Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be a blogger during the height of the craze. When it was about the blog content itself, and wasn’t tied in to numbers on social media or going viral. And I wonder what that would be like now as the world of blogging has evolved so much.
Last Thursday night, I saw that vision before my own eyes: 1000+ people in a room, staring adoringly at Jen McNeely while she thanked them for 10 years of love & support.
She Does The City has been a Toronto mainstay for an entire decade and Aaron & I got to join in the fun at the kickoff party — the whole weekend was full of events and panels about everything.
We arrived to the new Knixwear HQ space and started things off the way I tend to — by going in the wrong door and having someone let us in through the service entrance. This meant that instead of going past coat check & the bar, we arrived right in the middle of the main party room. However, we were right next to the FUJIFILM booth and I was dying to check out the new Instax Square camera. It’s like a regular Instax, except the photos are square (shocker) and there’s a screen to preview/filter the photo before you print it. I die. It’s on my Christmas list.
There was a tarot card reading table, an enormous cake covered in sprinkles, and we literally saw people turning into the mall jungle scene from Mean Girls over the gift bag table. An actual thing someone yelled: “THIS ONE HAS SHAMPOO” before grabbing it and running.
I had this vision before we arrived of me socializing with other bloggers & finding new people to collaborate with. I figured since we’re all bloggers/influencers, we already have something in common. It’ll be easy!
In a twist that can only be described as “exactly what I should have expected”, my anxiety went through the roof. I talked to approximately one person, and I’d like for you to guess who it was.
I made eye contact with Jen, Aaron said “this is your chance!”, and then I said “let’s grab our coats and go home”. So Jen, if you’re reading this… I’m sorry if that was weird for you. Someday I will actually be a normal human and say hello. And CONGRATS on such a huge milestone and all the incredible things you’ve done for Toronto over the past decade. We love ya. ❤
