Fashion Blogger State of Mind

COURTESY OF THE SELBY

"I wish there were more fashion blogs that were text heavy than just images" – Sam

I didn't mean shove Sam in the spotlight here (sorry I didn't warn you advance if you're reading this), but ever since she left that comment in my Spring Couture post, I couldn't stop thinking about it. She's definitely right in that there are more and more young fashion bloggers who choose to post photos rather than write about their love of fashion. It should be noted that this particular subset of (usually teen) bloggers are not photographers nor do they aim to run a photography blog, which would then make sense since you do need to post photos for a photo blog (no duh). From my observations around the 'net, there are a few fundamental reasons for this phenomenon:

• It's cheap, fast and easy! Thanks to mass production and low manufacturing costs, DSLRs and compact cameras have never been cheaper than before. Now with the popularity of camera phones and the webcam, the likelihood of a blogger not having some kind of access to any photo-capturing apparatus is nil.
• It's quick! Writing takes a damn long time – ever heard of a writer's block? It takes an incredible amount of effort to formulate coherent sentences from random wisps of thought that usually at the end of the day, most people just don't bother. I alone spend a good hour thinking about the direction of the post, a few more writing it and then before I hit publish, at least a couple of good thorough read throughs to make sure whatever I wrote makes sense. This does not include random moments in which I visit the blog and see a typo that I did not see before previously. In all publications there is a writer and an editor, but for most bloggers, it's just a one (wo)man show. Writing is hard as it is but to do another person's worth of work on top...who would want to expend the extra effort? 
• It's fun! This is slightly different from the reason above as it's more about the schedules of most bloggers. Under the assumption that most are not full-time for profit bloggers, they probably have some kind of job IRL that keeps them fully occupied otherwise. For a lot of the younger set, it's school and for the adults, their main occupations. Either way most bloggers are already writing a lot in their own, so when you come to surf the internet as you wind down at night, you want to do something different. You're already writing an essay or preparing a proposal to a project so of course you'll want to do something different. Taking photos are an easy way to provide the sense of novelty as another kind of visual communication. Also after a long of work looking at textbooks and essays, why read when you can just turn off your brain and stare?

While it's not my place to tell people what to say and do, I'm just so tired of the constant onslaught of images. This is why I follow so few outfit blogs because frankly (for the most part), I'm bored. I can't be engaged by pictures alone. I'm first and foremost a reader, so I'm more naturally inclined to find posts with a fair amount of text. Though I'm a relatively new blogger, I have spent a few good years reading them before I launched my own little blog. In the past, the photos didn't occupy a lot of space (wide blog layouts weren't too common then), leading to text really making the meat of the post. An explanation for this could be the fact that early adopters of the blogging format in general tend to be of the more "academically-inclined", since blogging has only hit the mainstream in 2008-2009. The fact that there are now bloggers with a huge variety of backgrounds and education levels, means that more would be taking the substantially easier route of say, posting photos (photographers who read the blog, bare with me and take a grain of salt). The world continues to be more image driven, thanks to the rising popularity of Tumblr and Pinterest. It seems that eventually, fashion bloggers will cease to write and that will be the end of text on blogs, right?

Dear lovers of reading and the prose, do not despair and know you are first and foremost, not alone. At first I thought I was perhaps one of the very few who feel this way, however as I encounter more and more comments regarding the nostalgia of a well written post, clearly this is a growing sentiment. Simply the blogosphere is just getting stale with overload of images, leaving many readers to go try and seek different kinds of material elsewhere. It is very likely that blogs with a good amount of writing will be rising in popularity again. The overwhelming and sustained success of (for example) Style Bubble and The Style Rookie, shows that good writing will give you a kind of longevity that a blog with only images can't. The desire to find some kind of narrative through writing on blogs will wax and wane over time, but it will never go extinct. So continue to write, 'cause people will be reading.

If you made it all the way to end the post, give yourself a pat on the back as I announce the "winners" of the giveaway: Diana, Odessa and Rows and Rose! Please check your emails a few hours later as I will emailing you...after dinner EST (nom nom).