The other day I was discussing with my brother some of the various blogs that I follow. My reader has a lot of variety in it but the majority are fashion blogs. I almost never read the content; I usually just like to see how people wear their clothes, especially when they have a vintage style to them. It is a past time that I have carried over from the days when, as a child I used to spend afternoons flipping through my mother's Spiegel catalogs (in the 80s that crap was around 500 pages thick) and stare at the outfits, admiring the shape and colors and how it all came together. I like clothes. Sue me.
Anyway, what I noticed about, oh I guess 98% of these fashion blogs is that they are all exactly the same. They all have the same bios, the same way of photographing and seemingly the same lives. Of course there are exceptions but they seem rare to me. Interestingly, I didn't even notice this "phenomenon" until very recently, since I rarely read the text of these blogs. And it is probably because most of them have something like this in their "About Me" section:
Hi I'm Suzy Q and I'm a freelance fashion consultant/stylist/graphic designer/boutique owner/knitter (take your pick). I like to blog about fashion, beauty, recipes, crafts, and how hard it is being so beautiful and so put together. I'm married to my best friend Chadley and together we live in a small Montana town with our two Corgis: Beatrix and Ethel. I have shiny, thick, long, straight hair and long legs that look good in everything that I get for free from small boutiques. Chadley and I have a 19 minute long wedding video that we subjected our friends and family to on our wedding day that I repost every anniversary for my fans. I'm more often than not white and thin and I really like to dress in my own unique way. Thanks so much for stopping by my blog which is just like every other blog by a fashionable, 20something from some small town somewhere!
At first I thought maybe it was just the blogs I happened to subscribe to but then these bloggers would link to other bloggers and they would all be exactly the same. I'm beginning to think this network of fashion bloggery is just one large Spiegel catalog for the modern age, complete with two dimensional models looking beautiful and put together and exactly like the one on the previous page.
Perhaps I'm generalizing too much. It isn't as though my blog is all that original. If I wasn't the antithesis to every and all things photogenic, I could easily take photos of myself every day in front of a meadow wearing various outfits from my vast closet. I 'd probably get a lot more comments and views. Views that aren't just bots trying to phish views of their own. (I'm looking directly at you vampirestat.) But alas, I've never photographed well. Also, my best friend and lover Chadley doesn't have time to take my photo every day. He's got to get to the handsome store early to open up or people in town will riot.
I poke fun because I love. All of these women have impeccable style and, if their homestead photos are to be believed, they have pristine homes that are ready for a spread in "Romantic Homes", an actual magazine. Also, their husbands are their best friends. In fact, if I ever knew anyone like them in real life, I'd probably never be friends with them because they are the types that made fun of me in high school and also they would likely never shut up about how much they are in love with this new eyeshadow palette that the manufacturer sent them along with $100 in cash. In all sincerity, if I could figure out a way to blog for a living, if in some parallel universe someone, somewhere would pay me to write about my stupid life and if I could finally get around to publishing "Banallison", my weekly magazine of everyday observations, I would do it in a New York minute.
In other news, I just noticed that there is a hole in my sweater. I currently have a pile of clothing that has holes in it and that I do not want to give away (how can I in good conscience give away holey clothes) but feel silly bringing in for mending. Also my winter coat is positively saturated in cat hair and I spilled coffee on my pants this morning. I can't help but wonder, what would Chadley do??
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