Beauty (Bloggers) & the Beast.
In case you don’t have eyes, it snowed this week. And with the snow came the things that inevitably accompany it – people moaning about the snow on Twitter, people moaning about people moaning about the snow on Twitter on Twitter, flurries (pun, lol) of Instagram pics out of people’s windows and fashion blogger-y pictures like this.
Overlooking the fact that the above outfit is OUTSTANDINGLY well co-ordinated (a particular love of mine), let’s just consider how impractical it is for the snow. The answer is very. Let’s face it, she’s going to last two minutes in those heels before ending up falling over and ripping that flimsy looking sweater.
Of course, it’s not just when it snows that fashion and fashion blogs walk the line between the sublime and the ridiculous. Take this guy -
Yes, he looks very moody and striking in a ‘quiffy Zac Efron in a world where gyms don’t exist’ sort of way, but where did he get that chair from? Aside from the fact that it looks like Kurt Angle should be breaking it over The Rock’s head, remember that he’s had to bring that chair from home. Imagine the looks he got on the bus. I bet the local hoodlums call him ‘chair dude’ now.
And we can’t forget poses like this one – bloggers taking photos of themselves ‘walking’ (satirised in this old post of mine) is…really weird. It’s like in Peep Show when Gog catches Jez pretending to write.
But let’s get a little deeper. Poses like the one above generally remind me of classic paparazzi shots, which implies to me a subconscious yearning to be in the public eye. That’s what a blog is, right? But casting oneself as the perpetually visible artist is a pretty dangerous thing to do, because with celebrity comes huge pressure to be perfect. I was talking to Lily Pebbles and Ella Gregory (Names? Dropped.) about blogging the other day, and the amount of pressure they put on themselves sounds far more intense than my ‘might sit down and write something today’ approach…I think I even heard the phrase ‘content schedule’ being used. Meanwhile I was sat there picking dried pizza off my shirt.
At some point, without anyone really being aware of it, it seems like it was decided that cupcakes, Mulberry Alexas and meatLIQUOR are the pinnacle of perfection and that everything else isn’t worth blogging about. You know what I say to that? I say, pfft. Some of the most prolific blogs and features in the past couple of years were so successful precisely because they dared to break the mould. Look no further than Advanced Style (street style for over 50s) and Style Rookie (a fashion blog started by a twelve year old girl) for evidence of this. Not to mention that Chinese man who started modelling his granddaughter’s clothing.
It probably shouldn’t surprise me that blogging is getting surreal – we live in a world where airbrushing, size zero models and overly posed photos are ‘normal’ and permeate the mainstream media. It makes sense that bloggers would mimic this, because it’s what we’re exposed to on a daily basis. Yes, it’s difficult to be ‘different’ in a world where everything seems to be the same. But it’s worth the fight.
I love you quite a lot for this post. x
South Molton St Style
So much truth!
I have a content schedule & don’t think I could manage without it, it just helps to keep organised alongside a full-time job.
I have to say though, I’ve started braving taking my coat off for 3 mins for the odd outfit photo – otherwise my last 10 outfit posts would be “here’s me in my coat again but LOOK different shoes/scarf/hat!”.
LOVE this post, thank you for reminding me that I’m doing the right thing not conforming
You have hit the nail on the head with this one! We live in a world where we care soooo much about other people think o is so we go to great length to please them instead of just being ourselves. Fashion blogging has become this thing where everyone is trying out instead of being who you are and different.
I applaud you for this post. The chair pic cracked me up!
One of your best! I get a little bit too excited when I find a fellow cynic (not to mention a cynic who still has room for appreciation of shiny pretty things) Liz
I love this post. I think it is pretty awesome that cool bloggers can do the whole walking-whilst-having a photo taken thing but after some hilarious and quite frankly ridiculous attempts at trying to match up , I’m still a size 12, horribly poor, minus a gorgeous photographer boyfriend (or any boyfriend, for that matter) and with poorly co-ordinated clothing that no one wants to take a photo of. Perhaps it comes from being woefully self conscious but I just don’t think I’ll ever be a super good blogger. However this year I am going to try and stop aping the people I think are cool and just be myself. Hopefully people will want to read about it. It makes me sad that I see people talking about the fact that they can’t be a blogger because they don’t have a big purse. I mean, sure – it helps. But it hopefully posts like this mean people will give it a go! Great post Stu.
(I rambled…)
LoveMealie
Obviously I can relate to the idea of not being a super good blogger – although there are people out there who like and get what I do, I constantly feel like I’m burning bridges with bloggers and brands who don’t. There’s a lot of pressure to keep up with the latest ‘tags’ and stuff, c.f. all the bloggers who got Vine because they thought they had to, then proceeded to do nothing with it. Just how it goes, unfortunately…
I actually really love the photo of the guy in the chair, but it IS amusing.
I think there’s this massive pressure now for fashion/style blogs to be aspirational, and turn it into a business. I used to follow IFB and read their articles on blogging, and while it helped a lot with the basics of setting up etc, I found that in the end it was making me think about the wrong things – the traffic, the number of comments & followers…. and it took the enjoyment out of it. Eventually I just un-followed – now I post a lot less (no longer subscribing to the IFB belief that anything less than every second day is not good enough) and barely ever check my traffic. I’d rather be posting what I want to post, when I’m inspired to post it, & have 3 people look at it than be scurrying around trying to turn my blog into something it isn’t.
For me, the real value of blogs is in their personality, their differences and their honesty. An aspirational blog here & there is fine, but I didn’t hit up the internet to read curated advertisements for the perfect lifestyle. I’ll edit my pictures for enjoyment now, but I’m done with trying fighting the weird faces I seem to make every time I take photos of myself. I don’t see the value anymore in portraying beautiful fantasy lives through every one of our blogs.
Sorry for hitting up your comment section with a novel. hahaha.
Great post Stu
Thank you!
wow!!! dat dress is so preety!!!
That dudes photo would definitely have benefited from Kurt Angle hitting him over the head with the chair. It would have been slightly more unprecedented anyway! Actually, I would be more entertained if Kurt started his own fashion blog featuring guest posts from Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles. Jeff could be all ‘pastel goth’ or ‘soft grunge’.
Like it. John Cena kinda already HAS his own line after all…U Can’t C Me.