More Questions on CafeMom

Official or unofficial? Good personalities or machines? Worthy or unworthy? 

These are some of the questions asking about the site CafeMom.

Like I said in my last post, CafeMom is obviously for moms. When it comes to being “official or not” I think it’s just as official as facebook is. There aren’t any slang words or phrases that a particular ethnic group or age group might use. But its not totally governmental perse. It’s not like the official copyright laws I read on the web for our last assaignment. 

It’s friendly, that’s the word I’m looking for. It’s the kind of site that invites any age or ethnicity to come and join and relish in the fact that you’re preggos or already have the little eggos. So no, I would not say it’s official because that would most definitely turn people away from the site, but it’s not like someone made a website and didn’t double check it or used their own personal language either. It’s friendly.

And I think that kind of characterizes the moms on the website too, for the most part that is. From what I’ve seen, these moms like giving help to others and reach out to others. It’s like a culdesac neighborhood of moms who all know each other and like to give each other cookies every now and then. Moms are usually nice people and if you’re a meanie mommie, you probably wouldn’t join a website like CafeMom. But on the other hand there are those up-to-do moms, as I call them, who don’t work (sorry this is very stereotypical) who get manicures every week and their hair done, and most likely have a nanny half the time. I would say that’s a major stereotype but I think it’s true. These kind of moms are also on the website. I think they kind of bring it down actually because they are the ones who get on other mom’s cases about their parenting instead of giving some good advice. But for the most part, I think the moms are lively, happy, regular, friendly moms. 

I kind of got a sense of the character of the moms by the journals they posted. And to answer the 

question on the member-generated writing, these moms come from all shapes and sizes of educational levels. There are people who don’t spell check and have major grammatical mistakes and there are the master’s moms who write like they’re at Harvard. It doesn’t really change the feeling I get from the moms though (back to the friendly) it’s just different styles of writing. I think that’s a mom thing, no matter where you come from, if you’re a mom and she’s a mom, you’ll probably going to get along, at least for the first play date.

I think all of these combining features on the website, the backgrounds of the moms, and the personalities of the moms make this site worthy. It’s not about whether the site has been made well, has the best design, is the most official, it’s the ambiance that is created by the tone of the website voice and the personalities and connection of the moms. If there were mean, egotistical moms that made a mean egotistical vibes, then no, this site would not be worthy of anyone normal’s attention. But it’s not. It’s useful in the fact that it has news forums about kids, advice colums about kids, activities for kids, and also the connecting moms sharing advice and ideas. It just creates a good ambiance that is worthy of a good person’s time.