Last week I read this blog on the Storyline Blog that talks about blue mountains; how we on social media are like blue mountains… looking all blue from a distance but being all bumpy and colory up close.
I read it and was like THAT IS BLOGGING! Sometimes even when people are like “I’m not perfect; this is me.” and I’m like.. your messy bun is flawless, your nails are painted so nicely, your husband is still really handsome and oh is that bump on your belly a baby? Cool, my hair is ugly and my sweatpants are old and stained and I bite my nails and I have no husband or baby but I mean you do you.
Especially when blogging is all about branding yourself and making your pictures appealing and blah blah blah it’s SO EASY to feel like we’re the weakest link in this giant blogging community of perfect (or self-proclaimed but ineffectively promoted not perfect people).
And so I’m giving you a list of 20 blog posts I’d love to read… as long as the pictures to go with them are grainy, poorly lit and don’t involve styling.
- The day I sat on my butt in my nasty old pajamas eating oreos and binge watching awful TV
- My grossest habits
- An open letter to the person I’m secretly hoping reads this blog post
- Here’s what my nails actually look like immediately after I paint them
- 10 things I want to get rid of but am too emotionally connected to (and your comments won’t make me discard them)
- What I changed into when I went inside from taking an outfit post
- All the iPhone photos I love but didn’t post on Instagram because they didn’t match the feel of my feed
- Links I feel obligated to link to
- The five blogs I actually enjoy reading (sorry if you’re not on here, I’ll still keep following you)
- What’s in my purse before I threw away the wrappers and added the feminine hygiene products for my sponsored post
- A list of products I actually hated but gave a decent review of because I felt obligated
- Blog series: my biggest insecurities. Post #1: the triangular shape of my nose from the side.
- The 10 most unflattering pictures of me I untagged myself from on Facebook
- Valid reasons to not want to be my friend
- Things I only do because I blog
- One shirt, 5 days: how I managed to wear the same shirt every day this week.
- Oreos will still always taste better than broccoli and here’s why.
- Things I really want but am way too cheap to buy.
- Home tour: I live with my mom edition
- Blogging decisions I regret
If you happen to use these as prompts to write any of these blog posts, please let me know so I can start compiling my list for #8. JK, but seriously.
Let’s all let our hair down once in awhile and be real. Not “blogger real”, where we perfectly style a picture of us staring out a window, pondering the deep things of life but REAL real, where we take the picture of our spouse spitting out the Pinterest recipe we tried or outfits that are so old you can’t actually link to the clothes on the internet.
This is gold. I don’t even know how to style pictures and I don’t even edit mine before I post them BUT I of course am still guilty of posting the ideal stuff. Although my past two weekends are basically number one…minus the Oreos which makes me feel like I missed out. I NEED SOME OREOS, STAT! And 90% of the time when I’m not at work I’m wearing lazy people clothes. I never take pictures of those though…I feel like a phony. :O Hahaha I love the idea of what your nails look like right after you paint them because mine legitimately look like I hired a 5-year-old to do it. Posting a picture of that some day!
bahahah yesssss. okay so secret, i don’t even like oreos! but they’re the thing i kept thinking of! okay unless there’s milk involved and then heck yes with the oreos!
i mean obviously we ALL change into lounge clothes at some point in time, but it’s different when what’s being portrayed is this constant state of perfection EVEN IN our lounging, you know? but whatever!!
+ bahaha i LITERALLY paint my nails like “oh whatever” because i know that when i take a shower it gets it all off my skin because that’s literally how lazy i am with it!! haha.
Absolutely GOLD! 🙂 I love it too! I am so inspired by this list so really I will link you to any I make. Thanks! What a great comical lovely post!
you should do it!! ;D
This made me laugh more than anything I’ve read all day. THANK YOU for this. I might actually use a few of these, too good to skip.
bahahaha yesssss. we should all do a link up. i’m weirdly all about link ups right now, i have no idea why.
Bc my tweet didn’t get the full picture: started to read this in line at the UPS store bc EVERYONE WAS SO SLOW, but I started laughing too hard and had to stop reading. Here I sit in the parking lot, having finished the post and laughed even more. Alone. In my car. Someone is probably calling the cops on me for being so creepy. BUT THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE POSTS. Linkup idea? Each # is a prompt? I especially loved “1 shirt 5 days” (laugh-cry emoji here).
bahahahah LOVE IT!!!!! this is why we are baaaaasssically best friends. <3 and um yeah how about the BLOGGERS GET REAL link up?? ;D
Hahaha precisely–you get me 😀 and I’d be down for that linkup! (Since all I have are grainy pics anyway…….)
I would totally link up and join too! because this is ONE awesome list of posts I’d definetly be into it! 🙂 let me know if this is a reality!
I actually HATE the instagram feeds where all the pictures look the same. So big blogger brand I will never be I guess, am I’m totally ok with that! I was just thinking about this same kind of thing this weekend, about how blogging can be so fake (mine totally included) because the fake stuff is so much easier than the real stuff. I totally made it a goal to have at least one “this is my heart” post a week. I used to do those all the time when no one read my blog lol.
rachel! that is SO INCREDIBLY ENCOURAGING!!! i think my instagram is fairly navy/green/purple, so it kind of flows but then if a picture shows up that DOESN’T flow, i don’t worry about it!
blogging CAN be totally fake! i feel like the lifestyle bloggers are at the greatest risk of it because just the name of it says we’re balancing life and styling, you know? it’s something i think about OFTEN.
#16 & #17 LOL. This list is great. Please tell me you will write some of these in the future 😉
at first i was being so snarky, but now i’m fairly certain i’m going to. hahaha. <3
This is priceless!! You’re hilarious! Definitely write some of these… I want to read them! And I want to be perfectly real on my blog; it’s a work in progress. It’s SO EASY to pretend that we’re perfect through our blog lives… when in reality, I had ice cream for dinner last night, my shirts smell like baby formula, and I napped at least half this day away.
AHHH okay i’m totally going to write some of these! it’s REALLY HARD to be real… mostly because as bloggers we kind of think the goal is to look perfectly styled and do everything the right blog way so that we get followers and blah blah blah but whoooo caaaaress.
aaaand… baby <3
Hahaha I love this! I’d totally read every single one of these posts if you did them. I’m gonna follow, mostly because I like the content you already have here, buuut also partially because I’m hoping to see these posts. 🙂 If I wasn’t a nature photo-blogger I’d go for 16-20. Maybe I’ll do an outtakes post – The 983 shots I attempted before I produced 3 good ones.
Also… I’ve always kind of suspected that fashion bloggers just change into something functional after the shoot is over. I mean, 67 layers to run errands in the middle of summer? Nah. I call funny business.
hahaha well now the pressure is totally on to deliver some of these posts!!! don’t worry, they’ll be coming soon.
oh i totally like the outtakes idea. even just a screen shot of all the rejected ones and then the ONE picture you used!
i’ve totally read of fashion bloggers who bring multiple outfits to a shoot… which is whatever because they’re fashion bloggers but then it’s like “wait, you don’t go for a stroll through the park every tuesday and thursday after work? liar!!” hahaha.
Seriously tempted to blog one (or a couple) of these.
DO IT!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
In my outfit posts I never link to anything on the internet, because my clothes are either from high school days and/or they were bought at tiny shops here in Asia and I don’t know if they exist on the internet. They might, but why would I waste my time looking for them? Nobody wants to dress like me, but I sure have a fun time dressing like myself–so I still post outfit posts whenever I remember to stop Angel while we’re out and say “take my picture”! I did do a somewhat tongue-in-cheek version of a what’s in my purse post years back: http://www.therandomwritings.com/2013/04/what-world-needs.html maybe it’s time to do another one. But, I honestly believe that the “bumpy and colory” stuff is not the same for everyone of us–and that’s important to remember. I don’t wear the same shirt all week–I live in the tropics–the sweat buildup would be unimaginable. We don’t have a TV, and if we did, I’d be more likely to set the precious kids I take care of down in front of it so I could get housework done rather than sit there and watch it myself. We DO all have our bumps and colors and quirks, but it’s important to remember that they aren’t all the same. I may not struggle with cooking or with keeping my house neat–but I may also refuse to answer phone calls or answer the doorbell because I’m too scared of talking to strangers (and yep, I’ve posted about that too…). And, because I’m short-sighted and refuse to wear my glasses most of the time, while our house is very neat, it doesn’t get swept and mopped nearly often enough because I literally can’t see any dust on the floor… It’s the differences that make everyone a lot more interesting, that’s for sure!
haha love it! i think that in general we just need to be a bit more forthcoming about the quirks we have – not that we glorify our weaknesses or anything, but that we actually embrace what makes us different and then we don’t hide it. just because we all need to see people being brave, you know?? <3
I think #16 was by far the one I think I would love to read about. I think I have been there done that still do and the only reason why I had to change my ways was because I had to go back to work. Being a teacher in front of high school students everyday makes it kind of hard to wear the same shirt for 5 days. Unless I had a lot of great different accessories.
hahaha… well so far i’ve only managed to wear the same shirt 3 times in a week so maybe i’ll actually take the challenge. that might be fun.. and i might lose some friends but i’ll definitely go above and beyond to make sure i don’t smell weird or anything ;D
This post is fantastic. I want to do so many of these now, especially 13. I could probably do 20 from my awkward college years. Ha!