Dear Readers,
I should be doing college work. I reeeaally should. But I prioritise blogging once in a while when I feel it necessary. That means I prioritise you 🙂
So, I was on the internet doing the usual snoop today, when I came across an article about one of my favourite vloggers, Zoella. Zoella is that vlogger who when I watch I feel a little happier, a little more optimistic and way more motivated to get my shit together. However, today I read an article by a journalist called Daisy Buchanan (Great Gatsby alert) about how she thinks Zoella is a bad role model for teen girls around the world. While I appreciate anyone’s opinion and bravery for putting it out there, I was extremely irritated by what she had to say.
The first thing she mentioned that bugged me was that, “Blogging and vlogging are relatively risk free activities… All you have to invest – and worry about losing – is your time.” Ahem. Wrooong. Wrong on so many levels. When you blog/vlog, no matter the topic, no matter the lightness/heaviness, you are making yourself so vulnerable because if people don’t like what you have to say, they basically don’t like you. And people on the internet are brutal (maybe I’m being brutal right now) so, when you invest your thoughts and ideas on the internet for anyone to read you are investing yourself. It is not risk free and  it requires a lot of strength to push that publish button.
I have been extremely lucky to date, dealing with only you lovely readers and receiving countless wonderful and encouraging messages from you. Some aren’t so lucky and Zoella is one of them, most definitely because of how popular she is. You can look at any video and see many harsh remarks in the comments section, often extremely irrelevant to what she is saying. She obviously can see these and she still pushes through and vlogs on a weekly basis with the same uplifting tone. I don’t know about you but I for one think that it is admirable to still have the confidence to blog/vlog when so many tell you, you are ridiculous.
One of the other comments Buchanan made to annoy me was, “…I desperately want to hear her say something genuinely inspiring… It frightens me that millions of young women in 2014 are still being told to prioritise pretty over clever, confident and smart.” I don’t know how many of you watch Zoella, or any make-up vlogger out there really, but I have not once heard her tell young girls that being pretty is more important that being “clever”.
First of all, not everyone has the academic intelligence they are expected to have, which I think is more pressuring and wrong than being shown what the right way to apply make-up is. Secondly, Zoella is always emphasising how this super cool product will help you feel more confident if you need it. You guys know I’ve been dealing with acne, which has improved tremendously in the last year, and that while I blog about building confidence to go out without make-up, I also show you what make-up I use to conceal acne when I want to because it makes me feel nice. Not only that, but I love make-up. I think what it can do is fantastic and can almost be artistic sometimes. Make-up is an interest that many across the world have and Zoella is one of those people who is vlogging about her love of make-up/fashion.
I also don’t see why every blogger has to be “inspiring” or, trying the change the world. Some times, the world is just fine with having an optimistic young person telling you about their life. After all, there’s enough in the media about mental health and the need to improve it and she is doing just that whenever she mentions her anxiety in such a casual way that she makes you feel okay for dealing with it too. It’s not made into too big a deal. Zoella actually made a video in which she spoke about her experience with anxiety and how she handles it here, and I remember watching it and thinking how glad I was that finally someone spoke about it as if it wasn’t a taboo subject. I also think this was mighty brave of her and definitely not “risk free” when she was stripping herself so bare of a very personal experience.
I’ll leave this at one final point. “I’d hope they’d look up to women who make mistakes and take risks. It scares me that the best way to be profitable and successful in 2014 is to play it safe.” Again, I don’t agree with this point. Yes, I believe we should take risks, Buchanan is 100% on the money there. But I don’t think this applys to Zoella as strongly as she makes out. I’ve watched quite a bit of Zoella, and knowing she is struggling with anxiety underneath all that optimism is really inspiring. She also has to do so much travelling, so many public events, just so much that anyone with anxiety would not be comfortable with. But she does it anyway. That is a risk in itself. I don’t think you can criticize someone for being visually appealing. She can’t really help that fact, can she? I don’t think that should impede on the things she speaks about.
In general, I feel this journalist has ripped the activity of blogging to shreds in her article. And again, I appreciate anyone’s opinion. I just feel like there is a lot more to blogging that she is allowing for. And not every blogger has to be trying to do something inspiring, (even though Zoella inspires girls on a daily basis with her positivity) some of them are just blogging for the love of it, which is a pretty admirable thing to do. I admire any of you who are blogging. So, take this or leave it, I just wanted to save the name of blogging because I have seen first hand how people react to blogs. And of course, thank you guys for the support, always 🙂
Love,
Kerry xx
Kerry Elizabeth Writing 