I recently (maybe not so recently by the time I pluck up the courage to publish this post) did a poll on Twitter asking everyone what their favourite type of blog post was, and to my shock horror the least favourite type of post was 'personal'. With less than 15% of people choosing it as their favourite to read. I was completely bewildered as personal posts are my absolute favourite things to read. The ones that show real people, doing real things, and showing their real feelings. The ones where people talk about their battle with anxiety or depression, the ones where people are making a baking recipe post and they accidentally burn everything yet still write it up and laugh about it 6 months down the line. Now stop me if I get this wrong, but I think blogs are constantly becoming less and less personal with each passing day. The amount of glossy, overly Photoshopped blogs with images of 'perfect' individuals living out their 'perfect' lives. I know you're sat there thinking how hypocritical I am, with my apparently "flawless" photos and my sleek blog design - but I have always had a plain white blog, even when I started blogging in June 2014. And as for the main reason I try so hard with my photos, I started this blog after finishing my A Levels, and Photography was one of my favourite subjects. Since I wasn't doing photography at university, blogging was one of the only ways for me to keep doing what I loved. It's just what I do. I don't do it because I think you'll like it - I do it for numero uno over here.
Long gone are the days where bloggers write purely for themselves. Documenting their lives to look back on, so they could laugh and cry at how they were feeling that one time. But with the overemphasis of SEOs, the number of likes on your latest Instagram, and the number of followers a blog has - personal bloggers are becoming more and more reader-influenced. Blogging primarily became so popular because readers wanted someone they could trust. They didn't want to see unrealistic photos, magazine style editorials, and pretty faces caked up in makeup. They wanted honest reviews and helpful advice from a real life person. Someone sat on the other side of a computer screen. And now, bloggers who are showing their raw and honest feelings and opinions are getting less and less attention with every newbie blogger who keep jumping on the blogging bandwagon.
Research has shown that bloggers are taking up to six hours drafting and redrafting their blog posts to make sure everything they write is comprehensive and as informative as possible. SIX HOURS. One of my favourite bloggers of all time, Charly from
Style The Natives, only posts in the here and now. She writes what she wants to write, whatever the topic is. She doesn't care if people reads her posts or not, writing up musings from the early hours of the morning, sharing embarrassing and drunken tales, and reflecting on personal experiences. The main reason I love her blog so much isn't for her sleek blog design or her aesthetically pleasing photos. It's her raw passion. Her love of writing. How her true thoughts and feelings come across in her posts. If you go and read, or have ever read
any of her blog posts, you will know exactly what I mean. She writes as though her life is a novel. She includes all the sad 'Bridget Jones sat on the sofa with a bottle of vodka' moments, the 'I'm so happy I could cry' moments - she doesn't make everything seem like a fairytale and that's why I love her.
Enough about Charly. I just want to say that we, as a blogging community, should be more open. Remember the reasons why you started, celebrate them, write a post on them if you wish. But whatever you do, don't forget about them. Don't worry about putting a post up because you feel like you 'have to'. From this moment on, I'm going to try and follow my own advice. I used to regularly write about enjoying Sunday dinner with my best friends, our little silly jokes, and to not care as much about what other people thought. I do hope that nobody is offended by anything that I've said. I was sat wide awake in bed at 3am, writing blog posts and I was struck with this sudden thought that I just had to write about - in the here and now.
What are your thoughts? Is blogging become more of a race of popularity?
Thanks for reading!
Love Charlotte x
