Scour Luvvie Ajayi's Twitter feed on any given day and you'll be sure to laugh, suck your teeth, get your life, or maybe all of the above. The founder of popular pop-culture blog, Awesomely Luvvie, has made it her mission to engage or enrage you, and by no means does the self-proclaimed “troublemaker" have plans to slow down any time soon.
Photo Credit: Luvvie Ajayi
Today's comedian isn't just found in your local comedy club or creating six-second Vine videos, they're penning laugh-worthy posts that are both insightful and unapologetic, and in a digital age where everyone's struggling to find their place and to keep up with the ever-changing pace of technology, some of them are even getting paid to be themselves.
Bloggers like Luvvie have managed to create a space uniquely their own by staying true to who they are even when it may mean sacrificing paychecks from big brands, but as the culture critic and digital strategist unashamedly confessed during a #MentorMonday session with matchmaker and tech startup founder, Paul C. Brunson, “I may have talked myself out of rooms, but I believe that those rooms don't matter. The ones that matter are the ones I'm already in and the ones that see me and say, 'She should be in this room.'"
Not only is she in the rooms, but the Nigerian-born techie who also runs Awesomely Techie, is walking red carpets, doing interviews with Oprah, giving TED Talks speeches, and releasing straight-like-that-no-chaser books like, I'm Judging You: The Do Better Manual, that cemented it's place on best sellers lists. This week, it was announced Shonda Rhimes acquired the rights to Luvvie's book and it will be turned into a Shondaland cable comedy series.
Winning!
Let Luvvie tell it, she's a 13-year overnight success. In other words, she started from the bottom and now she's here.
Photo Credit: Luvvie Ajayi
Just twenty-one years ago, a nine-year-old Luvvie left her nine-bedroom home in Nigeria and settled in Chicago. Though she now proudly boasts of her Nigerian roots and culture, as the new girl, she struggled to fit in, and by sophomore year, had ditched her accent in order to adapt to her new environment. “You grow up and realize what makes you different is what makes you stand out in the best way," Luvvie says.
By college, she found that her voice was not one to be diminished. During her freshman year, with the encouragement of friends, she launched a blog dishing on college life and roommates, but after graduating in 2006 with her degree in psychology and stepping into the real world, felt that it was time for a fresh start. So she shut down her old college-girl chronicles and launched Awesomely Luvvie with a humorous spin on pop-culture, politics, and anything else that piqued her interest. Though she had a passion for writing, she never imagined that her hobby would turn into paychecks. “I really didn't approach it as a career because I was not buying into the hype that this was something that I could do as a career."
"What makes you different is what makes you stand out in the best way."
Nonetheless, her fanbase grew as friends and family shared her hilarious posts where she unapologetically spoke her mind on things that others were afraid to voice. Within three years, she had grown a steady following, snagged a Black Weblog Award, and started getting brand-love for being Luvvie, adding ambassador to her bio when GAP reached out to partner with her to rock their new jeans line.
Photo Credit: Luvvie Ajayi
She also started monetizing her blog using website ads. Yet still, the idea of blogging full-time didn't hit her until a year later when she was laid off from her job as marketing coordinator for the Community Media Workshop. “I didn't know many people who were making a comfortable living as writers. It was more exception than the rule, so somebody like me who's logical and needs to have a clear path, it didn't make sense to me. I was still thinking I would go find a full-time job and get a traditional 9 to 5, but it was like the universe was trying to grab my face like pay attention, this is what you're doing."
"The universe was trying to grab my face like pay attention, this is what you're doing."
Instead of going back to working for another company, she took her knowledge of helping non-profits with social media and marketing and became her own boss as a consultant while continuing her tongue-in-cheek approach to writing. The views kept pouring in, and more brands came calling.
“They started seeing that my blog was very different than any other blog out there," Luvvie says. “A lot of bloggers have niche like fashion, style, gossip, but I was the person who was basically intersecting all of these niches and more. My audience loved everything pop culture, they loved everything race, they talked about politics, so my place is where anybody can be who they want to be. I have an incredibly engaged audience so I think brands started paying attention like she's kind of in a lane of her own and it's made me stand out."
Luvvie believes that unlike today's bloggers who often want to throw in the towel before building a real buzz, not stressing over traffic numbers and writing without expectation allowed her to focus on what mattered most—understanding her audience.
“The bad thing about bloggers now is that they're seeing all of the success from blogging and they're like, okay I'm going to replicate that. A lot of us who started eight or nine years ago, we started literally for the love of writing, and we also didn't give ourselves the pressure of success. So, for us, when we started, I just wanted to write, I didn't come out the gate like, I need 100,000 people reading my blog, I just wanted to write, so there was no measure of failure to me in that way."
Photo Credit: Luvvie Ajayi
Her wakeup call came when bigger brands started knocking at her door and notable outlets began recognizing her as one of the best voices in the blogosphere. Even The Academy Awards couldn't turn a blind eye to Luvvie's influence, and in 2012 invited her, along with blogging peer Afrobella, to be the first brown bloggers to do red-carpet coverage for the Oscars. More recently, she sat down to do an interview with Oprah, describing the experience in a recent blog post as “living in the realm of my dreams."
“If it's your purpose, sometimes doors will open for you that you might not have realized were there. And that's the best thing when finally your gift is being affirmed. For me, when I finally committed to doing this as my purpose, really good things started happening."
Photo Credit: Luvvie Ajayi
Being the voice of the people also means keeping it real, even when it's uncomfortable. Last year, she chastised bloggers for not using their influence and their platforms to address racial injustices occurring in the black community in fear of losing out on ad dollars. It's also something she weighs in on in her upcoming release, I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual—a handbook of sorts on how to “act right" in the digital age.
Besides giving back through books and through her HIV/AIDS awareness non-profit, The Red Pump Project, Luvvie also shares advice to wannabe bloggers: “Don't let self-doubt cripple you and render you unable to do work", and stay true to who you are—always.
“If it's your purpose sometimes doors will open for you that you might not have realized were there."
“There's always going to be two blogs that are very similar or writing about the same thing. But what makes people successful is their voice. People need to go back to what's authentic to them. It's really important for people to pay attention to themselves and speak like you speak, write like you write, and stop looking at the person next to you and seeing what they're doing because you're not running your own race because you're too distracted looking at somebody else's race and seeing just how you can be them. Just run yours. Run as fast as you can and the best way you can, as opposed to paying attention to the next person on the right."
And Luvvie is one who certainly puts her money where her mouth is.
Check out I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual here.
Images courtesy of Luvvie Ajayi
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Let me start this off by saying that of course, to a certain extent, the answer is subjective because it’s mostly opinion-rather-than-fact driven. However, I personally think that sex is hella impactful, which is why I hope that my personal breakdown will at least cause you to want to think about what you do, who you do it with, and why, more than you may have in the past.
Because although, at the end of the day, the physical aspects of making love, having sex, and f-cking are very similar, you’d be amazed by how drastically different they are in other ways…at the very same time.
Making Love
GiphyBack when I wrote my first book, I wasn’t even 30 at the time and still, one of the things that I said in it is, I pretty much can’t stand the term “make love.” Way back then, I stated that sex between two people who truly love each other and are committed for the long haul, when it comes to what they do in the bedroom, it’s so much more about CELEBRATING love than MAKING it. To make means “to produce” or “to bring into existence;” to celebrate means “to commemorate,” “to perform” or “to have or participate in a party, drinking spree, or uninhibited good time.”
The act of sex, standing alone? It can’t make love happen and honestly, believing otherwise is how a lot of people find themselves getting…got.
What do I mean? Tell me how in the world, you meet a guy, talk to him for a few weeks, don’t even know his middle name or where he was born and yet somehow, you choose to call the first time you have sex with him (under those conditions) “making love.” You don’t love him. You don’t know him well enough to love him. He doesn’t love you either (for the same reason). And yet you’re making love? How sway? Oh, but let that sex be bomb and those oxytocin highs might have you tempted to think that’s what’s happening — and that is emotionally dangerous. And yes, I mean, literally.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times before, that one of the reasons why I like that the Bible defines sex between a husband and his wife is by using the word “know” (Genesis 4:1) is because, well, I think that is what celebrating love is all about — we know each other well enough to know that we love each other, we know each other well enough to know that we aren’t going anywhere, and that knowing is what makes us want to celebrate that union by getting as close to one another and bringing as much physical pleasure to each other as we possibly can…as often as absolutely possible.
To me, that is what the peak of physical intimacy is all about — and the people who choose to use the term “make love,” it should be seen through this type of lens. When this type of mental and emotional bond comes together via each other’s bodies, they are amplifying love, enjoying love, embracing love.
Making it, though? Chile, the love has already been made. Sex is just the icing on the cake.
Having Sex
GiphyA few nights ago, I found myself rewatching this movie called Four of Hearts (which you can currently view on yep, you guessed it: Tubi). It’s about two married couples — one that is in an open marriage and another that isn’t although they somehow thought that sharing a night with the other couple would be a good idea (chile). Anyway, as one of the partners found themselves getting low-key sprung, the one they fell for said in one of the scenes, “It wasn’t a connection. It was just sex.” JUST. SEX.
Listen, when you decide to let a man put an entire part of his body inside of you at the risk of potentially getting an STI/STD or pregnant (because no form of birth control is 100 percent except for abstinence), it can never be “just sex” (somebody really needed to hear that too). At the same time, though, I got the character’s point because, if one or both people do not love each other or even deeply care for one another and/or sex is treated as an activity more than an act to establish a worthwhile connection and/or you and the person you are sleeping with have not really discussed what you are expecting from sex besides the act itself — you’re definitely not making/celebrating love.
Not by a long shot. What can make things get a bit complicated, though, is you’re doing the same act that “love makers” do without the same mental and emotional ties…or (sometimes) expectations.
You know, back when I decided to put all of my business out there via the piece “14 Lessons I've Learned From 14 Sex Partners,” now more than ever, I am quite clear that most of those guys fell into the “having sex” category. I wasn’t in the type of relationship with them where “making love” even made sense; however, because I was friends with most of them, we weren’t exactly f-cking (which I will get to in just a moment) either. We had a connection of some sort for the bedroom yet not enough to be together in the other rooms of the house.
We were really attracted and curious, so we decided to act on that. Oftentimes, the sex was good and so we rationalized that “having sex” was enough because if the friendship was, eh, “sound enough”, that we could justify the physical pleasure.
And y’all, that’s kind of what having sex is — it’s the limbo (or purgatory, depending on your situation) between making love and f-cking. The thing about limbo ish is it’s a lot like something being lukewarm: it’s not really one thing or another which means that it can completely blindside you, if you’re not careful (and totally honest with yourself as well as your partner(s)).
So, if you are contemplating having sex, I really — REALLY — recommend that you figure out how you feel, what you want (outside of the act itself) and if you are prepared for what “not quites” can bring. My mother used to say that the consequences of sex don’t change just because the circumstances do — and there is some solid “wow” to that, if you really stop to think about it.
GiphyAnd finally, f-ck. Although most experts on the word (and yes, there are some) agree that its origin is rooted somewhere within the German language (although some say that it might’ve come from Middle English words like fyke or fike which mean “to move about restlessly” or the Norwegian word fukka which means “to copulate”), you might have also heard that it is an acronym that once stood for “Fornication Under Consent of the King”; and there is actually some data that is connected to that as well.
Legend has it that way back in the day, in order to keep reproduction rates where a particular king wanted them to be, he would instruct his residents to have sex with each other — whether they were married or not (hence, the word “fornication” being in the acronym). However, because sex outside of marriage was taken far more seriously at the time, residents had to apply for a permit to participate so that the king could determine if things like their occupation and lineage would prove to be beneficial for the kingdom overall. F-ck: no love; just necessity. And although some believe this to be more myth than fact, what is certain is it was only over time that f-ck was seen as a profane/swear/cuss word — a word that was perceived to be so offensive, in fact, that between the years 1795-1965, it didn’t even appear in dictionaries.
Personally, when I think of this four-letter word, the first thing that actually comes to my mind is animals. Take a dog being in heat, for instance. That’s basically when a female dog is ovulating and wants to have sex the most. It’s not because they are “in love” with another dog; they are simply doing what instinctively comes to them — and since animals do not reason or feel at the same capacity that humans do, although they science says that many of them do experience pleasure when they engage in their version of sexual activity, it’s not nearly as layered or even profound as what we experience.
Let’s keep going. Another reason why f-cking makes me think of animals is due to the doggy style position. Hear me out. Ain’t it wild how, most of us pretty much know that the term comes from how dogs have sex, even though most animals have sex that same way — and think about it: Doggy style doesn’t consist of making eye contact or kissing while having intercourse. It’s “hitting from behind” without much emotional energy or effort at all. Just how animals do it. And so, yeah, f-cking does seem to be more about pure animal — or in our case, mammal — instinct. I don’t need to feel anything for someone, so long as the sexual desire is there. Hmph.
Something else that I find to be interesting about f-cking is how dictionaries choose to define it. Many of them are going to provide you with two definitions: “to have sexual intercourse with” and “to treat unfairly or harshly (usually followed by over)” and that definitely makes me think of another term — casual sex and words that define casual like apathetic, careless and without serious or definite intention. So, the dictionary says that while f-cking is about having sexual intercourse — just like making love and having sex is — it goes a step further and says that it can include being treated unfairly or harshly.
And although that can make you think of assault on the surface, for sure — sometimes being treated unfairly or harshly is simply feeling like someone had sex AT you and not really WITH you; instinct (i.e., getting off) and that’s about it. Yeah, the way this puzzle is coming together, f-cking seems to be more about lust and self and not much else.
Now That You Know the Difference, What to Keep in Mind
Y’all, this is definitely the kind of topic that I could expound on until each and every cow comes home. That said, here’s hoping that I provided enough perspective on each act to close this out by encouraging you to keep the following three things to keep in mind:
1. Before you engage in copulation, be honest with yourself about what you’re ACTUALLY doing — and that your partner agrees with you. You know, they say that our brain is our biggest sex organ and honestly, breaking down the differences between making love, having sex and f-cking helps to prove that fact. I say that because, although the sex act itself is pretty much the same across the board, you and your partner’s mindset can make the experience completely different. That said, if you think that you are making love and they think y’all are just having sex — stuff can get pretty dicey. Bottom line: communicate in the bedroom before attempting to connect outside of it. It’s always worth it when you do.
2. Yes, you can feel one way and do something else. I can just about guess what some of y’all are on: Shellie, we can love our partner and still just want to f-ck. If what you are saying is you can emotionally love someone and physically lust them and want to act sometimes on the lust without really factoring in the love — yes, I agree. Doggy style continues to be a favorite sex position for people, in general, and I’m more than confident that many of the participants polled are in a serious relationship. However, having lust-filled sex with someone who you know loves you is vastly different than doing it with someone who you have no clue what they think about you or you barely know at all. Y’all, please just make sure that you know…what you should know. Sex is too amazing to have a lot of regret after it.
3. Have realistic expectations about sex. Listen, so much of my life consists of writing and talking about sex that I will be the first one to say that it deserves a ton of props for what it is able to do, in a wonderful way, for people mentally, emotionally and physically. Yet again, I’m not a fan of “make love” because something that feels really good doesn’t always mean that it is good for you. Meaning, you’ve got to be real about what sex with someone will do to your mind and spirit — not just what it will do for your body. An author by the name of Gabriel García Márquez once said, “Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.” For no one, should this be a constant norm. Feel me? I hope you do.
____
One act. Three very different experiences.
It’s kind of wild that sex has the ability to create that — and yet, clearly, it does.
Please just make sure that you know which experience you’re signing up for.
So that you’re having sex (you know, in general) instead of sex having you. Real talk.
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