A couple of times a month I like to spend some part of a day catching up on my favorite blogs, seeing what is interesting to other people who are interested in vintage clothing and fashion history. Unfortunately, I’m not very disciplined when it comes to this sort of blog reading, and I often find myself tumbling down the blog rabbit hole, many tangents away from my original intent.
And so it came to pass that I was sucked into a particularly nasty vortex last week, one that made me stop and see how lucky we vintage bloggers are to have a “community” that is seemingly free of the types of mean-girl-ness that I haven’t seen the likes of since junior high school. By following a link from a site for fashion bloggers, I came to a site that seems to exist purely for the sake of criticizing (mainly) women bloggers. The site, which consists mainly of a blog and a forum, calls out people for everything from “being fake” to presenting “dumb” DIY projects.
In ten minutes of reading, I found people who were made fun of for being “middle aged”, for having “ugly” hair, for not having televisions in their homes.
That’s when I decided to play a little croquet. You know how the game goes – your ball bumps up against that of the opponent you like the least on the lawn and now you get to slam the hell out of their ball. But with blog croquet, all you do is back out of the site quietly, and mentally croquet that blog out of your consciousness.
I’m really not a fan of most “fashion” blogs, but who am I to judge? I figure if someone can make a decent living (or even just score an occasional free handbag from some company) then more power to them. No one is forced to read any blogs so why take it all so seriously? I say it may be time for some other people to just chill, and maybe have a little blog croquet game of their own.
To be completely fair, they also seem to be very concerned with the issue of bloggers stealing ideas and content from others, which is a good thing. But it just gets lost in all the nastiness.
Thanks so much to Mary Jane at Poppy’s Vintage Clothing for the above photo.
Sorry about not posting a link, but I don’t want that site to get hits from The Vintage Traveler. Heaven knows I do not want to be on their list!
Oh that is horrible! Honestly, why do people need a place to “share” what they think is so bad in the fashion/blogging community? I understand liking a bit of gossip, that is just unfair and wrong. And honestly, there are more problems in the world than if someone is middle aged or has bad hair.
Too much ickiness! Maybe some people just take themselves and their opinions too seriously??
I totally understand ‘falling down the rabbit hole’ when it comes to blog cruising, but boy have I been lucky so far–nice spots to visit, all of them. Now you have me curious about the fashion gossip blogs….
p.s. I now keep a word doc with the title and url of all blogs that look good enough to return to–I keep them in groups by subject, that way I can find my way back to a cool blog later when I have forgotten its name (several of my pinterest images also serve the same ‘bookmark’ function).
The nastiness on the internet is so depressing. I am all for critique and discussion on how and what bloggers discuss — fashion bloggers like fashion magazines are open for dissection and critical debate, but it must be civil. I hate how people feel they can hide behind the cloak of anonymity online. I have seen sites like the one you’re describing and they are disgusting and vile.
So true! My golden rule for the internet is an oldie: If you’re going to take the time to write something, make it nice. And if you must say something nasty, stand behind it and put your name on it. (My other rule: When stumbling upon a particularly nasty thread, quickly exit and move on to more positive diversions. Life’s too short to harbor negative energy.) All that said, the fashion blogging community is generally pretty positive, which, I’ll admit, (happily) surprised me when I joined its ranks.
I definitely wish I could have such a sane mindset on dealing with jackasses, but alas, my reaction to that sort of thing is this.
I blame poor genetic material, aka my dad.
I’m afraid that it is a family trait, this inability to tolerate fools and jerks!
I completely agree that there should room for critique, and I also think that true analysis and criticism is sorely lacking on most fashion blogs. That seems to be the legitimate basis for the site I wrote this post about. Many readers seem to be fed up with blogs that used to be about what was good and interesting to the blogger, but that are now about “working with brands” and getting free stuff from them.
I’ve noticed the shift myself, and sites I used to visit because I liked the bloggers’ point of view about fashion no longer interest me now that half the stuff they show off was given to them and the blog is no longer about fashion but rather, about all the events they have attended.
So I can see where the people who post on that site are coming from. What I do not get is why so many of the posts and comments are personal attacks against the blogger. All the site seems to be accomplishing is creating traffic for the sites they love to hate!