to find out more about her through Twitter. Within a half hour of my last email to Greg and Cathy, Jay Thompson tweeted a link to his pick for video of the week, so I went over to take a peek. My guess is that Mariana is a nice person. All the comments on Jay’s post suggest she’s well liked and has a wonderful sense of humor. In all likihood she is a great real estate professional, but I don’t know her. When I saw her video, I was, well… I was offended. I felt it was condescending. That may or may not have been her intent, and it doesn’t matter; she doesn’t know me, so she didn’t create that video for me. And before you bitch about my delicate sensitivities, take note: I’m not easily insulted or offended, and you’d be missing the point anyway. The point is that much to my own surprise and horror, I instantly recognized what Greg was trying to tell me: Someone, anyone, one person whom I’ve never met, one person who is looking to me for sound professional advice and guidance, could be offended by what I had posted. Why would I do that? I work really hard to create my blog, why would I post something that could be misconstrued, even if I didn’t understand how that could happen?

It’s highly likely that Mariana doesn’t give a poo about my reaction to her video- and she really shouldn’t care- my reaction to her video doesn’t reflect on her as a person or a professional. And my concern here is not really with her video anyway, except that it served as a wake-up call to understanding my own personal ninety and nine.

So. Video-on intrepid RE.netters! Push the boundaries! Unchain thy-selves! Someday perhaps I’ll join in the merry-making. Just remember that we don’t all share the same funny bones. And if you are in the ninety and nine? You may wish to continue to ruminate awhile. Which brings me to the other thing that I watched in discomfort from home.

If you are a RE.netter, you can stop reading now. This next part is between me and the ninety and nine. Are they gone? Okay, now that we are alone, between you and me: I don’t quite understand the inner workings of the RE.net power bloggers. I don’t know about you, but I got my head down, trying to keep my nose to the grindstone, scrapping out a meager existence. They make a lot of inside jokes and references to posts that first posted back in the dark ages when they all began to blog. They seem to break off into clans… Now there’s an idea- perhaps my first video for the RE.net will be a whiteboard scorecard so we can keep track of who is pissed at whom.

This week reminded me of the once-upon-a-time when I was a Dance Mom- think soccer mom in a world of pink tulle. You’ve never seen such gossiping and grudge matches and political posturing- and that was just the moms. It’s the kind of world where otherwise sweet girls embrace the pure ugliness of highly charged and competitive behavior. I was quite thrilled- you have no idea how thrilled, I mean you really can’t imagine how thrilled I was- to leave all that behind when my daughter said she had had enough.

Once my daughter bolted from that convoluted world, we were able to sit together and look back and laugh our butts off at one perfect glimpse into the world of twisted politics at the cliquish level. Just like in the dance world, just like in the ancient world, just like high school, sometimes the RE.net world gets a little um, mean.