226. The Internet and Parenthood with Jill Smokler of She's Got Issues

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Go to Brave Rider.com/blitz or simply go to the homepage Brave Rider.com, scroll down, click on the link that takes you there. We'll also stick a link in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. I can't wait for you to listen to today's podcast. Be sure you pop in those earbuds and you take a walk and really dive in. Melissa and I got to have a conversation with Jill Smokler, the founder of the wildly popular Scary Mommy platform. Many of you probably participated in it. Jill began that journey in 2008. She sold this amazing, confessional space in 2015. And today, she's launched a brand new endeavor called She's Got Issues. I don't want to waste any more time telling you about Jill because you're just going to be delighted by who she is in the conversation. So, let's get right to it. Well, hello, Jill. Melissa and I are eager to get to know you today. This is our first meeting. It is. We sort of know each other from threads a little bit, but I am so happy to get to know you more. Yeah, it was really one of those serendipitous internet meetings. And I kind of love those. And in fact, I feel like that kind of goes to this whole conversation. Melissa, what were you saying to me right before we hopped on? Well, that I love that this topic of online communities was sparked both for Julie and me years ago by meeting in an online community. And then the two of you, I think that's really funny that the two of you connected via another type of online discourse. It is. It's perfect. It's really perfect in this conversation. And threads feels so like 2008, 2009. I first started things and it just feels like so innocent. And yes, it's like such a nice place for now. I don't know if I can maintain this, but for now, it's really nice. I know it's almost like analog internet, right? That's how it feels. It's so retro. And of course, Melissa and I met through an email list back when there were like Yahoo groups or e-groups. And that was in the 90s. So we go we're a lot older than you, but we're behind on mine for sure. Oh my gosh, for sure. In fact, when I look back when I first started homeschooling, we hopped right online. I used to say when the internet opened their doors, homeschoolers were the first ones in because we're also starved for connection with other people. Yeah. And the initial way that we got to know each other was before there were any tools that aggregated. So what you would do is you would just keep adding the email addresses of your friends. So you'd be copying and pasting 30 and then 22 and then 51 email addresses and you'd only get some of the emails because you were not everybody's group right and it was very. Yeah, very archaic, but very exciting. It was unwieldy and then Yahoo groups came along and seemed like a revelation like transformative technology. Absolutely. Baby Center group said yes, everything. You were an early adopter yourself, though. And I think that'd be a great place to start. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your internet story, how you got on what made you start. Well, we'll talk about scary mommy in a minute. But what, what about the internet attracted you and what was your early experience of it like? My early experience, my initial experience was of getting the blog content out exactly what you were saying, copy and pasting the email addresses of my close friends and my family. And I didn't understand that by having that URL, I was also putting it out there to the entire internet. I thought people who you know we're only getting it who I who opted in. Yeah, man, I got my first comment and I was like, is this weird? Like, why is this person like you're dropping with my life? I don't get it. And then I clicked on her name and I saw her blog roll and I started clicking around all the blogs and realized that there was this whole world that existed that I hadn't found in my real life. Looking for my own, you know, tribe, I didn't have friends who had kids. I was super isolated and lonely. And then really quickly, I just became immersed and obsessed with this online community and screw it from there. I remember Diana Gabbledon saying about the outlander books that she wrote them in like an online chat room. And the way she described it was that it was like an always open happy hour. And I think that is how the early internet really felt similar to you when I started my blog on blog spot dot com. The first person who commented that I didn't know sent me into a panicky spiral. I blocked them and then I thought, why am I blocking them? This is public. But like you, I didn't understand what a public blog would feel like or what it would feel like to be read. And similar to you, I clicked through and started to get comfortable with that experience of putting my ideas out, reading other ideas, eavesdropping on conversations that I would never have heard otherwise. And then I started to get into a lot of things. What was your initial blog content? And why do you think it resonated with people? Initially it started out being just really sort of what Instagram is now just like snippets of my life in pictures or little stories. But it started out just sort of documenting my days really innocently. And then I started writing more confessional style and about just motherhood and everything not coming naturally all the time and just struggling in ways that I didn't see talked about in the blogosphere. Yeah, I think it just I think there was a lot of ifasads with with the blogs and everything was this perfect image and it was very whitewash and I think mine stood out as not being that and being a little more authentic and realistic. Can you remember any of your early blogs that sort of took off that were popular like what were the topics that you felt like really drew people in and gave them sort of a feeling of being seen or permission to share in the experience. Yeah, it's funny when I think about those posts where I was most vulnerable really. From the most part they weren't parenting posts. They were really about me. They were weight related. They were rear related. They were family related. Because at that point, the kids were so little that parents felt so easy to me and it felt like as long as I was taking care of them and they were alive and fed and all that stuff like I got a star and an A plus and I was good. I don't feel like that now. That's what I did. Okay, so posts that really stand out. I wrote a post about I had a campaign with Target that I was doing and these pictures of me came out and there was like feedback in the comments or people were like, I didn't realize she was so large and like that those got into me. And I was like, you can like judge, you know, judge me on what you think my parenting is, what you're seeing it that's in pieces. But if you're seeing all of me and saying that, like I think that's hard. So that was the tough side. But there was such positivity to outweigh anything negative. Like 99% of scary mommy really was so supportive and community based and just such a positive place. How fast did the community begin to build in the comments of the blog? Because that's one of my fondest memories of those early days of blogging was we had real discourse and connection happening in the con boxes. We did. At the beginning it was I committed to those comments. If somebody left me a comment, I would comment back on their site and my ex-husband at the time, my husband at the time was so frustrated with me because I would just like stand up until all hours of the night and think you're like, this isn't your job, Jill. Like this is you don't need to comment on these people's hate. Like yes, they commented on my, they have to. That's part of the etiquette. And so for the longest time I did that. And then it just became untenable and I stopped. But yeah, for a long time it was, it started as comments and going back and forth. And then it started, it evolved into blog swaps where I would write and log on somebody else's site and maybe would do the same on mine. And that was a way of getting in front of each other's audience. And I did that for a long probably for about a year. And then I started it just again. I couldn't keep up with it. And I started taking more guest posts and writing less myself. And it really just evolved into really a user generated site, which is how it succeeded. And so did scary mommy become more than a blog then was there. I know that there was the opportunity for people to share their personal experiences right with one another. It wasn't just in reference to you, but there was really a reciprocal dynamic happening within the community. How did you host that? Was that a website? Was it a discussion board? Did it stay in the blogosphere? What was the structure of that? It started as I had a programmer who was like a 19 year old too. I still am I not sure exactly what the situation was, but he came up with a code that was an anonymous, confessional where people would leave like a Twitter like statement. And it was completely anonymous. I couldn't see where it was coming from. And that really sparked the community. And from that message boards were born. And that's where people really formed their hardcore relationships and had the conversations and all that stuff. It's really fascinating that it was the opportunity to submit these anonymous, confessional statements that sparked that community expanding. Because that speaks to such a need that your readers were having for a place to sort of air their guilty secrets. What were those posts like? Was it about parenting mostly? Was it about? Well, the first like 200 raw meat. I started like thinking in confessions. It was an interesting time. You and us sure. Exactly. We have so much of COVID. But yeah, it was a variety. It was everything from, you know, I haven't been my kids in five days. And they went to the swimming pool and I counted that to I am in my marriage. Then I am when I actually alone. I mean, it just ran the gamut. But the amazing thing was the people who would leave responses in the comments. So if somebody would confess, you know, I'm I find motherhood to be so isolating. The next three people would say, you know, I'd do two, you know, what can we do? Blah blah blah blah. So I was like, well, we have to do something more. We can't just leave people confessing this and having no way to do anything about it. So the message boards, yeah, they they took off. But it did. It stems from from the confessions and from yeah, from just people. And then it became really a site that the content I couldn't keep up with the content when it when it was guest posts and my writing, it was very manageable. But the confessional really just was had a mind of its own. It came way too much. And that's when I started to take on staff to help me manage it. Yeah, moderating any kind of discussion board is so much more demanding than people realize if they've never done it. And it feels like this unending 24 hour a day ticking time bomb. Yeah, there's going to be this moment at two in the morning when someone from South Africa is in the community who's awake in the middle of the day and says something that sparks off and you wake up to just right. Have you had that experience? You wake up to like, oh my gosh. Yeah. I just always felt like such a babysitter. I was like, you're a adult woman. Are we really dealing with this? Come on now. I just I just I was constantly in disbelief that that yeah, we sort of devolved into these kindergartners. It always struck me as being like the way people talk in their cars to other drivers is completely unlike the way they would speak to those drivers face to face. Something about that written faceless community conversation just allowed for this like people really going after each other. I've never been in any kind of online community that didn't at some point or other erupt in youth. So far, fingers crossed. Brave learner home has not had one of those. So I hope that continues. But it's remarkable and wonderful. I can speak to yeah. Well, I think also people have grown have learned a little bit in the earlier days of online communication. I mean, emoji came along because we needed a way to be like, no, I was I meant to get a nice way. Yes. And I think too, I have this belief that the illusion of sameness is easier to maintain in person. You know, there is a confessional nature to writing. It goes back to keeping a diary or a journal. And so you sort of feel invited simply by typing your thoughts to be more disclosing than you would be in face to face contact with people, which allows then for the reactions to be equally self disclosing. And I was thinking when you kept saying these confessional, so it reminded me of post secret. Do you remember that that that company? However, I want to describe it that publication. But I feel like the early years of the internet was this unveiling. It was like going into a confession box at a Catholic church, you were suddenly given an audience for these things that you normally wouldn't have the permission or the manners to share. And we were all starved apparently. It went off like wildfire. So it's the responses. So they really, yes, three responses to the confessions. It was a like a hug. I don't know my God, me too. And the point being that they were all positive and supportive in nature. But people would come back and get addicted to their confession number and come back and check the number of people who clicked hug or whatever. Yeah, it was such a great way to get like instant support and a little boost. Amazing. And how did you come up with the name scary money for your community? It's really not as intentional as I would like it to be because I would make it be smarter than I was. But my middle son had just seen some Disney movie at the time that he was desperately afraid of and was crying and calling everything scary. Every brother was scary. Bed was scary. And he referred to me as scary mommy at the time when I was thinking of starting a vlog and I asked the great name. And then it really sort of evolved into itself, which was a sort of an authentic strong kind of badass. But always very loving towards her children. start key by kind, just kind of all of those things that I like to think of myself as, but yeah, it started out pretty accidentally. That's an adorable story. I love that. Such a great origin story. What do you think you learned about being an entrepreneur through this experience? Because I'm guessing that you did not set out for this to be a source of income when you first began your blog or did you? How quickly did it become a way for you to earn money? It really took until 2015 for it to really monetize. Interesting. Up until then, it was really like Google ads and Amazon and sort of like, "Hey, I can buy a candy bar. I can buy it right there." It's back of soda, but like, you know what? I very much and an entrepreneur at heart. And scary mommy was just one of many businesses that I started before. It was just one that stuck. But it's definitely in me. So I'd say, say within the first like, year, I definitely saw the potential for it to be monetized. I just didn't know exactly how to do it. And the options that existed were pretty limited. And you really needed to scale in order to get the money. And that's why when there was an algorithm change in 2015 with Facebook. And that's when things really started going viral. And that's when things just became sort of exploded with scary mommy. I think it's good to mention that. We have a lot of mothers in particular who are stay-at-home moms, home educate, trying to launch something on the side. And I think a lot of times it's hard to understand how long it takes for the money to actually click in. You know, the first 10 years of brave writer, I saw steady growth, but it wasn't money to write home about, you know, it was supplementary. It was part of our family income or whatever. And then at year 10, it really took kind of that hockey stick for a while. And then it kind of tapers off again, like there's those bursts of growth. But it's important to realize that because there's no sort of, we always say, what do they say? It was an overnight success after 25 years. You know, I guess I kind of think. So when this took place, when you had that experience of explosiveness, how did you juggle that with your responsibilities as mother? I had a really hard time. I pretty much just, I really got so burnt out. I was working all the time. I was absent from my kids. I was trying to do conference calls while in the pickup line, getting yelled at by the teachers. It was just always lacking in some way. And ultimately, for that reason, I ended up selling it. I think had I not allowed myself to get so burnt out and I got in the help before I think I wouldn't have let it go. But yeah, it just became too much as things are when we try to do everything. Yeah. So you've sold it now, but you've launched something new. So tell us a little bit about your new project. I will. Thank you. My new project is called She's Got Issues. And it is sort of just the continuation of scaring mommy. It's it's for the people who followed me then with little kids and now have older kids and are doing a whole slew of new stuff with menopause and you know act to career-wise possible. Divorce is just all the crap that we're dealing with now. I feel like I'm seeking again that community that I don't have in my real life for this next portion of my life. And I'm trying to build it and hoping other people come along. Are you using the same kind of tools or have you got some new tricks up your sleeves this time, Jill? I'm using all of my old tools except this time I have a partner which is such a different experience. And I'm really happy that I do. Doing it all on your own is a lot. And I don't know if I have the stamina to do it this time just to to generate the excitement on your own and to keep it going. It's a lot. But in terms of the writers I'm working with a lot of the same writers I'm working with my same community managers which makes me so happy every day. It's still the same exact thing. It's putting out authentic content that people connect with and trying to open up the dialogue. So I feel like it's really sort of scary to point out. Yeah that's kind of how I look at it. Something that I really appreciated about she's got issues when I was looking at it is that there's long form content and I find I'm really hungry for substantive writing because the internet shifted so much to bite-sized writing or video and then short form video. Like it just got more and more compressed. So what's that like creating written content, some of it long form in a landscape that shifted so much? But I'm having so much fun with the magazine aspect of she's got issues because when I was a kid I always wanted to be the editor in chief of the magazine and my training is graphic design and I just love lately things out. So doing all that stuff I'm just having so much fun with. I think thank goodness because I hate video and I hate to bits and I hate little short form crap. I think it's a challenge and I think it will present a challenge to monetize the long form content in some ways just because you can't possibly put out the amount that you put out of the little stuff. But I think it's just so much more valuable and I think people are ready for it. I think people have had it with just the endless scrolling and the swiping and are looking for something. That short form content, the problem with it is you're just living on a sound bite. It's like endless snacking when you're looking for a meal. You know, it's never quite satisfied but you just keep eating out of the bags of chips instead of like okay I need an actual entree. I'm wondering if you've had any in-person contact like if you created retreats. I had a community back in the early 2000s called the Trapped Door Society which was a discussion board for women not on like what you're talking about and we didn't have as large a community as yours but we had multiple in-person gatherings where we would have retreats or meet up in an art museum or something like that and so we got to know each other in person. Were you able to facilitate any you know in real life kind of I believe internet relationships are real but did you do anything that was also in-person? I love that you did that. So early on that's amazing. I haven't we haven't done that yet with cheese-cutting issues but it's definitely on the horizon. We started doing it a little bit with scary mommy having scary mommy groups and little meetups but I love it. I think I would love to bring the online stuff into real life and help towards those relationships so yes it is definitely something that we want to do just haven't quite gone around to yet. So if you were going to just tell our listeners why they ought to come to cheese-cut issues what are some of the issues that she's got? Well, I've been for a couple of me. I've learned a lot of them. I talk about entrepreneurship a lot and I've learned along the way and the stakes I feel like I made which I hope is helpful. I talk a lot about mental health because that's something I battle with and is supposed to my heart. I divorce. I talk about that a lot. My ex is gay. I touch on that. My friendship issues of course. You know, menopause. We talk about a lot's aging parents. We talk about a lot's changing friendships. It's kind of all the stuff that we're dealing with now. It sounds like midlife right? Is that really where we are with you in this journey? We are midlife. We are sandwiched. We are losing the air. I mean, that's such an important season to have support during that, you know, those crossing waters. I was just this morning sitting in my, I converted my living room to a dining room because when all my kids and their spouses and grandkids come home, we need a place for one big massive table. But when they're not here, I just use it for journaling and having tea and just kind of relaxing. And so this morning I was looking at my shock records and then I was doing my reading and that was journaling in a journal and I was like, who am I? There were decades when there was no time for any of this. And I'm just like, oh, the sun is shining. Oh, there's a bird. And I just like thought about our interview coming today. And I thought, I just wanted to tell you and all of your ladies, it's coming for you. But day is coming. It will arrive. I'm so wonderful. Wonderful. Because we started out talking to friends. And I saw on friends the other day, somebody asking for inspiration in your 50s, like feeling like they were muggling through their 40s. Yes. Like everybody told me my 40s was going to be wonderful. And finally this decade to be so hard. And my 50s are easier. I mean, Melissa, are the 50s easier than the 40s? That is a good question. They're just so different. I mean, I've just-- I'm writing a-- I'm working on a book right now. And I realized it is the first time in a while that that's my only work, right? Other things are parked for a little bit. And the last time that this was the case, I had 100 tiny children. And-- [LAUGHTER] OK, only six. Gosh, that's basically 100. I mean, really, they're exponential, right? So I've never experienced-- so I get up and I do-- I'm used to getting up and writing first thing in the morning before everybody else is stirring. And then I suddenly realize, oh, I have the whole rest of the day. I've got two teenagers that I've been schooling. But we're done by lunch. And then I've got like, what is this-- I don't even know what to do with it. I'm not used to having hours of time to just think of things to do. Yeah. So it is there. Yeah, exactly. About the-- when you started Scary Mommy, your kids were little. And at first, you were writing. You mentioned like, you were sending the link to friends and family. So you were writing about them. And you said that it started to grow into you're writing about lots of your own issues that you're grappling with. But your kids roll in the blog. Like, how do they feel about it? How do they feel about Scary Mommy? I started blogging when mine were tiny, too. So I'm so interested in like, kids who grow up with moms who blog. And how that's different for the kids of today who may have moms who are on TikTok. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. When the kids were little, they absolutely loved it. Because we were-- yeah, I went on press trips. I got swag. I went to conferences and came back with suitcases, full of toys for them. Like, they thought it was the best thing ever. Then they went through a period when they were like, junior high elementary where they just didn't want to be written about at all. I wasn't allowed to post pictures. I went right about them. They were mortified. But it existed that I existed. They just hated everything about it. My son, my middle one, would soak around and say, I wish I'd never said Scary Mommy because none of this would ever exist. Oh my goodness. And now there are the point where they really appreciated it and have some respect and admiration, which is so sweet. My youngest just read my book, my first book, a couple of weeks ago. And it just, it just warmed my heart. It was so sweet to see him. Because that was why I started the blog to begin. It was to create for them sort of a record of their childhood. And along the way, it became so much more. But at the end of the day, I wanted it to be just little snippets from their childhood, which I feel like this site is not anymore. I've taken down all of my content years ago. It's just become something it's own thing. But-- Less autobiographical and more topical, would you say? Yes. Very topical. But I still have the books and I still have-- Tell us your book titles so people can get them if they'd like. Oh, yeah. The first one is Confessions of the Scary Mom. Perfect. The second is Motherhood comes naturally and other vicious lives. That's good. Oh, yeah. You've got a good-- Yeah, they're just lighthearted, little parenting essays. But they're relatable and fun. You know, when you were talking about your kids' reaction, I've shared that sometimes when people have asked me, I think it unulates. One of my friends, who's an academic her name is Dvorah Heitner, she just came out with a book called "Growing Up in Public." And it's all about this question that people like me, back in the '90s, I never even thought about. I mean, I didn't-- Melissa actually gave pseudonyms to her kids. I didn't. I was like, no, Joanne. Jacob, right? They were on my site and their stories were out there. But the difference today, I think, is that I was somewhat protective of them in terms of the business. Like, I never made them participate in my business. They didn't travel with me to any of the conventions or conferences. I was careful not to tell stories about them that they didn't want. And in fact, avoided a lot of that. And there was no visual back then, right? In the '90s and early 2000s, there weren't even pictures. I didn't have a picture of me on my website till 2015. So it was all words. And it's interesting now with all the visuals, and where kids and their behaviors are like the butt of jokes. They are source material for follows, which is not how I ever saw my children. So I think it is a very different landscape today. And being able for your kids to both say yes or no to participation, but then also for them to appreciate the power of what you've done. Because my kids too, now as adults, they're much older. They're 27 to 36. They're sort of like, wow, you built this. They sort of know what that means, because they've been internet natives for so long. And I think that's pretty cool about your kids that they had that full circle. Because I think that's really-- they've got to understand that that was pretty powerful that you were capable of that since they spent time online. And they know how people go viral and become well-known, right? Yeah, no. Likewise, you too, with your kids. I think it is-- yeah, I think it's really cool for them to see that. And I think when we in the '90s, certainly, and in the early 2000s, when I was writing about my kids, we weren't creating digital footprints for that. It was stories. It was stories that people could imagine and picture their lives. We weren't just illustrating everything. And now it's just all out there. Yeah, it's a little less of the imagination. I used to have a note in my sidebar of my blog that said, "The truth and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth, because some parts of the truth are private." Yeah. But it was really important to me. I wasn't going to ever write about things that would embarrass my kids that they wouldn't want shared, because I would have hated that. And then they got to a point where I was like, oh, their stories are their stories, not just my stories. And so the older they got, the less I wrote about them, which they give me a hard time for now. Some of them, they're like, when we were teenagers, you stopped writing all our funny stories. I was expecting your privacy. I wonder, do you have any words of wisdom for the moms of today who have little kids who are entering a world where it has become very much the norm to put it all out there? Like, what advice would you give to moms about sharing about their kids online? I would just be cautious. I remember that not only will they see it, but all of their friends and all of your friends and just nothing is private. That's what we told our kids. That's something-- I think that's the only piece of advice in terms of the internet in terms of larger picture parenting. I have no idea. I'm constantly marveling at how much harder parenting is now than it was when my kids were young. So I have to hold myself back from telling that to every parent of young kids because that's not a slacker. And if anyone told me that, people could always tell me it gets easier, it gets easier, which I suppose is a kind thing to say to a young mom, but it doesn't. Really? And so that's what I sort of want to tell them and also really want to hold back. It feels to me like parenting just keeps changing. I remember one time I was talking with my mother. I was in my 50s. So let's be clear. It's a full grown adult. By many decades, talking with my mom and she started worrying about my sister, who was also in her 50s. My mother was quite worried. And all of the sudden, this reality broke in on me. And I said to my mom, wait, do I never get to stop worrying? Is this just my condition? I'm going to be troubled by my children until I'm dead. And she started laughing. She said, well, yes, what did you think you were signing up for? And it was just that awareness suddenly that the depth of caring that you cultivate increases over time. You only know your kids. You only know your kids a little when they're six and seven. By 14, you know them twice as well by 28. And sure, you're not taking care of them every day, but their problems are bigger. When I went through a divorce, I leaned heavily on my mother. I was 50 years old. She was listening to me cry to her with every bit as much emotion as a 16-year-old, right? And yet she's much older in her 70s having to care for me. I just think it's very important to put this in a lifelong context, right? That it's just the depth of love over time that creates this feeling of angst, right? Absolutely. My mother is mother-tarder with me in my 40s than she ever did when I was a kid. Right. I really hope that I will not be able to say the same because I have just exhausted her completely. But you might get some sleep back. When they leave the house, it does, that does happen. You can have tea with the sun coming in and nobody bugging you. So that, that day is ahead for everyone. That's why I think you're so. It's the worry and the worry realizing not only the realisation that you had, but then as the people multiply, then, okay, so you have a whole generation of worry. So it's generational now. How can you shoulder all of those stress in the worry? I don't know how one person is like how we're supposed to take it. So that's my stress about the future. Yes, for sure. Which is why she's got issues. Is there to support women just like you and you're cohort? Jill, this has just been wonderful having you today. Thank you so much for coming. I feel like you've just brought a really fresh perspective to our community, you know? And I just really hope that your site takes off. It just sounds awesome. Oh, thank you so much for the view. It's so nice to talk with you. Today's episode was produced by Nova Media with support from team members, Jeanette Hall and Natalie Mealey. I'm Julie Boehkart, author of the Brave Learner and Raising Critical Thinkers. I'm also the founder of BraveWriter.com and innovative approach to writing instruction. You've been listening to the BraveWriter podcast. Until next time, keep going. Think well, I'm rooting for you.