30-year-old Brooklynite writer Blair Koenig says STFU Parents isn’t about hating kids
STFU, Parents gets 1.5 million page views per month. That many hits can’t be wrong, but Blair Koenig has been dodging bullets ever since she revealed that she is the blogger behind STFU, Parents, a blog that calls out overenthusiastic parents for putting too much information about their kids on social media sites.
“Parents become targets. It’s nasty. I don’t like it,” says Lindsay Davis, a mother of two from Manhattan, to MailOnline. But Blair Koenig, a writer from Brooklyn, insists that STFU, Parents is not about making parents targets or victims. She actually insists that while her blog might be a bit scathing in the name of comedy (the tagline reads, “You used to be fun. Now you have a baby”), she personally sees parent overshare as a cultural phenomenon worth exploring. “It’s meant to be more of a cultural observation than a really hard-line criticism,” she said to the New York Post.
Blair Koenig has also been accused of being jealous or bitter of mommy oversharers, as she is 30 years old and has no children of her own. She responds, “I am absolutely not bitter. I love children,” and she says having kids is a part of her near future, just not her present. STFU, Parents is self-described as a “guide for parents on what NOT to post about their kids,” and Koenig says that when she has kids, she will be careful to avoid posting pictures of dirty diapers or publicly rejoicing every time her kid goes in the potty.
“You can post that first picture of your child’s smile. I think that’s great,” Koenig said on the Today show. But she warns parents to edit themselves and avoid sharing too much, which can get annoying for their friends and followers. She added, “There’s a difference between sharing and oversharing.”
Blair Koenig’s upcoming book (and the reason she revealed her identity to the blogosphere) is called STFU, Parents: A Guide to the Jaw-Dropping, Self-Indulgent, and Occasionally Rage-Inducing World of Parent Overshare. It will come out in April 2013.
