The world of social media went crazy when Essena O’Neill decided to “quit” social media after building a crazy number of followers and creating an Instagram page that many girls, - including myself – lusted over. If you haven’t read the story, Essena basically says how she appears happy but her life is controlled by social media and her following that she has now became unhappy. She confesses about how much time was spent into getting that perfect Instagram shot, and also mentioned how she had been paid $400 to feature a photo of a dress on Instagram by companies and advertisers, her aim was to explain the “behind the scenes” of these posts. Companies and advertisers will, of course, pay a lot of money for anyone with a large following to feature their products or brand, because let’s face it they would be stupid not to use a large audience to try and make money. Its called marketing. And it’s clever marketing. But Essena said this eventually made her miserable, and in a 20 minute long video she explained how as a young teen she became obsessed with wanting to build followers on Instagram and social media because she thought it would make her feel more liked.
Another truth, I too would love a large following on the world of social media. Not to get paid lots of money by companies wanting me to advertise their teeth whitening products but because I really love my blog and I’d feel pretty darn good knowing that so many people enjoy my little rambles on the web. I have around 4,000 people follow me over my social media links and you know what, I feel pretty darn good about that. I thoroughly enjoy my blog and I love that people come back to read it. I still get so excited when I receive a notification to say that a new person is following my blog – I really do love it – and I am grateful to every single one of my followers, but why do we all want more?
I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t want more followers, and that’s not me being greedy but it’s just me wanting to get myself known in the world. I know so many amazingly talented bloggers that have been able to quit their jobs and blog full time, and I applaud you. Because not only did that take years of dedication and hard work, but you are brave to quit a job for something you are passionate about and I know that you work bloody hard at what you do. And I’d love that too. I would love to be able to quit my job and work on my blog as a career. I’d love the exciting lifestyle at not knowing what was around the corner and just embrace every opportunity.
And it’s okay that I can’t and it’s also okay if some bloggers don’t even want that type of career. (Hayley from Tea Party Beauty wrote a great post on that here) But that doesn’t stop those that do – myself included – being jealous of all these amazing people who have worked hard and have just been able to do everything that you’ve dreamt of. I have often felt extremely jealous of those girls that I follow (okay, stalk) on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and even Bloglovin’ and wonder whether I too could be like them.
And the answer is yes, anyone can be who you want to be. You just need to stop trying to be someone else (giving advice to myself here) and just do what makes you happy. Eat what you want to eat. Work out if you want to work out. Wear what you want to wear. You don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on designer things to be a fashion blogger, and you don’t need to have every single beauty product under the sun to be a beauty blogger. You just need to find your niche and be you, write about what you want and don’t write about things you don’t want to. And just be happy with the fact that you are not Chiara Ferragni and you are just not cut out for world domination. Yet.
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