Lauren White (a.k.a. Raymi the Minx)

Pseudo vanity or pro-vain? Premeditated ranting, shameless product placement, or simply a mirror into the kinetic vortex of jpegs and links that moves through every waking second of our daily Internet hours. The professional blogger relies on countless factors to ensure their services remain in demand. Four women bloggers from Toronto discuss their personal brand of self-expression and enterprise.

As I compiled data on my subjects, gained a better understanding about blog cultures and communities, I noticed the same news missives that hammer through all of our daily lives on subway dailies, AM and FM radio, Twitter feeds, traditional newspaper sites and word of mouth began to play out throughout my day online like a familiar pop chorus.

It became very apparent to me that the unique voices, visual presentation of goods and services being mentioned via these four women’s peripheries were unique subversions of traditional, run of the mill journalism.

Using a variety of contractions, buzz words, tone, emotional cantor, tongue and cheek blog slang, these urbanite bloggers are branding themselves in marketable ways, maintaining and expanding their client list and exposing themselves to new opportunities.  My regular stops at their blogs provided me with insight into their purveying ways, business models and ongoing blog sustainability.

“I am queen of the one liner sound bite and my insights, when I bother making them, are succinct and jarring,” Lauren White (a.k.a. Raymi the Minx) explains, perhaps the most famous blogger in Toronto, if not the country, with a passionate following, regular client exposure and tons of media coverage for her now ten year old blog Raymi The Minx.

“The trick is though, when people think I am doing blog voice, I’m not. I’m actually doing book voice. I have spoken to myself in literary narration since I stopped watching Lambchops play-along (I watched it longer than one is ought to). I’m carrying Toronto snotty urbanite affectation into the blog arena and unfortunately it comes across a little poisonously.”

White says her blog is her primary source of income. “I’m a full time blogger workaholic psychopath.”

Sexy Typewriter (who requested her true life identity be withheld for this piece) has been blogging on and off since the late 1990s but only recently developed her fledgling blog persona.  “I’ve been blogging this particular blog since September of 2010.”

Although at present she isn’t earning money directly from her blog, her persona is gaining her notoriety in Twitter feeds and blog circles. “I don’t profit from Sexy Typewriter, yet. I may explore sponsorship down the road, but I don’t want to waver when it comes to my integrity to THE WRITTEN WORD.”

Christine Estima is a Toronto writer, playwright, fiction writer and blogs at The Spadina Monologues, a six-year old blog she’s maintained whose title is cribbed from her own play of the same name. “It became an excuse to write every day. As a writer, I’m always looking for excuses to write. As an exhibitionist, I’m always looking for ways to document my life.”

While Estima posts her flurry of social activities on her blogs, she regularly writes for a variety of newspapers and magazines across the country and beyond, but says she gets a lot of opportunities through the maintenance of her blog, while Kristen Goetz, who blogs at Shambled Ramblings, says she’s selective of what she’ll blog about when it comes to endorsing a product she doesn’t believe in. “I’ve reviewed things for money, or been paid to blog about events and products. But I never do that for anything that I have no interest in. If approached to blog about how awesome hot pink Crocs are, you can be damn sure I won’t do it.” Goetz says her blog has presented her with new writing opportunities she would have otherwise not encountered.

Goetz started blogging from old sites such as Geocities to Livejournal to Deadjournal. “If we’re gonna get specific, I started my current blog in 2007, which has spawned a few side blogs, but I rarely make mention of those. They’re like the redheaded stepchildren of Shambled Ramblings.”

Estima says she is contacted frequently for endorsements on her blog, but balks slightly when she’s asked to blog about something that doesn’t fit her blog’s sensibility and comes without any incentive. “They’re basically saying “Dear Blogger, please do my job for me! FOR FREE.”

Along with being a blogger comes the continuous sludge of “industry terms” such as blogosphere and “social media.”  Being in the blog spotlight on a daily basis, one must assume the terminology becomes tiresome.

“Blogosphere is a dumb word that makes me want to kick puppies. New media and social media are okay,” says Sexy Typewriter.

“I don’t have negative associations with any of these words. I’ve run into a lot of bloggers and social media peeps who absolutely loathe terms like “guru,” “all-star,” “Twitterati,” et cetera. They feel it creates a cult of celebrity or a hierarchy that isn’t fair and is exclusive to new people starting out,” says Estima.

“Ah, everything needs buzzwords,” admits Goetz. “I create my own words on a daily basis, so I can’t say much about that. Those terms reflect our world right now – everything is social media. It’s crazy, in good and bad ways. It’s the evolution of communication and entertainment, really.”

For these four Toronto bloggers, clients range from high end, corporate-types, hip urbanites, creative young artists, celebrated authors, and according to White, “admirers, haters, little Raymi’s, perverts, and trolls.” White has noticed her audience tips slightly in favour towards female, which is her intended market. “I always wanted to be a rock star, so this is my band.”

“Stalkers. Politicians. Ex-cons. Beauty pageant failures. It’s pretty scattered. I read the analytics and see all the different countries they’re in, and it still blows my mind. How the hell did they get to my site?” Goetz confesses, while Estima says her visitors are an eclectic bunch including film lovers, creative writers, the odd celebrity and “social media notables.”

If she had to generalize, Sexy Typewriter would describe most of her readers to be young people into the dating game. “I have a lot of local readers, but I also have swaths of fans in the U.S. (predominantly San Francisco, possibly due to an article I wrote for Salon) and overseas.”

With blogging becoming more common, and new media accruing on a daily basis, where do professional bloggers see their market developing? “I think it’s great. I like being a blog grandmother,” White explains. “I like that I was in the right place at the right time. And I like that I have the right makeup: equal parts creative and business savvy with stubborn determination. The more blogs that sprout up, the more I excel, as they inspire me and force me to ride the crest of the tidal wave.” White sees the “decade dot com era” as an exciting time. “I have a huge invested personal stake.”

blog, blogger, bloggers, Christine Estima, Kristen Goetz, Lauren White, Raymi The Minx, Sexy Typewriter, Shambled Ramblings, The Spadina Monologues, Toronto, Women Literature