Graveyard of Dead Blogger Cliches

Hang around the blogging community long enough and you will become familiar with its clichés.  Like, remember that year we were all obsessed with chevron?  EVERYTHING had to be chevron – blog banners, blog backgrounds, EXPECIALLY blog buttons!  Why, you just weren’t a serious blogger if you sported plain horizontal stripes – they had to be POINTY!

And then, one day, we started to not care so much about chevron (because mint blue stole his spotlight, HA!) and now we barely even talk about chevron anymore.  He’s like, a ghost…a ghost of our shameful, chevron past!

The dark and creepy side of long-dead clichés that walk…among us…like zombies!  If you dare, come down with me to the crypt of overtired blogger clichés that we must lay to rest once and for all:

“OMG I spent way too much money lol”

Oh, thanks for reminding me how poor I am, and feel guilty about splurging on all the things I buy!  I’m sorry you feel guilty about your purchase, Suze Orman, but don’t try to foist that complex onto me!  You’re a grown-ass woman, You Do You!  You don’t have to guiltily explain to me how you spend your hard-earned dollars!  You work hard for the money, so go on and treat YOU right!  If that means spending extra cents on Tsum Tsums, don’t apologize for it!  Heck, those things are hella cute!  If you lavish your extra funds on Lush products, go crazy.  Everybody has a splurge, don’t feel guilty over your pleasures!

“I’m so bad for eating this lol”

Normally I would never tell a blogger it’s her job to be socially responsible all the time, but this comment cuts too close.  Every time you post a picture of a cupcake or sweets table with the caption “I hate myself!” I worry for you.  As someone who has both struggled with disordered eating and watched loved ones struggle, I see that kind of language and alarms go off.  Maybe you’re joking about it because you’re trying to work up the courage to get help?  Or, you really do hate yourself every time you eat and you just haven’t put two-and-two together yet to realize that you shouldn’t feel guilty about nourishing your body.  Let’s stop making light of “gonna spend the rest of my life on the treadmill smh” not just because it is triggering for members of our community who struggle with these self-loathing thoughts every day, but also, won’t somebody think of the children??  We’re constantly surrounded by messages in the media telling us to be ashamed of our bodies.  Why perpetuate that?  Why continue to put that out there?  Please, friends, let’s stop food-shaming ourselves and others will see our example.


“I feel so low because I don’t have as many followers as everyone else!”

At least once a week, a blog post about Imposter Syndrome crosses my dash.  I’m guilty of having written this same post many times myself.  Blog envy is real.  The struggle is daily.  Post content, tweet content, and…crickets.  No wonder we all feel inadequate!  And what do we do when we feel?  WE BLOG!  That’s why we are BLOGGERS.  So for this last headstone, I propose we do away with the Imposter Syndrome posts!  Everybody, repeat after me:  I WILL NEVER HAVE AS MANY FOLLOWERS AS KIM KARDASHIAN.  Now that we’ve all gotten that out of our system, we can stop feeling the need to compare to each other and CELEBRATE each other!  Vix wrote an amazing piece on bloggers helping other bloggers and it is emoji-of-hands-spread-apart-with-glitter-in-between perfect.  Instead of side-eyeing the bitch whose post got picked up by a bigger blog, or gets 20,000 more views than you, and then crying in the bathtub over it like a Prince music video, Tweet her link out!  Celebrate this blogging culture and be welcoming and inclusive to everyone!  It’s not the Hunger Games, and you’re not Katniss, so don’t be cut-throat.  Be HAPPY to be a part of it and happiness will come back to you!

I hope we have exorcized some evil blog spirits today.  What blogging clichés do you think should be laid to rest, for once and for all? RIP chevron pattern.


Comments

10 responses to “Graveyard of Dead Blogger Cliches”

  1. I think also with imposter syndrome, if there's a blogger that always grinds your gears for how popular they are, then you need to re-evaluate why you follow them. Are you following them because you like their content? Then buck up and celebrate them. Are you following them because you perceive them to be popular, or a key person in your blogging community? Then maybe unfollow them. As bloggers, I feel like we tend to feel obligated to follow certain people, but the truth is, we can follow whomever we want. I've got people who I love in real life, we chat on twitter and facebook, but they will straight up say they don't read my blog for whatever reason — and that's ok.

    I think I'm also tired of "you should totally be making money from your blog, let me show you how (by making money off of you)." I'm just kind of over the blog coach thing. I mean, good on you if you really like helping others. But the whole coaching people to become coaches just a bit much. As is when almost every post is a sales pitch.

    1. RE: Imposter syndrome: Yeah, I've unfollowed many "big blogs" that I followed just because they were popular even though their content bored me. Most of the time because it's nonstop advertising! That's okay, too – I mean, that's how we gotta hustle, ya know? But if every post is "This company sent me this in the mail and you should buy it!" with no other interesting comment it's like…nah.

      I agree the "10 Tips For How To Improve Your Blog!" posts should totally be in this graveyard of dead blogger cliches! Esp if the tips are, "Use twitter!" and "Be You!" Like, That's not a TIP, that's OBVIOUS.

    2. "I think I'm also tired of "you should totally be making money from your blog, let me show you how (by making money off of you)." I'm just kind of over the blog coach thing. I mean, good on you if you really like helping others. But the whole coaching people to become coaches just a bit much. As is when almost every post is a sales pitch."

      This is my biggest pet peeve. I think the shadow/flip side of this is that if you're not making money with your blog, it's somehow not serious or not as good, and I think that belief/fear pervades a lot of the blogging community. That's what drives so many people to (rather poorly, tbh) integrate sponsored posts into their rotation, and to shell out money for such captain obvious advice as BE YOURSELF!!!! The people who sell those things—I wonder how they sleep at night.

    3. "I think the shadow/flip side of this is that if you're not making money with your blog, it's somehow not serious or not as good"

      Totally agree!!!

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The food-shaming thing! When Louis C. K. does the "eating cinnamon buns in shame" thing, I'm like: "What are you ashamed of!?! That you had access to delicious food? Do you know how many people around the world would kill for access to delicious food? ENJOY THE CINNAMON BUN! And if you're NOT enjoying it, DON'T EAT IT. But if you're eating it, and you ARE enjoying, then WHY FEEL SHAME?" Let's stop judging ourselves from the tertiary perspective of some imaginary judgmental observer. If you like something, do it. If you don't like it, don't do it. The world is hard enough that there ARE people out there who WILL judge and attack and try to cause shame. Let's not do it to ourselves.

    1. Yes yes yes!! Thank you! Mae West's famous line: "I like my pleasure to be guilt-free."

  3. Can we add the ~*~lifestyle change~*~ zombie to the list next to the man-eating plant? "Lifestyle change" is nothing but a trap; a way for people to participate in fatphobia and diet culture while somehow claiming they're NOT dieting, or are somehow SUPERIOR to dieters. This one is a touchy subject for me personally (being well-on, properly F-A-T) since I fell into the "it's not a DIET, it's a LIFESTYLE CHANGE" trap in college. Every single time I see a blogger talk about implementing a ~*~lifestyle change~*~, it is 99% of the time because they've gained a piddling amount of weight. It makes me sad, because:

    1) they are participating in this bullshit diet culture and it bums me out

    and

    2) it's popping up in a blog that is NOT a fitness or health blog, so it's like suddenly I feel cheated

    I mean, everyone's the boss of their own underpants and they're welcome to not-diet and try to change their bodies to their heart's content, but it's not like I can pretend I don't have any reactions to it.

    1. Ha! Oh this is such a big topic for me – the bullshit diet culture. The idea that you should be constantly apologizing for eating? Those "lifestyle changes" are such idiotic things. I want to support women who want to lose weight – that's your choice, you know, but I think you should really examine WHY. My reaction to it always triggers my own eating disorder, which manifested in extreme calorie restriction and dieting and was celebrated and reinforced constantly by this bullshit diet culture which applauds a 29-year-old woman for eating nothing but a smoothie a day, but shames her for eating a cupcake! I would love to talk more about it but I think the shame is real – coming forward and admitting you bought so deep into the bullshit diet culture that you went and became anorexic is shameful, admitting that you're proud to be not dieting is shameful. Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment.

  4. Great post! I love your writing style and definitely all of these blogger traits need to be buried ASAP.

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