What’s Wrong With Blog World?

I’ve been trying to pin down this strange social media mood that’s more shape shifting than any mythical creature for such a long time. It’s hard to really say quite what it is, but I can say that many of us are feeling it. One minute I think I have it and then it slips out of reach again.. so I’m giving this a go but may not be able to reach any conclusion!

Everyone is Shouting

It terms of evolution, social media feels like it’s going at the speed of light. But, if you’re right in the middle of it, it isn’t really. It’s going very slowly for us behind the screen while everyone else front of screen is beavering away trying to find different ways of ‘engaging’ us. Blogging is my predominant social channel so I’ll use the word ‘blog’ but it’s across all channels. Media and marketing agencies, PRs, digital gurus, agents, advertising agencies – you name it, everyone is blue sky thinking, accelerating, social graphing, cross-channeling, relevance analysing, looping back and taking ideas showers. Here at base camp, we’re just doing our jobs. The outside space is very, very noisy, and nobody likes continual shouting so the temptation to stay away is alluring. Which leads to my next point.

Full Time Blogging/Vlogging Or Insert Social Media Channel Here

Full time means different things to different people. For some, it’s posting a couple of videos a week or a few detailed posts and that’s it. My style of blogging is to offer a number of posts per day that don’t go into full detail, but are more of a beauty snack. But, no matter how you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it on your own most of the time. I’ve had any number of conversations with fellow socials about the fact that it’s quite a lonely job. Much as I never want to work in an office again, neither did I expect to be on my own as much as I am, with all motivation, decisions and ideas coming entirely from my own head. Too much time in your own head isn’t healthy, but it’s a vicious circle. The work doesn’t get done unless you sit down and just get on with it, while heading to the opening of an envelope brings you in contact with others, it’s then quite hard to catch up.

Blogging Was Easier When It Was About Reality Not Fantasy

Instagram is notorious for making life look sweet. But, perfectly curated pictures on any channels don’t really represent what’s going on in real life. I have one tidy corner of my kitchen and some white boards. The rest is real family life with towels on the bathroom floor, pans unwashed and a massive pile of ironing. The white boards represent less than 1% of my living environment and the other 99% is irrelevant to all of the above agencies washing through their ideas in that flipping shower in their creatively soapy suds. You can never be a whole person on-line.

Everybody Wants Something

Still, bloggers get well and truly caught out on this one. I still do, although I kick myself harder for it and am super-super wary. It’s like every magazine editor over the years that’s ever found themselves with all their discount cards cancelled and literally not one invitation when they leave their job. All their industry ‘friends’ literally disappear. That sounds like an entitled example, but it has happened and will continue to do so which is something of a nasty shock when you thought the world was at your fingertips. The lesson there is that you are only as good as your title, in print or in digital. What all the above mentioned agencies in Everyone Is Shouting want is access to your audience. Not actually you. So, you have to be a rather robust person to withstand the flattery, the trips, the compliments and the whole fandango without thinking it’s all about you. Everyone has that friend that only ever phones when they want something.. well, that. Only all day every single day. Which actually translates in blog world to treading carefully with every footstep. We have ALL been burned on this one. The best advice I was recently given by a very experienced blog friend is to learn to enjoy people’s company without becoming personally attached.

The Assumption There Is No Skill

There’s a huge assumption that anyone on social media is a somewhat lucky talentless person who bought an iPhone and the world just fell at their feet. With one or two very rare exceptions, this is simply not the case. I can barely learn Snapchat (and yet somehow I managed Weibo in Chinese so don’t even ask how that happened!), so how it is that everyone thinks that running any kind of channel doesn’t need some kind of skill and ability? I think younger bloggers are hit particularly hard with this stick but you rarely earn your place in this world without some very fast learning and a steel core of determination regardless of age.

The Truth and the Filter

I’ve touched on this in another post so it doesn’t all need re-saying but most bloggers are really, truly tired of just how easy it is to pretend about everything on Instagram. Never mind the filtering, how about the buying of followers and likes at such a prolific rate that in a few weeks you can leap by literally thousands of followers? And then the agencies that sign up the said Instagrammers based on followers that don’t really exist. And then the brands that immediately believe the numbers without doing the most basic checks. You will find that on the inside of social media, most people know who is real and who isn’t, and yet a brand or a PR agency cannot seem to run the most basic of checks. Or they don’t care. Either way, it’s a running agenda that loses influencers, agencies and brands credibility and respect by the day. And, yes, those of us doing it the hard way are really, really angry about it.

Competition is healthy, isn’t it?

It would be a very bold lie to say that everyone gets along just fine and dandy in social media world. It’s the same as any other only rather more super-charged because being online makes you braver than you might be in ‘real life’. Hence hate and shade – too easy to throw when there’s no real consequence but intensely damaging. One of the bigger issues is commerciality. Of course people should be paid for their work; of course if brands want access to an audience, then the person who built that should be compensated. At the same time though, the person who built the audience should take responsibility for what they’re saying and who they’re actually speaking to. Words falling out of your face doesn’t necessarily equate to relevant content – it’s just contributing to the already too loud noise. If someone has no sense of responsibility and brands collude with that, again, respect is gone. Good stuff gets harder to find. Those of us working in this sector are like early warning systems – we’re doing it ALL of the time and if we’re feeling something, chances are it’s a genuine reflection of the internet zeitgeist. There’s a huge trend for showing all your *insert bags/shoes/holidays here* which only displays that someone thinks what they have is what they are. Massive no, massive misunderstanding of responsibility. Massive misunderstanding of audience. Massive misunderstanding of life and I would refer you up to the cautionary tale of the magazine editors. Don’t mix display with products that bloggers are sent in order to do their job. Different thing.

So, I hope in some way I’ve managed to put my finger on the strange cloud that’s hanging over internets. In a nutshell, lack of clarity, no rules, little respect, always having to be on your guard, too much time alone, too judgemental, too everything. But mostly, way too much noise. Too many people trying to decide what we need to be and rapidly helping us lose any sense of who we were being in the first place. Mostly, it was just ourselves.

 


Discover more from British Beauty Blogger

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Have your say

37 responses to “What’s Wrong With Blog World?”

  1. Dannie

    Hi Jane,

    I’m so glad that you have posted this. I definitely agree about the “shouting” bit. I’ve said it before, but it honestly feels like everyone wants others to read their blog, but don’t want to read other people. It does seem to be a competition, and no one wants to help out any more. It has become rather cut throat and I have too often been used for what I can offer, and then dumped when I was no longer of value. I have had to take a step back and stop being so “open” on my blog and online – and these are feelings I have because of other bloggers! I honestly hope that things calm down in a sense. Whilst blogging may never go back to the good old days where people did it for the “love”, I just hope that we can once get back the sense of community…

    Dannie x

    1. Jenni

      Totally echo your and Jane’s sentiments. I used to blog too but blogging, and the Internet has changed into something I no longer want to read on a daily basis (mostly because of too much noise), and I don’t want to be part of the noise anymore!

      On the advice “enjoy company of others without feeling personally attached”, while I’ve been practicing this at an early stage of my blog life, i couldn’t help but felt “what’s the point of it anymore?” eventually, I almost question myself what’s the point of building good relationships with PRs when one day they might just disappear in your life and move on to someone else? The relationship is built on commerciality and could never be personal. I could get on with this but then it comes back to the loneliness problem at the end of the day. There’s also the feeling of “never good enough” (feeling of comparison).

      It’s really hard to pin down what is it exactly that’s bothering bloggers but you’ve done a good job articulating and posting this Jane!

  2. Love this post. Blogging has changed so much in the last 5 years. It’s def more cutthroat and unrealistic in my opinion. When I started my wedding blog 5 years ago, it was easier in many ways. I started my new blog less than a year ago and whoa! People used to be easier to connect with and less “mean girls”. I hope we go back to the old ways.

    Mel | http://www.thegossipdarling.com

  3. Jane, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m pretty new to the whole blogging thing and feel quite at sea in a saturated market a lot of the time-but the pace of social media is exhausting. And I’m sorry – my house isn’t decked out in white and marble. I cannot wing eyeliner to save my life. And matte lips terrify me.
    I hope there can be a bit of a community revival in the blog world – to my inexperienced eye, that seems to be what’s missing.

    Beekeyper – Latest post – 6 steps to swoon-worthy skin

  4. saying out loud what we’re all thinking but not daring to write publicly. and all that in your usual balanced and well articulated way. thank you!

  5. Chrissie W

    Well put Jane. I have occasionally thought about blogging and it seems there is a damned if you do / you don’t approach on many levels. This has put me off, along with the free for all negativity. To adopt a persona or not, filter or not, make a statement about xxx or not, to keep up with or lead etc etc .. arrgh! Are we at maximum speed for launches / trends /getting the next season’s must have clothes on our backs… I hope so as it’s becoming blurry! Keeping up with it all, balancing brands’ expectations is bloody hard work and that’s just from my humble perspective as one of your readers. Thank you for your blog and insight, don’t ever ever change xx

    1. Jane

      Thanks Chrissie! The word blurry is a good one to use – but we have to accept we’re in an emerging world on-line and that changes will keep on coming. It is too blurry right now but it will clear as it always has done before – and then a whole other cloud of confusion will land!

  6. I still blog, I like blogging, although not often now. However, I don’t read any blogs at all now, bar yours. If I’m looking for swatches, i google image search, if I want to see whats coming up, i check here, and if I want reviews then I look on retailers websites for consumer reviews. I don’t know that blogs have much of a place at all any more, generally speaking. There will always been popular blogs, such as yours. You and I have talked a lot over the years and i can recall saying to you on several occasions that bloggers seem to blog for other bloggers. I’m not sure you really understood what I meant and I struggled to explain it, but for smaller bloggers it would seem that being so entrenched in a blogging community means that blog posts are written and read by other bloggers, so over time their reach has not gone as far as the wider community and so they have not taken off in the way that there was potential for them to do so. By this I mean that for smaller bloggers, their followers on social media are often other bloggers and friends from the blogging community, posts are based on what the blogging community is into and wants to see, and its incredibly hard to push outside of that zone. Smaller bloggers are often afraid to go against the grain when it comes to the latest must have product, and so credibility of the whole community is lost. Its a huge generalisation, I know this, and there are absolutely exceptions to the rule and actually, while it might seem like it, it’s not a criticism at all, I think it was almost inevitable. And I don’t consider myself exempt from my own comments (except I absolutely pride myself on my honesty and would never say I loved something if I didn’t!).

    Add into all that the pressure to be magazine like, to have perfect photographs, the pressure on bloggers re stats (often self imposed pressure, but often (understandably) by brands) its all just become a bit meh….

    As for the future, I don’t know. I enjoy writing, so I’ll keep writing sporadically, and I love beauty so I’ll keep writing about that, it keeps my brain active and my make up collection up to date, but I have to be honest and say my love for reading blogs, for the most part, died a long time ago.

  7. Agree with a lot of this Jane, including the effects of working alone, which I don’t think anyone can understand until they’ve been there. I read other people’s blogs a lot and love to do so, but increasingly find myself trying to shut out all the noise. I can’t be bothered with the whole judging/slagging other bloggers/brands and find the competitiveness and mask of perfection nauseating and overwhelming. That’s not what I’m here for.

    I think all of this is underpinned by a genuine longing for authenticity among readers and viewers. Few bloggers are prepared to keep it real, but those who do are the real successes in my eyes.

  8. jennpeters

    As a blog consumer, I love these little peeks behind the curtain, helps with my critical evaluation of content because you can definitely forget what’s really behind many posts

  9. For me, you are THE blogging icon. You get it right every single time. You know what you’re talking about, you keep to the point, you tell us exactly what we want to know and you’re focussed on your brand of blogging. It never fails. You are totally awesome.
    I’ve become increasingly tired of some vloggers’ lack of imagination. No, I don’t want to know what they eat in a day. No, I don’t want to see their boyfriends making them up. No, I don’t want to see them flitting round a supermarket. I’m also increasingly concerned with some of the ‘advice’ that’s being offered on subjects of which they know nothing about. Very few are actually qualified to tell you how to eat healthily, how to treat your hair. If all they’re doing is telling you what THEY do, then that’s fine, but it’s the increasing ‘you should’ that worries me.
    I think some of them are a little out of touch, too. I recently watched a well-known vlogger go through her ‘haul’. Every item was well over £100, some over £200. Her audience is young with not that sort of spare cash. And more than just a few pointed that out. Balancing it out in a later video with a lower-priced range didn’t cut it. It was obvious she’d never be seen dead in the items.
    Credibility is the key.
    Most vloggers, when they stick to what they’re really good at, which is showing us how they make-up, or their experiences of new products, etc. are excellent. I’ve learnt a lot (and oh god, bought a lot), even from the youngsters. So I wish they’d stick to what they excel in. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’d also like to say, though, that I admire their courage in putting themselves out there: becoming public property is huge and regrettably, they enter a world where people become keyboard warriors.

    1. Jane

      what a great and thoughtful comment..thank you x

  10. I said on twitter but I’ll say again I’m so glad you’re out there doing your thing, it gives me hope for the blogging world! Unfortunately there’s a few that are just completely ruining the experience of blogging and I think largely the frustration comes from knowing that they’re buying followers and likes and yet we’re not able to say anything. Or should we? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, would it be seen as bullying if it was brought up? It especially doesn’t sit well with me when people who have a large amount of fake followers are wilfully deceiving the real followers they have, it’s another deceit of the instagram culture similar to facetuning and photoshopping. There’s still LOTS and LOTS of excellent bloggers out there but it feels like there’s some sort of huge change happening, I think you pinpointed a lot of the concerns but where do we go from here? Very interesting topic Jane, thank you for always confronting the issues.

  11. I know nothing about how to blog and came very late to realising there were such things on the web! However, I’m so glad I found yours, Jane, because you obviously know what you’re talking about and write so well and trustworthily. To this 75-year old graphic designer/mother/grandmother you’re well worth finding and reading … thank you and best wishes.

    1. Jane

      I love getting your comments Ann so the feeing is mutual! xx

  12. I have been hobby blogging for roughly 2 years. I have a full time job outside of the beauty realm. The blog is simply something that I enjoy doing. I am not vested, nor do I really care, how many followers I have -especially if they aren’t actually real! I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to work so hard to carve out your niche only to find that you don’t have all of the respect you have honestly earned. Similarly I do not understand the lack of camaraderie among bloggers. I suppose I am grateful to feel I am not in competition with any one other than my own standards. I strive to make my blog better on a daily basis and hope I am providing a service some can find useful. I feel we all have different things to offer and there should be room for all.

    1. Jane

      Thanks Michele.. I don’t care any more about how many – it seemed so important way back but it seems so unimportant now. I think we all have to find our own way of enjoying social media because there is plenty of fun to be had, just not always where you might expect it.

  13. Love your post!
    As a blogger, who writes in not-so-popular european language and about books and theatre and film and not about shiny things I’m in on the sidelines of blogging world.
    But I’m dissapointed in community, in the fact that, oh too many times I find myself… disregard for the lack of better word? Almost everyone is all about building a brand, a huge net of followers, a big basket of collaborations, a perfect google analytics stats and when I’m presenting my attitude: I just like to write about things which I find interesting and I just like to talk about it, I’m feeling myself almost as an idiot.
    The thing is, I have a good corporation job, which I like a lot (again, I feel it’s kind of faux pas in a blogging word, everyone wants to running small empire in their bedrooms), I can buy thing I want, and I don’t want to bother with things I don’t want. And the indignant faces of fellow bloggers when I said that I don’t want to work with someone, because I’m not interested in their products.
    It’s not anymore about real passion……
    I know that the difference between professional blogger and someone like me will be always, but I’m worried about this trend, in which everybody wants to become glossy magazine.

  14. pot39

    Yours is the only blog I read. it’s clever, useful, concise and beautifully written.
    I agree with everything you say from a consumers’ point of view.
    Please keep going.

    1. Jane

      thank you so much – that’s so lovely to hear x

  15. Michelle

    Hi Jane. I’m newish to the blogging world and agree. I plod along, putting my posts out. I promote when I remember but feel like I’m spamming my timeline when I do. And my Twitter numbers are low in comparison, but I’m proud they have all followed me (ane me them) and are genuine people. One blogger who started roughly the same time as I did has around 20k followers and I have 1.3..but I don’t care. I blog because it’s an escape from my very real life day job and my gazillion kids. There are inspirational bloggers like yourself, and then there are the rest.

    1. Jane

      Thank you Michelle..just remember why you do it and extract as many of the good things from it as you can…using it as a creative outlet means it has huge value to you and makes the numbers game rather irrelevant. I think we forget to enjoy what we do sometimes because of all the noise from elsewhere.

  16. I love your ranty posts Jane. They give me life. For me the blogging trifecta will always be You, Sali Hughes, and Caroline Hirons. Integrity, Class, and no BS! I have even become a bit turned off by some my fave MUAs, yes I will name names Charlotte Tilbrury and Lisa Eldridge on Instagram. It’s all about the super expensive designer dresses and shoes, the fabulous events, the amazing trips/hotels, selfies with Kim Kardashian. I love them as Makeup Artists and I’m hard pressed to find a CT makeup product that I don’t love, but I am starting to find their IG personas a bit tacky these days. I liked it better when they showcased more of their work instead of their lavish lifestyles. That’s just my personal feeling. I think the blogging world/IG/VLOGS etc. is just becoming overstaturated. For example how many IG accounts are there of people showcasing their skincare routines these days? Soooo many. Anyway, great post. Thank you for showing us that a lot of times it really is all smoke and mirrors 🙂

    1. Jane

      It’s interesting that while IGs change their style to fit trends and what they’re seeing others do, we were happiest with looking at the smaller stuff. It shows that influencers get influenced too 🙂

  17. Thanks so much for this part especially: “I have one tidy corner of my kitchen and some white boards. The rest is real family life with towels on the bathroom floor, pans unwashed and a massive pile of ironing.” That was a well-needed reminder for me that a lot of what I see on other blogs is carefully edited, and that I shouldn’t beat myself up about my own ‘lived in’ home. It’s SOO easy to forget that most bloggers carefully curate what they show of themselves. I mean I do it to a certain extent, and yet when it comes to beating myself up about things, I always forget other people’s perfection is an illusion. xx

    1. Jane

      I redecorated our bedroom about a year ago into a ‘white’ space (well, grey actually) and it’s literally the first clutter free room I’ve ever had because I’m like a maniac at keeping it pristine. But how many years it took to get that room…. ! Families make mess and clutter but I’d take that over an entire ‘marble’ house any day of week! I dont’ think it matters how you live as long as you love life.

  18. It’s interesting that many commenters mention a lack of community in blogging now. I do think it still exists in little pockets here and there but it’s definitely diluted from what it was. Too many people are now about the take and not the give. So they want readers, but don’t read other blogs; they want comments, but don’t leave comments (unless it’s some kind of mutual exchange comment ring). Too many bloggers are focused on what they will get rather than what they will write.

    I recently relaunched my blog and so I have been making a big effort to go out and connect with other bloggers. I have left around 100+ comments on blogs over the last few weeks, and out of that very few have responded and even fewer have come to visit my blog. I will carry on commenting because I genuinely like reading blogs, and if a post engages me all the way to the end then I’m happy to leave a comment. Although I feel like a lone monkey typing in the wilderness, I’m fine with that because I’ve never been one to run with the herd.

    All in all I think the mood is ripe in Blogland for something new, but what that is I really don’t know yet.

    1. Alicia F

      I know exactly what you mean! I try to comment frequently on the blog that I read, but very rarely get a response.

  19. You’re right – it’s too much of everything. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. I feel like we’re always fighting against something (be it brands, governing bodies, unethical bloggers) and it’s hard to shut off and just get on with what you’re doing. Having hosted an intimate tea for 10 bloggers yesterday, it was so refreshing to get fab women around a table and have honest conversations/share our frustrations. Being alone and battling your way through means it’s hard to gain perspective; I think the key is having a regular opportunity to lean on other bloggers with a similar mindset.

  20. Lily From Sydney

    Hi Jane,
    Thank you for such an interesting and thoughtful post. I agree with other comments, as someone who reads, but does not blog, it’s fascinating to get a ‘backstage’ view of the industry. You just keep doing your wonderful thing!

    Lily from Sydney

  21. My question these days is, do big bloggers/vloggers actually read/check other peoples blogs. And when I say other peoples I mean not other big bloggers. Do they actually seek out and read anyone’s content who has no relations to any companies or any other bloggers. I kind of feel that everyone has gotten more known and no longer has any interest in anyone else but themselves.

    1. Jane

      I will answer that really honestly – I tend not to look at other blogs these days but more specifically, not peer blogs. I love looking at new blogs and reading personal pieces, but beauty is my all day and every day so more often than not I will read other things than beauty. It’s also super competitive and I think sometimes the less you know, and the more you keep your head down and just do your thing in a more relaxed way – it’s the easiest thing in the world to look too hard at what your colleagues are doing and wonder if you’re behind or not or could be doing better. However, I am really active in following and interacting on Twitter and quite often click to blogs from there rather than comments. It’s not really a question of being interested in only yourself: there’s a bit of self preservation in there too as well as being at overload on the subject of beauty. I read more US blogs than UK blogs and I certainly will take a blog over a magazine any day of the week!

      1. I do agree that it’s good to step away from comparing yourself to everyone else. If reading peer blogs makes you straight away compare your work with theirs then yes, it’s better to stop reading them. We should read blogs because we enjoy them, they give us something that we want (information, happines, etc). Glad to know that you do read new blogs or any others that still give you joy. It would be sad to know that content creators no longer look at other peoples content with joy.

        1. Jane

          I’ll never stop reading blogs completely – actually, I just thought about when my palette came out and people very kindly blogged it I did get to every single review that I was tagged in on to say thank you and ended up spending quite some time reading through the whole blog which I really enjoyed.

  22. Marie

    Amazing article. I fell put of love with the blogging world/YouTube as I noticed the arrogance that a few personalities.

    What put me off was the lack of respect towards viewers.
    Not a lot are media trained and are rude to constructive criticism from those who support them and care enough to want to help them !
    My observation is that when a blogger/vlogger “makes” it the content changes,the quality goes down and they no longer enjoy it.

    This blog is the only one I carry on reading,for the depth and i industry knowledge and maturity it brings.

  23. Your blog is one of the few that I still read from when I started reading blogs. Posts like this are one very good reason. The main one though is that you still read like the same person, you care, you’re human, you don’t just post about things I couldn’t hope to afford. I’m glad your blog isn’t all perfection and marble. Having watched my mum work self-employed for my entire life I salute you for working alone – I’ve seen how hard it is.

    I was updating my Bloglovin’ subscriptions today (I’ve mainly been following blogs through Twitter, which feels healthier?) and the number of exactly the same reviews I saw – it’s scary!

    1. Jane

      thank you .. that’s a lovely comment xxx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from British Beauty Blogger

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading