#57: The Dad who Challenged Amazon

A Memorial to Oren Miller: A Blogger and a Father, and How a Bother Became a Brother

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The first time I encountered Oren Miller, he was being a complete nuisance.

It was June 2012, and XY Media Group was building its first major campaign, the New Face of Dad with Phillips-Norelco. We’d had a great run with P-N of late; we had put together a sponsorship package (and a $15,000 contribution) for the 2011 Movember team, and in March they’d sponsored the first Dad 2.0 Summit in Austin. This latest effort was Norelco’s third major investment with dads in 7 months: a message-driven, minimally product-placed, 4-minute video of dads extolling dadhood.

And Oren was having none of it. For months, he had been petitioning Norelco to stop referring to its kids’ hair clipper as “designed for moms.” He thought Norelco was acting hypocritically, and he called them out on it. Over and over. So here we were, trying to launch our little boat into the sea of parent-based content campaigns, and wondering why this guy was so intent on torpedoing it.

That was my mental image of him when I arrived in Houston for Dad 2.013, one that was quickly washed away when I shook his hand. The man I prepared for was an outsized, bombastic muckraker, but the man I met was soft- and plainspoken, with his hands in his pockets and his heart on his sleeve.

And that’s when I learned that, although motivating change was big among Oren’s passions, his primary interest was people. That’s what compelled him not only to create an online clubhouse for dad bloggers, but also to preside over it, to curate it, and to insert himself as a voice of reason when a squabble boiled over. Anyone can plant a seed, but it takes particular care and skill to make it flourish.

After Oren died of lung cancer last month, it shouldn’t surprise that a lot of memorial activity involves activism — in the form of the #AmazonFamilyUS campaign (which hopes to convince Amazon to rename its “Amazon Mom” program as “Amazon Family,” as it appears throughout the rest of the world). It’s been one of Oren’s pet peeves for more than 2 years, and it’s great to see the petition get a magnified push now. It seems like a small semantic change, but if we’re trying to lower the bar of expectations on moms and raise it for dads, this outdated language from such a ubiquitous, powerful brand is a big obstacle.

I was fortunate to have a brief hangout with Oren about a week before Dad 2.015, because I wanted to ask him personally for permission to name our Scholarship Fund after him. He was honored (in his typically understated way), but he was also deeply subdued. Maybe out of fatigue, maybe at the morbid idea of a posthumous memorial. Or maybe because he knew what he hadn’t announced yet: That his time was nearly up.

I don’t want to remember him that way. I want to remember what his closer friends knew: that beneath his laconic, no-nonsense introversion lurked the heart of a free-spirited dork, who starred in student movies, and wore his hair shoulder-length, and loved his two young kids to bits. (This picture that I stole from his Instagram feed says it all.)

I’m proud to join with dad bloggers everywhere and embrace Oren’s nuisancehood. Today, because of him, we are all gadflies in Amazon’s ointment. And despite weeks of silence, I hope that Amazon is listening.

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#56: Teen Alzheimer’s Inventor << 100 Acts of Male Goodness >> #58: Husband Seeks Kidney for His Wife

This article originally appeared at Mr. Doug French.

Do you have an Act of Male Goodness to share? Or know someone who should be profiled for this series? Send information to Kristi Dale at [email protected] with “100 Acts of Male Goodness” in the subject line.

Photos: Oren Miller at Dad 2.0 Summit/Danny Cameron, #AmazonFamilyUS on Change.org, and Oren Miller Instagram