Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
~Walt Whitman
You see it all the time with celebrities. A star swears off pink, and then, two seasons later, is strutting her stuff on the red carpet in a fuchsia Gaultier gown. The style-watchers lose their minds over it- what a hypocrite! How awful! She said she'd never, ever, ever wear pink, but what, it's okay because it's Gaultier?! That girl is a walking contradiction!
Oh no! Stop the presses- someone in the public eye exposed herself as human! Of course, as bloggers, we're no where near the level of, say, Paris Hilton or Rihanna, but when you put your life in the public eye, there are some sacrifices you're expected to make for the prices of ~fame~. That sacrifice is your privacy, your time and effort, and plenty others (your bank account, if you're a fashion blogger...); however, your sense of self and personal fulfillment shouldn't be one of those. You may have sung the praises of your current lifestyle til the cows came home, but if one day you wake up and realize that that lifestyle isn't personally fulfilling to you, you are not contractually obliged to continue doing it. No matter what. Maybe you've been prattling on about raw foodism for a year, but you realize one day that you just aren't feeling good enough to justify the effort. Does that mean that everything you've been talking about for the past year is wrong, or less important, or any less correct? No. It just means that something that worked for you for a while stopped. Or you might have just broken up with "prince charming," after spending all these months or years writing post after post about your eternal love. It always sucks to realize that something you've not only spent time on but also staked your reputation as a blogger on is just not working for you, but the sooner you realize this, the easier it'll be to cut your losses and admit your mistake- especially if you learn something from it. Yes, then you need to confront your readership about it (otherwise, what's the point in stopping?), but this will be better than continuing to live a lie, or having someone else figure out our double-life and rat you out. Remember, though- your readers trust you, and no matter how embarrassed or hurt you are, it's not permissible for you to lie to them. Pretending the past doesn't exist is shady, and could discredit you in peoples' minds, but to flat-out say that it's never happened, or to harass people when they make the same mistakes you did, is, in my opinion, the real mistake here. Especially for LoliBloggers- you may not believe in ~The Sisterhood~, but everyone has to admit that hypocrisy does nothing for this little community we've built ourselves.
The thing to remember is that everyone's human, and this goes for blog-readers as well as blog-writers. Yeah, okay- maybe that blogger is saying something differently than she did a few years ago, and maybe that's a grave offense in your book. It's not okay that she made you feel that way, but I promise, it's more than likely that she didn't do it on purpose. Sometimes people just change their opinions, beliefs, or priorities, and some things might get lost in the shuffle; so when that vegetarian blogger you love so much posts a picture on Facebook eating a big ol' cheeseburger, remember that you're not the one she's trying to make happy with her life. You're just along for the ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment