sound off
Blogging really always comes down to the person taking your photos. I'm definitely not a model, just a person who likes to get dressed. Luckily I'm always in good hands, especially when I work with Andrew Lam . He's the genius behind a recently popular photo I posted to Instagram (here), and some other amazing work. We've been creative partners for awhile now, and friends even longer, but are these two things really mutually exclusive? I don't think so. I like to surround myself with people who inspire me in various ways, and it is even more fun when I get to collaborate with them.
Now it is really time for me to sound off, so to speak. Similar to Adrienne's gripes about blogger's losing their over all sense of personal style (here), another toxic and even more pervasive issue within the blogging community has been on the tip of my tongue lately. Let's backtrack for a moment to the insta-purge of 2014, wherein the app deleted a ton of fake and inactive accounts. We all lost some followers, I lost about 300 myself, but what was most shocking was to see people's followers be cut completely in half--or even more than that. The issue of purchasing your followers is a big one here. My peer and dear friend Alex of SF Shop Girl sums it up perfectly in her latest post (here). We do live in a society that pressures us to be the biggest and the best. Also now more than ever before, we are seeing the ever-elusive fashion industry including influential bloggers at shows, in publications, etc. Popular bloggers have become a hybrid between celebrities and real people. On one hand they're accessible and just like us, on another they've become mega-stars with a world-wide following.
In order to attain a certain level of notoriety, respect, or attention, we put ourselves out there on social media. I am not immune to this, and I definitely feel special when I get a lot of likes on a photo, or a specific brand or individual notices me. However, the attempt to achieve this by purchasing fake followers on an app just really needs to stop. Not only is it dishonest--to others, but mostly yourself--you're also cheapening your brand, what you stand for, and your overall sense of who you are. Companies are increasingly aware of user engagement, and what it looks like when people are fabricating their numbers. More importantly, we're better than this.
We are not our number of followers. We should blog for ourselves. We should blog because we have something to say. This is about building a community around your own personal brand. Let your content do the talking, not your number of followers.
Blouse: Equipment, Epaulette: The Podolls, Skirt: Zara, Socks: Philippe Matignon, Booties: Marc Jacobs