Blogging kids, something to think about

I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a blog with my son. He’s an old soul at the ripe old age of 11 and in the middle of a lot of stuff “tween” boys think about. What really caught my eye about him is that his Aunts call him all the time when they need to get a present for a child in his age group (his mom as well) and he takes his advice giving seriously. So we’ve been kicking around some ideas for a while now of what to do together. Besides, he’s really interested in what his old man does for a living and this is something we could share.

A rookie shines

So, fast forward to this week… I was reading a local newspaper on my commute and they made mention of a girl I think she’s 13-14 by now, named Tavi Gevinson who runs a blog called “Style Rookie” and how she was in New York for fashion week (again) and she was being mobbed like a celebrity when people caught sight of her. When I got to my desk, I did some digging and it turns out she runs an insanely popular blog with a readership of about 50,000 people. In addition, she’s is an internet star in the fashion industry and she’s been blogging since 2008. The girl is even a spoke person for a fashion line inspired by her that sells at Target, etc. etc.

Curiouser and curiouser

So I got curiouser and curiouser, I surfed around a bit as her story was starting to sound a little bit like Ashley Quails (but at a smaller scale ofcourse) who was featured in Fast Company magazine back in 2007.

I was looking for lessons to be learned at this point and I was looking for advice on privacy issues and how to handle strangers having access to my son in any kind of forum and then I bumped into this article that raised a bunch of concerns for me as a parent. It covers the growing trend of kid fashion bloggers and issues like reacting to backlash, people recognizing you on the street, etc.

In my case I have a boy, and I have some methods to screen my son from the crazies and I’m going into this situation with my eyes open. In addition, I don’t expect my son will get mobbed over his taste in video games, movies, books and hoodies.

But you never know, stay tuned. According to ReadWriteWeb.com blogging doesn’t even hold kids’ attention, they’re just too busy handling other social media and being KIDS.