Blogger Jealousy?
This is a slightly different post than usual, I guess more of a rant than anything. I’ve seen a lot of negative views written across Twitter in the past few weeks about blogging that’s made me question it a lot.
I started out my blog back in April because I enjoyed reading beauty blogs, and my boyfriend suggested I should start my own. After much thought I decided to create this so it would be easier to follow other blogs, and write my two cents on make up. My blog was created for me, because I enjoy make-up, nail varnish and other beauty products, which I’m sure is the reason we all started our blogs. So why do some bloggers get abuse, falsely accused or questioned on why they started their blogs?
Here’s some of the main negative views I’ve heard recently about blogging:
“Bloggers only do blogs to get freebies”
Well I highly doubt this is true, I set my blog up like many of you did, as it was something I enjoyed talking about and therefore the whole point of the blog was for fun. As far as I’m aware PR companies only contact blogs that they think would show off their product/represent it to a wider audience. So starting out a blog just for freebies? Well I imagine that would be hard to do if your blog lacked content. Also I speak to many bloggers who’s blog’s I’d consider to be better than mine, and as far as I’m aware none of them have been contacted. So what if a blogger is contacted by a PR company to review samples? We should be happy for that fellow blogger, as I’m sure they’ve worked hard on their blog, and that has obviously been recogonised by the PR company. I highly doubt that any blogger ‘demands’ free samples, and even if they do receive free samples they write their views on it, not that of the PR company. I’m sure no blogger has set out to create their blog to get free stuff, and yes maybe some are lucky to receive free samples, but if you’ve set out your blog just to get to the free stuff you should really be questioning why your even blogging if its not for fun.
“Bloggers only do giveaways to get followers”
I disagree on this one too. The point of giveaways is to thank your current viewers, and yes you may gain a few extra followers because of your giveaway but I’m sure that’s not the main reason for hosting the giveaway. I’ll admit I’ve seen giveaways advertised on Twitter and then have joined in with that giveaway myself, but I still continue to follow the blog regardless of their giveaway. The main reason I follow blogs is because I like their content. Its nice to see how other people view products I use, or talk about products I wouldn’t of known about. I wouldn’t care if the blogs I followed did giveaways or not, I’d still follow them regardless. I think that the majority of bloggers do giveaways to say thanks to their current readers, and if their doing it just to get more followers, they should really question why their even blogging at all.
“Its not fair how bloggers who never write anything get invited to events”
Yes this comment does sound rather unfair, but I’m sure that’s not the case. I highly doubt that a blogger who hardly ever writes gets invited to events. I heard this comment off a girl on Twitter, and I replied back to her to see what she meant. She told me that she blogs pretty much everyday and has been for a few months now, and never has been invited to an event/given free samples etc, but sees girls on other blogs hardly blog but get this. Well I checked into what she meant, and yes one blogger in particular that got invited to these events didn’t blog as frequently as this other girl, but she had been doing it for a few years, compared to the girl who mentioned it who’d been doing it a few months. Now to me that’s a big difference, so the girl who got invited to the event was probably known to PR companies etc, and deserved to be invited to events. Compared to the other girls blog who was only really just starting out. To me this just sounds like jealousy, but again shouldn’t we be happy for the fellow blogger that she’s done well on her blog to be invited to events?
“Bloggers won’t reply to comments/tweets unless their ‘smaller’ bloggers”
Well personally I find this to be very untrue. I follow girls blogs who have hundreds or even thousands of followers, and if I’ve ever tweeted them a question, or posted a comment, they’ve always got back to me. Because after all, all bloggers are thankful towards their followers, whether they have a large amount of followers or not. I’d never ignore a question someone asked me, even if i had thousands of followers. I once received an email from another blogger asking me a question and in her email she said “I know you probably won’t read this but I thought I’d try”. I felt so sad for her, that she thought I’d ignore her question, of course I emailed her back. I know i’m a fairly small blogger, but I love all of my followers and that will never stop! Just like everyone else, I’m so thankful to my followers, and I’ve had some lovely chats with you all, and I think I’ve made some great friends out of blogging/tweeting with you. Yes sometimes girls with hundreds of followers might be slower to reply to comments etc compared to those who have smaller followers, but that’s probably because they have several people asking questions so it takes a while to get back to them.
“The ‘big’ bloggers don’t care about their followers”
Again I disagree with this. I covered this partly in my last point, but I’m pretty sure any blogger regardless of their size cares about their followers. After all without any followers who’s going to be reading your blog? I was over the moon when I first reached 10 followers, I was so happy that people were reading my blog, and I’m sure I’ll be the same regardless of the number of followers I have. This again to me sounds like jealousy, as why would any blogger not care about their followers? And personally even if I don’t get hundreds of followers, or even any I’d still be here, as blogging is something I enjoy.
Overall I think all these comments come from jealous bloggers. Maybe their jealous because they don’t have as many followers, or don’t receive free samples, but those who do get those perks have been working hard at their blog and deserve what they get.
Sorry for that ranty post, I just found these comments to annoy me and I thought I’d try to set the record straight! I promise to have more positive uplifting posts again soon!