Today on Offbeat Bride, we published a post about your wedding as a political act. As you might expect, the post has brought out some conservative followers on Facebook who are like “BOO does everything have to be political? This is tacky! Ridiculous! Angry face emoji!” which is totally fine.
Eventually, I’m sure some more progressive followers will also complain about the post: Is it problematic? Written from a privileged perspective? An insult to intersectionality? Probably yes to all these things.
This Offbeat Bride post comes a week after I wrote a post for Offbeat Home & Life about sleep hygiene during an information war.
At least once a month, some sort of big “hard news” story will intersect with an Offbeat Empire site, and I’ll get emails about it…. Read more
I’ve written in the past about why the Offbeat Empire usually avoids current events, but the current geopolitical climate is way more than “current events.” It’s one of those worldwide shifts that simply cannot be ignored… even Teen Vogue has been radicalized!
As a publisher, I’ve wrestled with how to respond to current events going down. I’m not a political writer or publisher, and while I vote in every single election (even the random mid-year ones!), it’s not like I’m an activist. I mean, before the Women’s March, the last time I’d protested was the WTO in 1999! So there’s part of me that’s like, who am I to say anything? I’m no expert — I’m just some middle-aged white lady nerd in Seattle who publishes mostly-fluffy women’s lifestyle content!
But the more I sat with it, the more I was like… I MUST talk about happening in the USA right now. I’m a publisher with a million readers a month! How can I NOT use that platform to talk about the situation that’s affecting all our lives? Yeah, it’s going to be a bit clumsy at times. I am 100% confident I’m going to make terrible mistakes with the best of intentions, and I’m sorry in advance about that. (There’s still so much for me to learn!) I’m also confident that I’m going to lose a few readers who find my politics offensive, and I’m not sorry about that. Glennon Doyle (a Christian mommy blogger who recently came out as a lesbian) actually had some really interesting thoughts on the issue when some of her followers were like “Stoppit with the politics, stick to parenting!”
I’m also trying to use my business and its revenue to more directly support the causes I believe in. Of course I have monthly donations set up to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU… but I’m also trying to follow Kindra’s lead here and use my business to actively support women- and LGBT-owned businesses. I mean, the majority of Offbeat Bride’s sponsors are independent, women-owned businesses (since women tend to dominate the wedding industry) but I’m trying to go above and beyond by being more generous with my free promotions for Seattle women-owned micro-businesses, too. This is a bit scary (I’m basically shooting my business in the foot by giving away free placement at times), but it feels like a small way to support women during a time when things may be rough for us, politically.
Moral of the story here? I have to try. It’s not like the Empire is suddenly going to go all hard-hitting news and opinion — I mean, bridesbros in pussy hats is hardly the stuff of The Economist. I’ll leave the investigative journalism to the NYTimes (paying subscriber, here!) and Washington Post. But I have to try to do little bits, in the little ways I can. I’ll probably fail many times in many spectacular ways, but I have to try.