Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Thoughts on Blogging

Happy Wednesday readers! So today I'm doing something a little different with Ten Things Wednesday. A little serious. A lot real.

I read a LOT of blogs. 100+ a day. I read a lot of things that make me smile, make me want to be a better blogger, make me cringe. To the latter, I want to provide my thoughts on a bunch of blogging "hot topics." Bear in mind that these are only my personal philosophies on how I choose to blog. There is bound to be people that will disagree, but the beauty of blogging is that it is purely subjective. So, without further ado...
















- Why I don't post pictures of every single thing I eat: First of all, I don't post pictures of everything I eat because frankly, you would get bored. I tend to eat a lot of the same things over and over again. Plus I have zero desire to open up my diet to scrutiny from others. Some days I eat too much (actually, most days). Some days I don't eat enough (like once a year).

- Why I don't post three times a day: Again, this would get boring. The bloggers that post three times a day frequently have NOTHING interesting to write about (hence why they post everything they eat because that's all they have time to do). I want to keep things new and interesting for my readers without overloading their Google Readers.

 - On Privacy: This is common sense in the blog world. Not that I think I'm hot or important enough to have someone be obsessed with me, but stranger things have happened. This is why I don't post my address, phone number, where I work, or last name. However, if you're job is social networking, etc. than obviously it's perfectly acceptable to list your job and last name...but for us regular Janes, there's no point.

 - On Responsibility: I never paint myself as an expert. I never even give advice. I tell you what I do and what has worked for me. That being said, a lot of "healthy living bloggers" encourage very unhealthy habits, whether they are meaning to or not is a different story, but I believe in reading your post after you've written it as an outsider would read it and consider if perhaps you are sending a bad message.

 - Why I don't post on the weekends: As much as I love this blog (and you guys!) I also love my "me" time. I don't blog on the weekends because I actually enjoy living my life, spending time with my friends and boyfriend, and don't want to have my life revolve around my blog.

 - Things you will never see me do on this blog:
  • Post pictures of my furniture - In all honesty, who really wants to see pictures of my furniture or go on a video tour of my apartment?
  • Post pictures of myself in a bathing suit - Nothing good can come of this. Good for you if you have a rocking body, but posting pictures of yourself in a bathing suit is nothing short of narcissistic and tacky. Don't fish for compliments from your readers. It's shameless and unnecessary.
  • Post multiple pictures of myself in one post - I don't like to add fluff to my posts, and posting multiple self portraits is exactly that...fluff to add bulk and length to a post. In conjunction with this, if I do happen to post pictures of myself, I promise to never be making weird faces to convey emotion. I'm a big girl and can use my words.
  • Outfit posts (unless in jest). If I wanted to post pictures of my outfits, I would start a fashion blog. Plus, I don't have the fashion sense that a fashion blogger is required to have. A few other bloggers should take note of this.
- On giving credit: If I use ANYTHING from someone else's blog, I link to it. Period. If I get an idea from a conversation I've had with someone, or something I read by them, I link to them. Period. Using someone else's idea (even if it's just your question of the day), is stealing.

- On censorship: To some degree I have to censor my blog (i.e. don't talk about X rated things, keep swearing to a minimum even though sometimes I just have to do it, don't tell stories about my friends, etc.) That being said, I try to be as real with you guys as I can and give you the inside track on my life as much as possible. I like my readers to know I'm a real person, not a robot, and my life is far from perfect. The portrayal of the perfect life in the blogosphere is not just irritating, but I also feel that as a blogger, portraying your life as perfect (or with fake, tiny little problems only) leads to a disconnect and lack of relatability to readers. Rest assured that if I was ever able to work from home on a daily basis, you bet your ass that I would never complain about it.

What are your thoughts on blogging?

23 comments:

  1. Great post Stephanie! I pretty much agree with everything you listed. The only thing I do differently is blog on weekends, because my life is usually more interesting on the weekends than during the week!

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  2. WORD. Hope this post gets widely read, and cheers to you for having the ballz to say all this stuff. I hope other bloggers read and repeat.

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  3. Yes.

    That is all.

    But really, everyone should read this. And I kind of want to direct certain "everyones" right here.

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  4. Great post! Most of this is so true...Posting on weekends I just can't do - my life is not THAT interesting so I would run out of things to say ;)

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  5. For reals yo. I used to try to post once a weekend, and sometimes I still will if I'm bored and not doing anything, but usually I'm too busy out having fun. And yes, the multiple self portraits in a post where you're just making a variation of the same face, COME ON! Also, I think the only photo of me in a bathing suit has been from the chest up, haha.

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  6. First of all, any and all pictures of me in bikinis will be burned. It's not cool. When people try - they get the stare of death.
    Otherwise, I love that you posted this. We need more realness up in the here blog world.
    "On giving credit: If I use ANYTHING from someone else's blog, I link to it. Period. If I get an idea from a conversation I've had with someone, or something I read by them, I link to them. Period. Using someone else's idea (even if it's just your question of the day), is stealing." YEEEEEEEEESSS. My biggest blogging pet peeve ever. There should be no copy and paste function in wordpress. Copying other people's words is tacky, uninventive, rude and STEALING. Drives me nuts.

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  7. Hahaha, I love the cartoon.

    I give this post a big thumbs-up, delivered via self portrait. Multiple self portraits, even. :)

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  8. I'm with ya on a lot of the things you mentioned. My number one thing...hate reading about eveyr single thing people eat! I want to read interesting things! I don't care about your food unless it was a special occasion or your post has something regarding that or you went on a trip and ate something amazing!

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  9. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you mentioned! Great post. I think that blogging needs to be a personal thing. The minute it starts being about page views, products, posting X number of times a day - it just loses all appeal to me!

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  10. This was such a great, honest post. I agree about photographing everything one east -- boring! And giving credit where it's due is so essential... any blogger should understand that.

    I only post on weekends when a post is written ahead of time and scheduled or when I'm so excited about something I can't wait to talk about it.

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  11. I agree with most things on this list, but I don't mind multiple pictures of peoples faces OR people that blog about every meal. I think if you're eating interesting enough things to share it, then that's cool. I guess the thing about blogging that is great is that there are blogs you'll stumble across and LOVE and totally relate to the blogger behind the words/pictures, and those that you'll click over to that you cannot relate to at all. The best part is you get to pick which ones you read, which ones you dont, and which other bloggers you decide to connect with and be friends with!

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  12. I don't think blogs need to be put into a category. Just because someone puts pics of themselves racing or the food they eat doesn't mean they can't share an outfit. you don't have to be a FASHION blog to share outfits, just like you don't need to be a HEALTHY LIVING blog to take pics of healthy food, and you don't have to be a RUNNING blog to talk about running. You don't have to be a crafting blog to write about a DIY project (etc). You can blog about anything and everything when it's your blog. Just like you blogged about this subject.

    And if a blogger does something you don't like, just stop reading them. Simple.

    I think some of your points are valid, but when it comes to blogs there are no rules for a reason.

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  13. I agree with so much here. The only things that really bug me are the pics begging for attention, "professional" writers who can't use spell check, and people stealing other people's ideas the very night they meet them.

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  14. Melissa, seems like you're talking about someone without talking about someone???

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  15. It didn't happen to me, but I was there.

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  16. Fantastic! Sometimes (pretty often actually) I'll read a blog post that's about absolutely nothing, a blog post with regurgitated content, a post with old photos I've already seen and it makes me feel like the blogger is patronizing me. Like, does she really think I'm falling for this? It's just OBVIOUS when people have nothing to say.

    I also think, "outfit posts" are really just weakly-disguised "look at me, I'm cute" posts. Just a step up from bikini pictures if you ask me.

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  17. Wow, this is quite the conversation starter! I actually really like fashion blogs, myself, and I don't know why. Having said that, I would feel silly posting pics of my outfits on my blog (I've even tried, but I looked ridiculous). And the people who post what they eat every day... they still have followers, so someone likes that, I guess! I actually read a lot of "here's what I eat every day" blogs when I first started reading, for healthy meal ideas. But now if I'm bored with them, I just don't read them...

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  18. I can barely think of something to write about once a day, I can't imagine blogging more often than that.

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  19. Great post (I almost just called you Stephy Steph since I've have good vibrations Marky Mark style all day in my head) I don't know how people post day in and day out every single meal....especially when it is oatmeal or something boring. But I guess people dig that? I have enough random thoughts running through my head where I hink I could post 3x a day but that would get boring very quick. I'll add a pic of me if I think I look good bc I am vain like that but won't add them to every single post like some day. I cannot stand where someone is talking about lunch or work then a picture of them smiling at work...every single time they talk about it. It's annoying. Ditto on the bathing suit picture but I'm sure you look a hundred times better than I do.

    Annoying things--the pictures, blogs about how great everything is in their life and dont talk about anything negative or real (I like real stories not sunshine and butterfly farts), unpersonal blogs where all they do is state facts, big bloggers that gear their post towards making money more so than what they are interested in and their readers (i.e. the bigger blogs)

    Sorry for the huge comment, I'm at the Bucks getting wi fi access and you're one of the blogs I had to catch up on!!

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  20. Blogs should be personal and it seems like a lot of them are becoming more and more alike. But I think a blogger should stick to something that they are passionate about and if it happens to be multiple things (cooking, running, DIY, etc) then by all means, blog it! But I think readers can tell when someone is just trying to fill up space just to get more readers.

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  21. I would never post a whole day of eats on my blog. Because yeah- I'm not going to open myself up to the criticism. So what if one day isn't balanced or too much/little? The thought makes me cringe...

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  22. I agree with much of what you say Steph. Once you're in the blogging community, I've found it difficult to keep to my own rules and parameters, and not get sucked into what others are doing, even if I disagree with it. Thanks for taking a stand!

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