It’s OK To Be Basic

“Are you even a real blogger if you…”

No. Shut up.

It feels like in the past month or so, there have been a ton of these ~*relatable*~ tweets getting retweeted a ton. “Are you a real blogger if you don’t have a photoshoot at a pumpkin patch?” “Are you a real blogger if you don’t have a marble background for your flat lays” “Are you a real blogger if you don’t actually blog?” The answer to only one of those is no.

I mean, I get it. The thing about blogging in the past few years is that while people say that they want to see original content, the things that get the most likes and views and whatever YouTube does these days is content that follows the current trends. That’s not a bad thing! It’s just proven that people like it. It doesn’t make you a bad blogger for following a trend, it doesn’t make you a bad blogger for not following a trend.

Back in the olden days of blogging, no one cared if they were doing the same thing as other bloggers, because they just did it however they wanted to. I feel like this is one of the big things that makes people say that blogging in 2009-2011 was nicer is that people didn’t really care what everyone else was doing, and so didn’t snark on it publicly under the pretence of “keeping it real”. Don’t get me wrong, I can be snarky, but what I try not to do is shit on what other people actually enjoy. Just let people do what they want, and I bet your timeline would be much happier for it. (And if there are people doing things that anger you in some way? Unfollow them, idiot. It’s OK to curate your timeline to the things you enjoy!)

So go and take a photo of your red cup (which btw I really love the design of this year. Isn’t it pretty?) this winter. I hope you had a tasty drink in it – I can recommend the snickerdoodle hot cocoa and my forever favourite, the peppermint mocha. Just do what makes you happy, and it will come across in your writing.