What are we becoming?

Since my last post about the beauty community, I have come to see the ugly side of people. The side that no one wants to admit they have. We all have a part of ourselves that we know are our week spots. Are we projecting our insecurities by pointing them out in others? ( I still love the community don’t get my wrong).

In case you’ve been living in a bubble, or aren’t as obsessed with the Insta world as us Beauty Bloggers are, the topic of crediting the content creators have become a hot topic. We can all agree on the fact that someone can’t steal your image and use it without your consent or without proper crediting. Some have mixed feelings on it, but I’m all about crediting who’s freaking picture it is.

The topic I am concerned with is “copying someones style”.  This seems to fall under the following:

• Taking a picture with similar or the same props
• Using the same background
• Using the same types of inanimate objects (fruits, flowers, bowls, plates etc)
• Posing or modeling similar to someone (hand holding a product, butt shot with product behind you, red nails)

My friend said the following..

None of us invented shelfies or holding things in hands or clear bags etc. Those have all been done in social media before. Furthermore, even if someones’ photo is similar, how can you assume they were inspired by you? Low key think it’s sort of conceited and presumptuous to assume so.

IT’S 2019 AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER IS OFFENDED BY EVERYONE.

For the love of all things good in this world, everything isn’t about you! So what is the right thing to do when you see someones post or a trend and become inspired to try it? Can you try it out for you self? What will happen to you if you do? Let me tell you what will happen (MAJOR GOSSIP GIRL ANALOGY):

• Dan Humprey aka Gossip Girl will send out a mass text(story post) to all the minions on the Upper East Side and tell them all your sins
• These minions will then attack you in the form of direct message, comment harassing, passive aggressive story post or screen shot your post and send it to their bff
• These minions will then quickly hit that unfollow button and block you to the ends of the earth
• Blair Waldorf will personally let everyone at one of her infamous dances know that she was the original wearer of her ball gown and not Serena and anyone who tries to copy is dead to her.

This is meant to poke fun at the current state of beauty bloggers. It’s not to point at a single person but everyone and their mother who is choosing to be offended.

Isn’t it a compliment when someone is inspired by YOUR STYLE. There’s another human being on the same planet that is inspired by YOU. How amazing is that. Your content or photo connected with them and made them want to reach outside of their comfort zone and try something new.

You will rarely be the first. Yes we all aspire to create original content 100% of the time, but to expect others to all the time is unrealistic. For most, blogging is a escape and something they do for fun. They don’t spend all day long trying to come up with new content. You know what will never be original because its a trend or style:

• Grain: Freaking grain was created by who knows who?? Anyone can use this, so get off your high horse. What you can do though is to tweak it so that you put your own spin on it. You know who has major vintage grain vibes and made her own twist on it? My girl Dessey.
• Hand Models/Butt Models: If you need more validation look here. The butt ones, well those have mixed results so I won’t share them but there are many that came before Instagram that did this. So gracefully bow the f**k down.
• Using water or fruit: I admit Georgie was my first introduction to water photography. But since seeing it I’ve seen countless others do it too. And she’s gracefully admitted to not being the first and being excited when others try it! Like amazing!
• Props: Guess what? 75% of Instagrammers all have access to Target, Ikea, Urban Outfitters and H&M. So get over it.

I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t reach out and tag those who have directly inspired us to try something. If you know one person specifically then yes, by all means do it. But we should never be scared. We shouldn’t feel scared to try something new. We shouldn’t feel like we owe anyone anything. We owe it to ourselves to be free and have fun. This is suppose to be a fun environment, where you get your creative freedom. No one gets to dictate how YOU take pictures or what you can and can’t use in photos. If there are people like that in your life, there’s this button called “Block”(or Unfollow) and it’s for people that are toxic. 2019 is the year where don’t put up with toxic bloggers. You do you. Try things you’ve always wanted to try. In the process of trying something inspired by another you will probably find a style that is you and that you like. Since this issue has come about there have been countless people that feel the same way as me. You aren’t alone.

Let’s be like a true community. One where we get excited for others when they get PR we didn’t. One where not comparing numbers or likes to. I do it everyday and it’s not fair to be this hard on ourselves. We seem to hold ourselves to this unrealistic expectation that we don’t hold others too. Why do this to ourselves? It is so easy to stay in a toxic triangle of comparison in a very business driven industry. I won’t pretend to be naive. But I refuse to think that we can’t make it better. Reading this all, you might think I resend my last post “The Beauty Community and What It Means to Me”. But I don’t. Those individuals I mentioned are what made me love it and makes me continue to love those that aren’t toxic. I have met even more kind people since then and will continue to see the good. I won’t let toxic and catty behavior push me away from this amazing community and outlet. Will you?

Tell what’s on your mind. If you’re too afraid to voice it. I will end with something’s people sent me the last few days. They are all anonymous.

Why are we getting anxious about something that’s supposed to be light hearted and fun

I miss the old days of Instagram  when everyone was supportive and didn’t think they could take credit for a freaking photo style

Someone claimed the rights to all jeans photos.

I hate the culture of not causing “drama” when someone is clearly being a asshole

I just think that no matter how personal your content is to someone, it’s really unnecessary to go after someone who posted similar content just because they’ve done it first. They might not have seen the “original” post and it really shows one’s insecurity. We’re all free to post whatever we want without being afraid of what people will say or think. i have yet to see two pictures that look exactly the same and that’s because we all have a different perspective and taste. The community used to be so much more fun because no one cared about this stuff and we were all supportive of each other. Now you can kind of feel this fear in the community in every post. I think we should all let go of our egos and admit that we haven’t invented anything. There’s so many people on this platform that everything has been done before.