Blogging, a new kind of peer pressure? The discussion...

As you'll know if you've been following my blog for a while, I sometimes like to tackle 'meaty' subjects that some people may feel uncomfortable blogging about, or just simply don't have that sort of blog. I recently addressed the issue of Living with cannabis, and it got such a great response that I've decided to talk about something else - Peer Pressure, but not in the way you'd think, I want to talk about whether any of you girls out there feel pressure within the blogging world. My cousin Charlotte over at Charlotte's Web last night posted about Haters, as a well-known vlogger was quitting YouTube, due to persistent questioning about whether she was accepting huge sums of money for doing her reviews, and it got me thinking about online pressure and if maybe that 'playground' attitude has now transcended over into the 'online world'. Research shows that there are around 15 million bloggers, serving around 150 million blog readers, that's a lot of blogging and you could say a lot of scrutiny.

What I wanted to ask was, do any of you girls feel under scrutiny/pressure to be 'on trend' and have the new things, may it be a jacket, phone or even nail polish to feel 'blog popular'? Are we back at school again? Do you feel that your blog context has to be about beauty/fashion to get you a vast amount of followers? Or are you secure in the fact that you could write about anything you wish and would still pull in that audience? If you had been blogging for a while, and you only managed to get say 10-12 readers, would you carry on blogging in the hope of more, or would you feel like you needed to change the direction of your content to appeal to a wider audience?

Why did you begin blogging? Was it because it was the 'cool' thing to do, or did you simply start writing your blog because you had a passion for writing and hoped it would reach out to people? Did you even do it, as a way of maybe getting in to a career in journalism? If you apply for a new job now, do you add your blog to your list of hobbies, or even as part of your CV to show your creativity/ writing skills? I did yesterday when I applied for a job in retail, when did it all start getting this serious?

I recently read on LLYMLRS and I quote "Bloggings pissing me off too, as much as I really do love blogging and sharing, I always feel like people want so much from me, it might sound weird and I know people will be like 'Just don't blog, it's supposed to be fun blahblah' I just feel under this constant pressure to be "LLYMLRS" (my pet hate is when people refer to me as LLYMLRS, that's my blogs name, not mine! It's Lily if you didn't know.)" and that just sums up what I'm trying to say, Lily felt so under pressure to be 'LLYMLRS' that she felt like she was being looked at as a 'brand' when she is just a lovely, honest girl who loves Primark, she doesn't come across as pretentious in the slightest, and I feel that even if she did get to that point where she got offered money to do reviews she'd still tell you if it was shite! That's why I follow her, check out her blog here.

What do you see though? Do you feel like a failure, just because you aren't as big as Lily, or Laura from Lollipop26 does it affect you on a personal level? Do you look at them and their nice things and feel like "Why can't I have that, or her hair, or even her blog"? Or are you in a happy place with your blog and your life and are in no way affected by this 'online social community'? Because sometimes we all have our down days don't we, you know some of you might not have jobs and be able to afford to keep up with all the 'latest' trends, or look and think well I don't want to solely blog about Fashion/Make-up but I just wish more people would want to read what I have to say. I for one have not come across malicious people and every single girl I have 'met' through this blogging experience have been some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of 'knowing'. If you don't want to blog about clothes or make-up don't feel under pressure to, people will still read your blog, one of my favourite blogs ever is Sofia's Journal and so yeah she might do reviews on beauty products sometimes, or share her clothes, but it's mainly about her life, and food, she takes wonderful pictures, shares tips on how to 'do up' furniture, shares when she has a date, or posts catchy, inspiring quotes, and she has a very loyal following, and has never I don't think posted a picture of herself, because she wants it to be about her writing and not the way she looks, and hey she's doing amazingly well.

So what I'm trying to say is, if you feel down or under pressure to be 'blog popular' don't. Be yourself, do what you want, what you believe in, blog about things you like, I don't just love reading make-up and fashion blogs, I love reading about all your lives, the places you go, because I can see the world and I don't have to go anywhere, even though I want to and I will. It makes me feel great when I get a comment in return saying "Thanks for your comment Gem, it made me smile", just because you're looking at it as a 'Blog' or a 'Brand' there's still a girl sitting behind her computer, and she is going to get hurt if you start slating her because she could get that bag from New Look that you wanted, or that she has hundreds of followers and you don't. So if your heart isn't in blogging for the right reasons, or your just one of those mean anonymous people, maybe you shouldn't do it, life has enough pressure as it is, we're not at school anymore, so if you can't be nice, get the f**k out the 'playground'.

xoxo