Momosphere Recap: KFC, Victoria’s Secret and more

I started this series of mom-blog news recaps two and a half years ago on this blog and never did a another one. So I can’t blame you for doubting me now when I say THEY’RE BACK!

There is just too much ridiculous gossip hard-hitting mommy blog news that speaks for itself to pass up. It’ll be just like The Daily Show! Except instead of Jon Stewart, me. And instead of TV, this blog. And instead of satire on important news stories, a quick round up of mom blogging controversies. And probably not as good. And no celebrities.

Right. So here goes.

• KFC brought some influential bloggers to Kentucky for a Twitter party to promote their new kids’ meals (which seem to be about as healthy as you’d expect). Cecily K has a great account of what went down on Babble. Essentially, a lot of people (influential bloggers and regular people alike) began using the #kfckidsmeals hashtag to discuss KFC’s health record and ask questions about the nutritional content of the meals. Jessica Gottlieb followed up with a blog post breaking down such hard to grasp concepts as integrity and doing your job without whining.Accusations of hashtag hijacking, bullying and general mean girlness abounded. A marketer got in on the fracas with a post reminding bloggers to watch what they say or else nobody will want to work with them, chiding that if, “…you’re going to launch a protest, you ought to do so respectfully, professionally and in a classy way.” (I must have missed the part where the mom bloggers busted out the combat boots and Molotov cocktails.) Then everyone hugged and made up. No they didn’t. The same old show will be coming soon to a branded tweet up near you in the near future, to be sure.

• Victoria’s Secret was forced to pull some racy underwear from their website this week because it was perceived they were marketing to tweens/young teens. There was a huge backlash from mom bloggers and this post by Evan Dolive went especially viral. There was a bit of, well, are they or aren’t they marketing to teens? Amanda Marcotte, writing on Slate, said everyone needed to chill out because teens are going to have sex no matter what their underwear looks like. But my favourite posts on this topic were penned by men and talk about the pressure teen girls feel to play out some oversexified version of adulthood. Because, really, anyone who is old enough to strut around in lace panties that say “I dare you,” isn’t going to want to wear them anyway.

  UPDATE: This Jezebel post will help take the righteous indignation out of your sails. Now doesn’t that feel better?

• My own Facebook universe was plagued with what I can only call Screenshotgate when it came out that a certain group of people have been in the habit of taking screen shots of conversations happening on personal profiles and private groups. The idea is that they were somehow using these screenshots to damage a party’s reputation and perhaps cost them potential business relationships. Let the record state that I don’t know who was doing this to whom or why they were doing it. This is purely an unsubstantiated rumour that I am spreading for your own entertainment and titillation.

• And, finally, the best hashtag I came across all week: #safetytipsforladies. Enjoy!