Selling your soul for a *name of product here*

When *name of company here* first contacted me I thought “What on earth would I do with *name of product here*?”. Those of you who are regular readers of my blog will know that it’s been a long time since any *name of product here* have been anywhere near my house, but only hours later there was a *name of made up incident here* which *name of product here* would have been perfect for! Can you imagine?!

So of course I just had to get back in touch with the lovely people at *name of company here* & tell them all about it, sure that they’d get a kick out of the irony of it all, and blow me down with a feather they said they’d send me some *name of product here* to try, and not only that, they’d send me some *name of product here* to giveaway right here on my blog, too! How great is that? Now instead of you having to go to the supermarket & look in vain at the confusing shelves for some *name of product here*, all you have to do is go to *name of company here*’s website, tell me in the comments which of their products you’d like to use the most, follow me on twitter, follow *name of company here on twitter, like me on facebook, like *name of company here* on facebook, blog about this giveaway, tweet about this giveaway & take a picture of yourself standing next to a lettuce and you could have a one in sixty-three chance of winning some *name of product here* instead! How EASY is THAT?!

Of course you know I’m not in it for the free *name of product here*. Just as I would only review the *name of product here*, the *name of product here* and the box of *name of product here* if I thought they were a quality product that you would be interested in, so it is with *name of product here*. I have been using *name of product here* for over a week now and I have to say it *verb here* my *noun here* better than any other *name of product here* I have come across. I can’t believe my friends hadn’t already told me about *name of product here* – I mean, what, are they trying to keep all the *name of product here* benefits to themselves?

*name of company here* even has a special offer for my blog readers! That’s right, if you aren’t lucky enough to win one of the *name of product here* that *name of company here* has so generously offered, you can get 5% off your next *name of product here* when you go to *name of company here*’s website, sign up for their newsletter and sign over your third-born child! Awesome, right?

What are you waiting for? Enter NOW!

*name of blogger here* xoxo

Right. I know you’re wondering what the hell *name of hallucinogenic drug here* I’m on after that, so I will tell you what it’s about;

“Mummy blogs”. I was reading my usual blogs yesterday when one click lead to another & I was suddenly staring in horror at shades of brown & pink & blue, flowers & birds & caricatures of women (as in, real drawn in Illustrator caricatures, although I think perhaps the other way is also true) staring out at me from unfamiliar blog headers.

If I wanted to, just yesterday, I could have entered into a gazillion competitions to win anything from disinfectant to puppets, from snow-cone makers to magazines… & every single one of those giveaways was available because someone had reviewed it on their blog. Someone had actually said “Yes. I want some free *insert name of product here* & I will pimp out my blog to get it.”.

And these blogs have, apparently, people reading them. People participating in them. Quite a lot of people. Not only that, but there are SO MANY OF THEM. It’s like a whole other bloggy world that I quite honestly had no idea existed. Almost all of the blogs I come across are linked from a blog I already read or tweeted about by someone I like & although some of them aren’t my cup of tea, most of them are. And when they’re not my cup of tea it’s because I’m not overly interested in the content or there aren’t any pictures (I know, sorry) or the pictures that are there don’t grab me. They’re not ‘not my cup of tea’ because they are reviewing back-scratchers & flea shampoo. Nor are they raving about some great new “handmade” product that looks like it took 2 minutes with a hot glue gun & a lobotomy to make.

Look at the title of my blog. I am a mum. I blog. A lot of you (most?) are Mums. YOU blog. But I am just labelling here (as wrong as it may be to do so) a certain type of blog, as one might label someone (as wrong or fun as it may be to do so) a “bogan”. That’s why I’m using the inverted commas. You can do that & get away with anything “apparently”. I was told on twitter that it’s not just “Mummy Blogs” that do this & make you feel dirty just for having looked at them, there are others too… the mind boggles.

This post is a bit of a de-brief for me, because I was seriously (naively) shocked. Blogging to me is such an awesome thing; I have made friends that I have met & that I may never meet, I have gained inspiration & motivation, shared, laughed… all that soppy stuff…

I could never sell myself or my blog out for a free voucher to McCafe, nor would I like to read the blogs of people who do. I was curious as to what else these people even blog about so, taking a deep breath, I went back to try to look past the glaring giveaway/”review” posts, & was disappointed (or validated?) to see a ratio of something like 3:1 for giveaways vs “real” content. A couple would have been really nice – stories about days away & musings on what it means to be a mother – if at the bottom of that nice post there wasn’t another giveaway or an advertisement for face cream or something. I guess, like everything, blogging means different things to different people.

Having said all that though…

"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

…my icing might be the idea that I could enrich your lives through showing you the fun I could have on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disneyland…? (Please blog, tweet, re-tweet, facebook & re-re-tweet…)

More on the foibles of blog giveaways here.