It’s a funny thing, but I can explain til I am blue in the face to my friends what’s making me sad; ‘it’s the blog’, and they stare at me with blank faces. They have just no idea. And yet, only a look between bloggers conveys a million words…they just get it. It is a very hard thing to explain to non-bloggers.
When you are on-line all the time, you develop a sixth sense, meaning, I suppose, that you can pick up nuances and mood-shifts in the on-line community that others who don’t live it can’t. Trying to spell it out in the cold light of day is almost impossible and particularly to non-bloggers.
There are plenty of people who work on-line and I guess they have that sense to a certain degree too, but unless they have a blog as well to throw into the mix, I’m not sure it is quite the same. And this is really relevant and obvious when it comes to those who work in ‘social media’ but don’t actually have a blog themselves.
The art of blogging is sharing enough of yourself to be truly genuine, but not so much that you give everything away. And when you share yourself, you leave yourself wide open to any kind of criticism (and indeed, praise, sometimes), judgement and speculation. We all know that we can be given 100 compliments and one insult, and the thing we remember? The insult. Well, that’s blogging and it’s like that every single day.
Throw Twitter into the mix, and you can see that on a volatile day, or when something goes wrong (or right) it’s all too easy to leap into your timeline and flip out a Tweet (I have done it today, in fact, after vowing not to!) in temper or anger. Then, of course, everyone else piles in and before you know it, virtual feathers are flying everywhere. It’s no help that everyone knows who has been where, with whom and when, and usually what canapés were served, what was in the goodie bag and what shoes were worn. It takes very thick skin indeed not to mind that you weren’t there Tweeting all about it yourself. If there is anything guaranteed to add to self-doubt, you have it right there.
Yes, we’re completely changing the way that women view, consider and buy beauty – we really, truly are. That is the beauty bloggers’ indelible stamp on the on-line world, and it cannot be changed back. And for all the wonderful things about blogging (and there are many), there is still that one thing… the continual bareness…that doesn’t always put you in a good place. When it happens, like it has today, I know that it’s going to take a chat with another blogger to make it right again. They’re going to instantly get it that a slight stats fall makes you want to throw in the towel, that an off-handed Tweet makes you want to obliterate your laptop and that a meeting cancellation (or three; thanks for that) makes you feel about an inch high.
It’s no surprise really that being labelled over-sensitive might apply to a lot of us bloggers; but it generally is only ever said by those who don’t live in the blog world. Other bloggers get it. Because as I said at the top, it does take one to know one.
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16 comments
Now I have a better idea of why you don’t tell me to eff off when I have one of my mental, paranoid panic attacks in your inbox!
I’ve kind of accepted that I’m always going to be irrationally overprotective of my blog and freak out any time someone seems even remotely threatening towards it. Hope you’re OK and it was nothing too terrible; even if it was, you’re the queen of bouncing back xx
I love your blog, and I love your posts about being a blogger and your comments on the blogging world in general.
As a “small blog” I’ve really appreciated those and they’ve helped shape the way I blog.
There is always going to be drama online, especially in an area so dominated by women. I guess its just an unsavoury fact of life.
Anyway, this doesn’t have too much to do with your post, but with so much negativity out there. I just wanted to say something positive.
Thanks xx
I admire you hugely Jane – I admire the way that you always seem very measured in your articles and responses, and you say it as it is, warts and all which is what makes your blog true and honest. I wish that I had more of your metal – I just repeatedly delete my blog if it ever gets a bit too hot!
I don’t know if this is particularly specific to blogging – it sounds very like my thought processes when all the journalists but me in my field get invited to some press jolly (something that happens pretty much all the time now I no longer live in London). Or when a friend excludes me from something. What is different though is the greatly increased opportunities with all forms of social media to go off on one about it and broadcast something that one immediately regrets.
As someone who has had about 30 comments in the past 10 hours by a demographic that isn’t mine at all on a topic they don’t seem to know much about…I feel for you. After the third person told me to go die I at the very least wanted a hole to crawl into.
I have followed your blog (and many others) before I decided to take the plunge myself. I never thought I’d have the nerve, frankly, to “put myself out there” like that. Sure who the hell did I think I was. Then I finally thought to hell with that, and gave in, after many people told me many umpteen times that I should give it a whirl. I consider myself an amateur, a novice, a starter, a newbie. I have a lot of IT experience and writing experience and beauty experience under my belt, but you still can’t just stir all of that together and expect it to work… it takes hard work, and guts, and determination, and a lot at lot a lot of time.
I haven’t yet had the guts to enable comments on my blog; I am in awe of people who do! I know I would react (probably over-react) very badly to trolling or negativity. I get some “interesting” emails instead, but I can somehow ignore those for some reason.
Keep doing what you’re doing – it’s brilliant. One day I aspire to having the b*lls to “enable comments” and have the moxy to ignore the nasty ones (but not quite yet ;-))
You are probably the blogger I respect the most. As well as the beauty content (of course!) I also love reading your insights in to blogging, bloggers and the bloggersphere in general. I have just applied to my first social media graduate role and I hope that the fact that I write a blog myself will help give me an edge over other candidates.
It definitely takes one to know one. It’s hard when people outside the blogging community ask you how you are and you want to talk about blog stuff. My people at work (cos that’s mostly the people I know, in the ‘real’ world) think that the ultimate aim of this blogging hobby is to make money out of it and if not, you haven’t made it, even though you try hard to explain ‘it’s like trip advisor, you just ramble about something, but it’s not a hotel, it’s a lipstick kinda thing. You can’t tell ‘argh, I don’t know how to review this, the stuff costs £60, and it’s not doing anything for me’ as they go ‘just say it’s nice’. I can’t just say, I got responsibilities here, people might be buying because of it, and I don’t want to be responsible for their disappointment. This blogging thing does give me a great buzz but it can a little bit isolating at times. I feel very different from my non blogging friends and find myself distorting the truth about a nail polish, pretending the company sent it to me, in case they go: ‘jee, how many lime polishes do you need’. And when I get a comment like that I don’t know how to react: I don’t know if I should ignore and rush back to the other ‘freaks like me in the bloggosphere’ or think ‘yes, you’re right. when was the actual last time I finished a nail polish?’ xx
Great post as always.
My stats are rock bottom, have been for ages. It’s almost constantly on my mind I should call it a day, I keep plodding on with it and definitely there’s not a soul in my “real life” that I talk to about this, they just wouldn’t get it!
As someone who has blogged on and off, and is currently trying to get back into blogging – I get everything you said. I’m trying to stop myself getting too bogged down in it all, but I can already feel my insecurities surfacing – why is no one reading? Why is no one commenting. The answer is obvious – I’ve been MIA for months, and I need to give it a bit of time!It amazes me how some bloggers just seem to come out of nowhere and are so damn good at self promotion, that it seems like they are top of the tree in no time… Still, as someone who took a break from it, I can appreciate that beauty blogging is a bit of a “you snooze you lose” type arena. Then I remember that I am in the fortunate position of writing for fun…
I am not a fellow blogger, but I am a devotee of your blog as well as other beauty blogs, and I have two things I wish to say: I would DIE if I didn’t have your post to read every day. You (and my others) are my friends, my daily guides, my REQUIREMENT every day and I thrive on you all and LOVE you all. You are literally and figuratively the Last Word for me. I am deprived when I miss a day of you. Please know that you are more loved than hated. You are so very important. xoxo Beth in Pgh 😉
Hugs from another blogger. I have no idea what you’re talking about specifically, but I still TOTALLY get it. ♥
If this is about a bank holiday dip in viewings try looking at the monthly average year on year it may cheer you up.
Aw, what a lovely comment from lizzybee.
Do you know it only occurred to me recently (like last week) that people might actually want to read my blog. I honestly felt like they were just being polite or doing me a favour up until this point.
I’m sad to hear how you feel. And yes I hear you, on many counts. It’s humbling to hear that you feel these things too. It’s also why we love you & your blog so much.
Nic xx
A heartfelt thanks to everyone who commented..so appreciated and really helpful and kind. :-)))
Hear, hear, sister!
Your blogging posts are always fantastic, and full of truth. I always appreciate them.