The Click Clique
September 10, 2014 4:01 AM Subscribe
It seems to me that part of what made fashion blogs potentially interesting was their independence, which is a contrast with fashion magazines. The magazines have always been advertorial for fashion and related industries, which limits how innovative or interesting they can be. If blogs are now also totally blurring the line between editorial and advertising, they're going to go the same way.
Also, Amber Venz sounds kind of awful, although I guess she's no more awful than any other twenty-something tech entrepreneur.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:46 AM on September 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
Also, Amber Venz sounds kind of awful, although I guess she's no more awful than any other twenty-something tech entrepreneur.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:46 AM on September 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
I take that back, Street Etiquette Is an amazing style blog.
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:50 AM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:50 AM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
a stylish group of young bloggers
This... intense antipathy I have towards this sentence... is this what it is to be old?
posted by Wandering Idiot at 6:05 AM on September 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
This... intense antipathy I have towards this sentence... is this what it is to be old?
posted by Wandering Idiot at 6:05 AM on September 10, 2014 [7 favorites]
a stylish group of young bloggers
This... intense antipathy I have towards this sentence... is this what it is to be old?
Nope. It just means you're right at home here. If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me
posted by leotrotsky at 6:09 AM on September 10, 2014 [10 favorites]
This... intense antipathy I have towards this sentence... is this what it is to be old?
Nope. It just means you're right at home here. If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me
posted by leotrotsky at 6:09 AM on September 10, 2014 [10 favorites]
Welcome to Dallas, where the young wealthy and shallow get paid for being young wealthy and shallow.Eh. She's not being paid to be young, wealthy and shallow. She's being paid because she monitized fashion blogging. She may be young, wealthy and shallow, but the point of the thing is that she took something that people were already producing and reading and showed them how to make money off of it. I don't think anything she did was particularly innovative, but she did see a niche and figure out how to fill it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:13 AM on September 10, 2014 [8 favorites]
Good for her and her boyfriend for figuring out the monetization question. My biggest takeaway, though, was that her boyfriend's awesome name is Baxter Box.
Say it over and over again. Baxter Box! Baxter Box! Baxter Box! It's magical!
posted by xingcat at 6:17 AM on September 10, 2014 [15 favorites]
Say it over and over again. Baxter Box! Baxter Box! Baxter Box! It's magical!
posted by xingcat at 6:17 AM on September 10, 2014 [15 favorites]
If anything, the pernicious part is the mass idolization of extreme wealth and luxury.
I used to look at Sea of Shoes, years ago, because they used to show some interesting vintage clothes and I looked at a lot more blogs then. The whole story of that blog is "very, very wealthy divorcee and very, very wealthy daughter travel the world buying extremely expensive things, redecorating their apartments, going to debutante events as guests of Chanel, etc, plus very occasional appearances by the rich white father who is [apparently] the font of the money".
It was really gross. Partly it was really gross because of the extreme financialization of a form of feminine self-expression: you need the looks to marry the rich man to have the beautiful daughter to dress in vintage couture so that you can make money off the internet so that you can buy more expensive couture so that you can make more money....Just the total permeation between capital and the self. Like, being yourself is your labor - you're not just Sea of Shoes/Sea of Shoes mere when you're being photographed or in front of the paparazzi, you're living a life that can be blogged. Not a day in the life of, but a life in the life of.
Partly it was really gross because I realized that I live in a society where many, many people really, seriously see nothing wrong with such an intense concentration of wealth. For some people, you can't keep a roof over your head or afford fresh vegetables; for others, you buy a $5000 pair of shoes and Chanel gives you a dress to wear in Paris. For still others, you work in some [unjust, exploitative, horrible] industry and make money so that you can support a highly-capitalized dress-up doll.
It was also gross because of the invisible backing of Wealthy Dad - that seemed to embody, somehow, the way that we pretend that a life of wasteful luxury comes from nowhere and is deserved by the people who live it because of their sensibility.
The thing is, it's not that wealthy wastrels are anything new - it's the idea that they become more wealthy precisely because we admire their wealth and wastefulness that creeps me out. And the fact that the lid is off - it's not that they're somewhere in Newport and get reported on in the society pages and exist vaguely on the fringe of social consciousness - it's that we know in great detail that they have $5000 shoes and redecorate their houses as you or I might buy a paperback and yet somehow this sure and certain knowledge changes nothing.
It's the feeling that the best dream that we as a society can dream is ascending to the one percent and owning expensive goods, that's what got me right down.
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on September 10, 2014 [28 favorites]
I used to look at Sea of Shoes, years ago, because they used to show some interesting vintage clothes and I looked at a lot more blogs then. The whole story of that blog is "very, very wealthy divorcee and very, very wealthy daughter travel the world buying extremely expensive things, redecorating their apartments, going to debutante events as guests of Chanel, etc, plus very occasional appearances by the rich white father who is [apparently] the font of the money".
It was really gross. Partly it was really gross because of the extreme financialization of a form of feminine self-expression: you need the looks to marry the rich man to have the beautiful daughter to dress in vintage couture so that you can make money off the internet so that you can buy more expensive couture so that you can make more money....Just the total permeation between capital and the self. Like, being yourself is your labor - you're not just Sea of Shoes/Sea of Shoes mere when you're being photographed or in front of the paparazzi, you're living a life that can be blogged. Not a day in the life of, but a life in the life of.
Partly it was really gross because I realized that I live in a society where many, many people really, seriously see nothing wrong with such an intense concentration of wealth. For some people, you can't keep a roof over your head or afford fresh vegetables; for others, you buy a $5000 pair of shoes and Chanel gives you a dress to wear in Paris. For still others, you work in some [unjust, exploitative, horrible] industry and make money so that you can support a highly-capitalized dress-up doll.
It was also gross because of the invisible backing of Wealthy Dad - that seemed to embody, somehow, the way that we pretend that a life of wasteful luxury comes from nowhere and is deserved by the people who live it because of their sensibility.
The thing is, it's not that wealthy wastrels are anything new - it's the idea that they become more wealthy precisely because we admire their wealth and wastefulness that creeps me out. And the fact that the lid is off - it's not that they're somewhere in Newport and get reported on in the society pages and exist vaguely on the fringe of social consciousness - it's that we know in great detail that they have $5000 shoes and redecorate their houses as you or I might buy a paperback and yet somehow this sure and certain knowledge changes nothing.
It's the feeling that the best dream that we as a society can dream is ascending to the one percent and owning expensive goods, that's what got me right down.
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on September 10, 2014 [28 favorites]
Didn't want to editorialise in the post, but the shallowness of the people in this article made my skin crawl!
posted by ellieBOA at 6:39 AM on September 10, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 6:39 AM on September 10, 2014 [5 favorites]
I know next to nothing about fashion, but I thought this was going to be about the teenager (whose name I forgot) Kurt Andersen interviewed this week on studio 360. Turns out her name is Tavi Gevinson and she seemed to be a pretty all right person. She started as a fashion blogger as a high school student, and is now acting. I enjoyed the interview.
posted by lownote at 6:43 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lownote at 6:43 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Tavi is great! I'm continually impressed at how well grounded she seems considering some of the circles she's in.
ellieBOA, I had the same reaction. I did enjoy the brief palate cleanser offered by the inclusion of the GOMI commentary and links. That was a nice touch.
posted by danabanana at 6:58 AM on September 10, 2014
ellieBOA, I had the same reaction. I did enjoy the brief palate cleanser offered by the inclusion of the GOMI commentary and links. That was a nice touch.
posted by danabanana at 6:58 AM on September 10, 2014
the best dream that we as a society can dream is ascending to the one percent and owning expensive goods
That's monkey culture for you. If you aren't the big ape, you're dreaming of being the big ape.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:01 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
That's monkey culture for you. If you aren't the big ape, you're dreaming of being the big ape.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:01 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
Tavi Gevinson is name-checked in the article. As a 13-year old, she started a fashion blog that really was ahead of most others in thoughtfulness, but I could still never get past the privilege she embodied... and as a 13-year old what was she going to do about it anyway.
I know a lot of people really like her though, and I don't want to harsh anyone's mellow.
She does seem to be turning into a decent adult.
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:01 AM on September 10, 2014
I know a lot of people really like her though, and I don't want to harsh anyone's mellow.
She does seem to be turning into a decent adult.
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:01 AM on September 10, 2014
Tavi Gevinson is name-checked in the article. As a 13-year old, she started a fashion blog that really was ahead of most others in thoughtfulness, but I could still never get past the privilege she embodied... and as a 13-year old what was she going to do about it anyway.
I know a lot of people really like her though, and I don't want to harsh anyone's mellow.
I don't mind harshing mellows.
She embodies a tremendous amount of privilege, and as a young, cute white girl, all she had to do was get noticed by the Fame Fairy to be whisked away to a life of even more intense privilege. Of course she's acting now. Of course she is. It's the natural next step on the fame treadmill. Tune in in a few years when she's back on the blogging circuit, peddling life advice a la Gwyneth Paltrow.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:10 AM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
I know a lot of people really like her though, and I don't want to harsh anyone's mellow.
I don't mind harshing mellows.
She embodies a tremendous amount of privilege, and as a young, cute white girl, all she had to do was get noticed by the Fame Fairy to be whisked away to a life of even more intense privilege. Of course she's acting now. Of course she is. It's the natural next step on the fame treadmill. Tune in in a few years when she's back on the blogging circuit, peddling life advice a la Gwyneth Paltrow.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:10 AM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
I love this article because I have virtually no clue what the world of fashion blogs are like, and I'm constantly baffled by what kinds of things can garner 27k likes on Instagram and why that is (just a picture of shoes, really?).
That all said, the few borderline fashion blogs I've ever followed (mostly for menswear) were great because they were independent. As soon as the authors started getting invites to events and free clothes to review, the sites always went downhill fast to the point I don't regularly read any of them anymore. I hope everyone in this article is being diligent about trying to keep their independent voice.
(also, Tavi is awesome and seems completely above and beyond the world of fashion blogging now)
posted by mathowie at 7:13 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
That all said, the few borderline fashion blogs I've ever followed (mostly for menswear) were great because they were independent. As soon as the authors started getting invites to events and free clothes to review, the sites always went downhill fast to the point I don't regularly read any of them anymore. I hope everyone in this article is being diligent about trying to keep their independent voice.
(also, Tavi is awesome and seems completely above and beyond the world of fashion blogging now)
posted by mathowie at 7:13 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
The "Tavi is privileged" thing is baffling to me, and I really think a lot of it is just total misogyny. Last time we discussed her, someone compared her to Paris Hilton, who is heir to a massive hotel fortune. Tavi's father is a now-retired high school teacher. Her mother is an artist (and not, as far as I can tell, a super-successful or famous one) who makes money on the side by tutoring kids. When she started out, most of her outfits were thrifted. She is white, but so are a lot of bloggers who don't get dismissed out of hand for being privileged. (The founder of this site, for instance, strikes me as probably about as privileged as Tavi is.) Seriously: what makes her so privileged?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:21 AM on September 10, 2014 [15 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:21 AM on September 10, 2014 [15 favorites]
The monetization is what a number of various blogs have done.. Think of the mommybloggers from a few years ago -- the ones getting all sorts of free products from companies in exchange for good reviews, and the links in the blogs to buy said product being reviewed were AMZN affiliate links so the mommyblogger would pull in a few extra bucks that way etc etc.
And yet the internet cried foul when the FCC said bloggers who are paid/comped stuff should disclose that relationship.
Anyways, it's the entire "how do I make a buck off this" aspect that seems to grind some. The "love it because it's a hobby" maybe. I dunno.
I've seen plenty of blogs started that all seem to have the end-goal be: obtain some type of book deal. Be the blog for fiction, humor, non-fiction, religion, etc.
posted by k5.user at 7:22 AM on September 10, 2014
And yet the internet cried foul when the FCC said bloggers who are paid/comped stuff should disclose that relationship.
Anyways, it's the entire "how do I make a buck off this" aspect that seems to grind some. The "love it because it's a hobby" maybe. I dunno.
I've seen plenty of blogs started that all seem to have the end-goal be: obtain some type of book deal. Be the blog for fiction, humor, non-fiction, religion, etc.
posted by k5.user at 7:22 AM on September 10, 2014
Reading about fashion, or high-fashion as I suppose $995 Valentino Rockstud pumps must be, I get the same feeling I get from reading about Eve Online and the thousands of hours spent there. Both cultures are alien to me, are well documented, have hierarchies that are decided by some random metric [you are popular because you are popular] and the members spend an awful lot of time in their culture.
posted by vapidave at 7:28 AM on September 10, 2014
posted by vapidave at 7:28 AM on September 10, 2014
My favorite style blog has always been and will always be The Dainty Squid.
posted by Windigo at 7:29 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Windigo at 7:29 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
She embodies a tremendous amount of privilege, and as a young, cute white girl, all she had to do was get noticed by the Fame Fairy to be whisked away to a life of even more intense privilege. Of course she's acting now. Of course she is. It's the natural next step on the fame treadmill. Tune in in a few years when she's back on the blogging circuit, peddling life advice a la Gwyneth Paltrow.
The funny thing about Tavi is that back when she started, people were always saying how ugly she was. It was obvious to anyone who has ever watched a child grow up that she was going to be extremely beautiful by even the harshest mainstream standards once she grew into her features (wide mouth, big eyes, skinny, kind of goggly expression). I mean, I thought she was adorbs, but I remember how mean a lot of people were.
I would argue that:
1. Tavi Gevinson is really priviledged - well-off, white, thin, beautiful, indulgent parents, etc. If she had been fat or poor or had less creative-class-savvy parents, etc, she would not have had a career, despite her brains.
2. The dream she embodies is, at least, a better dream. On the one hand, it's a dream about being important in a kind of shitty fashion/Hollywood industry, and it doesn't embody much political critique. On the other, the focus of her work has never been "look, I bought this exquisite thing" or "wow, I get to go to the Chanel party, look how star-studded it is and how great Karl Lagerfeld is"; it's always been "here are things I am thinking about - I may be thinking about sort of unworthy objects, like the lastest not-really-"indie" designer or the newest ethereal vaguely bohemian pop sensation, but I'm actually bringing intelligence to bear on these things". Poptimism, basically - the idea that we can live an intellectually and morally rich life by engaging creatively with the world of consumer goods.
3. Tavi Gevinson is also a product of the nostalgia industry - riot grrrl and Sassy and fanzines and so on fetishized by people who were never there and think those things sound romantic. (I mean, I was there and have a couple of old copies of Hungry Girl and a Huggybear teeshirt to prove it, and while it beat the hell out of fashion blogging, the nostalgia is a bit much.) She's the product of the culture industry - we need something new, let's mine the past and strip it of its meaning and critique and sell it on to a new generation.
Basically, if we're going to do angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff about which fashion bloggers are all right, Tavi Gevinson is, in my book, all right.
posted by Frowner at 7:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [10 favorites]
The funny thing about Tavi is that back when she started, people were always saying how ugly she was. It was obvious to anyone who has ever watched a child grow up that she was going to be extremely beautiful by even the harshest mainstream standards once she grew into her features (wide mouth, big eyes, skinny, kind of goggly expression). I mean, I thought she was adorbs, but I remember how mean a lot of people were.
I would argue that:
1. Tavi Gevinson is really priviledged - well-off, white, thin, beautiful, indulgent parents, etc. If she had been fat or poor or had less creative-class-savvy parents, etc, she would not have had a career, despite her brains.
2. The dream she embodies is, at least, a better dream. On the one hand, it's a dream about being important in a kind of shitty fashion/Hollywood industry, and it doesn't embody much political critique. On the other, the focus of her work has never been "look, I bought this exquisite thing" or "wow, I get to go to the Chanel party, look how star-studded it is and how great Karl Lagerfeld is"; it's always been "here are things I am thinking about - I may be thinking about sort of unworthy objects, like the lastest not-really-"indie" designer or the newest ethereal vaguely bohemian pop sensation, but I'm actually bringing intelligence to bear on these things". Poptimism, basically - the idea that we can live an intellectually and morally rich life by engaging creatively with the world of consumer goods.
3. Tavi Gevinson is also a product of the nostalgia industry - riot grrrl and Sassy and fanzines and so on fetishized by people who were never there and think those things sound romantic. (I mean, I was there and have a couple of old copies of Hungry Girl and a Huggybear teeshirt to prove it, and while it beat the hell out of fashion blogging, the nostalgia is a bit much.) She's the product of the culture industry - we need something new, let's mine the past and strip it of its meaning and critique and sell it on to a new generation.
Basically, if we're going to do angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff about which fashion bloggers are all right, Tavi Gevinson is, in my book, all right.
posted by Frowner at 7:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [10 favorites]
So I knew that the fashion blogs I read (which are nothing like the ones mentioned in the article, and fairly deliberately so), did affiliate linking because they all disclose that--one of the reasons I read the ones I read is that they're the sort that disclose, up-front, every post. I had no idea that the link service originated with a woman in Texas, and I have a sort of "you go, girl!" feeling about that.
Except, my stars and garters, that is the most stereotypically detestable Dallas-y Dallas ladyness she's bringing, with all the perfectionism and performative femininity that make me want to tear my hair out. She's kind of like the updated version of Mary Kay, pink and hard as nails, except with the Highland Park polish. And that's not even getting into the fashion blogs she's fronting, the problems with which are well-analyzed already in this thread.
Everything to do with fashion is at best a mixed bag. I guess this is no different.
posted by immlass at 8:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Except, my stars and garters, that is the most stereotypically detestable Dallas-y Dallas ladyness she's bringing, with all the perfectionism and performative femininity that make me want to tear my hair out. She's kind of like the updated version of Mary Kay, pink and hard as nails, except with the Highland Park polish. And that's not even getting into the fashion blogs she's fronting, the problems with which are well-analyzed already in this thread.
Everything to do with fashion is at best a mixed bag. I guess this is no different.
posted by immlass at 8:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
The way y'all are sniffing haughtily at blog monetization here is kinda gross. Writers, including bloggers, should absolutely disclose any conflicts of interest with regards to freebies and perks they receive from companies they write about it. But this discussion appears to be of an attitude that blogging should be this disinterested nonprofit pursuit. Who the heck still thinks that? Especially these days,
Amber Benz built a business around helping bloggers make money off content that bloggers were already producing. She is a woman making money for women writers whom the existing journalism/fashion structures were ignoring. There are absolutely ways that Benz's business model can be and will be abused and manipulated to maximize profit at the expense of the audience, and there are absolutely critical discussions that we should have about money in the fashion industry--blogger influence on fashion influence on women, the glorification of disposable wealth in fashion, exploitative working conditions for garment workers, etc., etc. But the "making money off your writing" part of fashion blogging is not inherently evil.
Regular, interesting blogging (AKA writing and/or photography) and building an audience are actual HARD WORK. Isn't making money, or at least not losing money, on your writing hobby that you enjoy the dream of most bloggers/writers? And with blog monetization options for the most part limited to "affiliate links" and "flashy banner ads," the affiliate links are definitely the less annoying of the two evils. Metafilter auto-generates affiliate links to Amazon, like so. Why is that for the most part morally acceptable because the amount of money Metafilter makes is small?
posted by nicebookrack at 8:38 AM on September 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
Amber Benz built a business around helping bloggers make money off content that bloggers were already producing. She is a woman making money for women writers whom the existing journalism/fashion structures were ignoring. There are absolutely ways that Benz's business model can be and will be abused and manipulated to maximize profit at the expense of the audience, and there are absolutely critical discussions that we should have about money in the fashion industry--blogger influence on fashion influence on women, the glorification of disposable wealth in fashion, exploitative working conditions for garment workers, etc., etc. But the "making money off your writing" part of fashion blogging is not inherently evil.
Regular, interesting blogging (AKA writing and/or photography) and building an audience are actual HARD WORK. Isn't making money, or at least not losing money, on your writing hobby that you enjoy the dream of most bloggers/writers? And with blog monetization options for the most part limited to "affiliate links" and "flashy banner ads," the affiliate links are definitely the less annoying of the two evils. Metafilter auto-generates affiliate links to Amazon, like so. Why is that for the most part morally acceptable because the amount of money Metafilter makes is small?
posted by nicebookrack at 8:38 AM on September 10, 2014 [14 favorites]
I'm really sorry I don't have anything better to say - I read the whole article and it made me sad - but if Amber Venz is 26 . . . how is the fact checking at Texas Monthly?
posted by peep at 9:05 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by peep at 9:05 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't see that anyone here has posted against monetizing blogs specifically; the problems people are having are more about, as Frowner so eloquently put it, mass idolization of extreme wealth and luxury as well as the dumbing down of fashion blogs when the blogger is more concerned about the monetization than anything else.
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:13 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:13 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Monetization suggestion: Metafashion
Mods: Frowner
Banned: square toes
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
Mods: Frowner
Banned: square toes
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
Nickname: the Flannel
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:16 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:16 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
stilettos, Céline bags, bangles, blowouts, and iPhones, always iPhones
posted by bukvich at 2:38 PM on September 10, 2014
posted by bukvich at 2:38 PM on September 10, 2014
But this discussion appears to be of an attitude that blogging should be this disinterested nonprofit pursuit. Who the heck still thinks that?
Uh, me? That was what was so interesting about blogs as a format. Monetize 'em and all you've got is yet another tedious business model, and who the hell cares? The whole power of the blogging idea was the opportunity they offered to decommercialize communication functions which had previously been owned by large corporations.
posted by Mars Saxman at 2:39 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
Uh, me? That was what was so interesting about blogs as a format. Monetize 'em and all you've got is yet another tedious business model, and who the hell cares? The whole power of the blogging idea was the opportunity they offered to decommercialize communication functions which had previously been owned by large corporations.
posted by Mars Saxman at 2:39 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
There's something about Céline bags that I don't like … I understand their importance for the French scene but you have to admit that personally there's a lot to be desired … not that I'd be an angel in times of war no doubt but I'm no collaborator … plus they're so expensive you can only get them on an installment plan I hear.
posted by kenko at 3:33 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by kenko at 3:33 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Uh, me? That was what was so interesting about blogs as a format. Monetize 'em and all you've got is yet another tedious business model, and who the hell cares? The whole power of the blogging idea was the opportunity they offered to decommercialize communication functions which had previously been owned by large corporations.
I have had various websites over the years and have put up original content on various topics for a long time. And, you know, I still need to eat. It hasn't paid the bills.
I was really glad to see the fund drive to 'save metafilter' where the members ponied up money - donations - to make up for the loss in ad money after the google algorithm changed. It made me hopeful that the future of the internet is not all "people like me get bitter, give up, get corporate jobs or become sell-outs." As someone who was one of the top students of my graduating high school class and who was taught I should give my smarts away for free and that I am evil if I benefit financially from them and that good women just do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts, not for money, etc ad nauseum, I have long found the attitude you express really maddening.
I get that there is an inherent friction in the situation but I think finding a model that monetizes things in a way that promotes the values/things/outcomes you want to promote, rather than taking the position that people should basically work for free, is a much better and more sustainable solution to the problem.
So while I get the disgust that some people here are expressing about people making money by taking pictures of themselves wearing ridiculously expensive clothes that the vast majority of folks will never have any hope of owning, I really hope that most people can see that if someone is producing content/a website you value (like, you know, matt & co), then they deserve to get paid for it somehow. And it's kind of gross to act like they should also have a "real job" to pay their own bills and then do this thing you value for free. I think mefi is run as well as it is because it is a business. I have been a moderator in the past on more than one all-volunteer project and they tend to have unreliable, untrained moderators who get crabby about people being a pain and not appreciating that they are doing this for free, in their "spare" time (which most people don't have much of).
I really loved HGTV when it started out, back when it was very much inspired by "This Old House." I came to loathe it when it turned into real estate porn and Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless. So I do understand why people feel that monetization or success ruins everything. But I think if you want the world of tomorrow to be better than this, than you need to acknowledge that the do-gooders deserve to eat and people doing what you like deserve to somehow make money from it. I think it would be a lot more productive to criticize how the WAY it gets monetized makes it go to shit rather than acting like the FACT that it gets monetized makes it go to shit.
posted by Michele in California at 5:39 PM on September 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
I have had various websites over the years and have put up original content on various topics for a long time. And, you know, I still need to eat. It hasn't paid the bills.
I was really glad to see the fund drive to 'save metafilter' where the members ponied up money - donations - to make up for the loss in ad money after the google algorithm changed. It made me hopeful that the future of the internet is not all "people like me get bitter, give up, get corporate jobs or become sell-outs." As someone who was one of the top students of my graduating high school class and who was taught I should give my smarts away for free and that I am evil if I benefit financially from them and that good women just do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts, not for money, etc ad nauseum, I have long found the attitude you express really maddening.
I get that there is an inherent friction in the situation but I think finding a model that monetizes things in a way that promotes the values/things/outcomes you want to promote, rather than taking the position that people should basically work for free, is a much better and more sustainable solution to the problem.
So while I get the disgust that some people here are expressing about people making money by taking pictures of themselves wearing ridiculously expensive clothes that the vast majority of folks will never have any hope of owning, I really hope that most people can see that if someone is producing content/a website you value (like, you know, matt & co), then they deserve to get paid for it somehow. And it's kind of gross to act like they should also have a "real job" to pay their own bills and then do this thing you value for free. I think mefi is run as well as it is because it is a business. I have been a moderator in the past on more than one all-volunteer project and they tend to have unreliable, untrained moderators who get crabby about people being a pain and not appreciating that they are doing this for free, in their "spare" time (which most people don't have much of).
I really loved HGTV when it started out, back when it was very much inspired by "This Old House." I came to loathe it when it turned into real estate porn and Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless. So I do understand why people feel that monetization or success ruins everything. But I think if you want the world of tomorrow to be better than this, than you need to acknowledge that the do-gooders deserve to eat and people doing what you like deserve to somehow make money from it. I think it would be a lot more productive to criticize how the WAY it gets monetized makes it go to shit rather than acting like the FACT that it gets monetized makes it go to shit.
posted by Michele in California at 5:39 PM on September 10, 2014 [6 favorites]
It's weird, the entire reason I'm sort of over fashion blogs is that, if I want a "monetized" experience that is about showing me this season's new collection of labels that have been determined appeal to my demographic, I'll buy a goddamn fashion magazine. I mean, I guess the style blogs are free, which is a slight improvement?
The endless parade of free clothes I could never afford styled in the manner of a fashion shoot, with frequent interruptions for fashion week coverage and promotional lookbook images, is just not very interesting. But there are probably a lot of other people who are more plugged into the fashionista thing who specifically enjoy that stuff, so who knows?
posted by Sara C. at 6:10 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
The endless parade of free clothes I could never afford styled in the manner of a fashion shoot, with frequent interruptions for fashion week coverage and promotional lookbook images, is just not very interesting. But there are probably a lot of other people who are more plugged into the fashionista thing who specifically enjoy that stuff, so who knows?
posted by Sara C. at 6:10 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
Another style blog I like a lot is Hel Looks, which is street style in Helsinki and seems deliberately alienating on a lot of levels. Not really the kind of thing I'd draw personal inspiration from, though it's refreshing to see that for the most part the 20-somethings are all wearing H&M and stuff from thrift stores.
posted by Sara C. at 6:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Sara C. at 6:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
The real casualty of affiliate marketing, however, may not be ethics at all but the very authenticity that rewardStyle built itself on. ...Okay, so she now has money and is, in some sense, no longer "authentic." But rewardStyle intervened to say, hey, you need to keep blogging about the stuff that got you rich or you won't stay rich.
When one popular rewardStyle blogger became so successful featuring outfits under $100 that she was suddenly able to incorporate more-expensive clothing, Amber quickly intervened. “All of a sudden, her earnings are going down with us,” Amber recalled. “So we had to say, ‘You’re not converting whenever you show the Tibi or the McQueen or whatever else, because your reader is only spending a hundred dollars or less online at any given time. You got rich, but your readers didn’t.’ ”
I am okay with this. Encouraged, in fact.
posted by Michele in California at 6:47 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
I wonder whether rewardStyle would be viewed with such suspicion (or be so groundbreaking) if it involved bloggers making lots of money off appropriately geeky/dignified/traditional/intellectual hobbies, like Apple iProducts or videogames or LEGO or books or sportscars, instead of fashion.
posted by nicebookrack at 7:05 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by nicebookrack at 7:05 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Well, look, I think that women should get paid for writing. But I also think that when you completely blur the line between your writing and your marketing, and when in fact the only way you make money is if your writing sells the stuff you're writing about, that it makes for very safe and boring fashion journalism. And I don't think it's misogynistic to prefer interesting fashion coverage that isn't completely beholden to the fashion industry. What happens if you want to write about vintage clothes, or thrifted clothes, or clothes you make yourself, or clothes that aren't available anymore because you bought them last season? What happens if you want to say that something people are talking about is, in fact, poorly made or ugly? There's a huge disincentive to do that if your main source of revenue is providing links to places where people can buy clothes online.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
I wonder whether rewardStyle would be viewed with such suspicion (or be so groundbreaking) if it involved bloggers making lots of money off appropriately geeky/dignified/traditional/intellectual hobbies, like Apple iProducts or videogames or LEGO or books or sportscars, instead of fashion.It's basically the same problem, although I'm not as attuned to how it plays out in the rarified world of Lego journalism.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
Gotta say this linked video of 25 ways to wear a scarf in 4.5 minutes was both cute and useful.
posted by ch1x0r at 7:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ch1x0r at 7:12 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]
nicebookrack -- I dunno, tech is kind of a funny counter-example, because in a lot of ways the only model for tech writing is to be about really upscale and consumer-driven engagement. I was trying to posit the example of a tech blog that suddenly turned into something about how you can't properly enjoy music without a Bang Und Olufsen stereo system, but, you know, that would be pretty par for the course on almost any tech blog.
FWIW a lot of blogs that are in a vertical that is ultimately consumer-oriented eventually have this problem. I remember when Apartment Therapy was about clever design hacks for small space living, and now it's mostly not even about apartments anymore. Because the people who buy $5000 couches tend not to overlap much with the people who rent 500sf homes. When I first got into cycling I was excited about the many blogs out there devoted to urban cyclists and their experiences. Only to find that gradually they all decided that the only way to cycle is to spend thousands of dollars on bikes and gear. I stopped following most travel blogs when they stopped being about great writers having fascinating adventures on the road, and started mostly being advertorial for the type of travel people who have a lot of disposable income are interested in.
There's definitely a pattern where a web vertical gets interesting, it successfully monetizes, and then it becomes completely focused on the experiences and tastes of the people it's easiest to advertise to.
(I'll also say I used to be the assistant to someone who was attempting to turn her vlog into a monetized lifestyle brand kind of thing, and we parted ways right around the time I realized she would literally shill ANY product, and there wasn't even a curatorial intent behind any of it -- it was all just monetizable content to her.)
posted by Sara C. at 8:20 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
FWIW a lot of blogs that are in a vertical that is ultimately consumer-oriented eventually have this problem. I remember when Apartment Therapy was about clever design hacks for small space living, and now it's mostly not even about apartments anymore. Because the people who buy $5000 couches tend not to overlap much with the people who rent 500sf homes. When I first got into cycling I was excited about the many blogs out there devoted to urban cyclists and their experiences. Only to find that gradually they all decided that the only way to cycle is to spend thousands of dollars on bikes and gear. I stopped following most travel blogs when they stopped being about great writers having fascinating adventures on the road, and started mostly being advertorial for the type of travel people who have a lot of disposable income are interested in.
There's definitely a pattern where a web vertical gets interesting, it successfully monetizes, and then it becomes completely focused on the experiences and tastes of the people it's easiest to advertise to.
(I'll also say I used to be the assistant to someone who was attempting to turn her vlog into a monetized lifestyle brand kind of thing, and we parted ways right around the time I realized she would literally shill ANY product, and there wasn't even a curatorial intent behind any of it -- it was all just monetizable content to her.)
posted by Sara C. at 8:20 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
we parted ways right around the time I realized she would literally shill ANY product, and there wasn't even a curatorial intent behind any of it -- it was all just monetizable content to her.
That's the sort of thing I find off-putting in blogs generally. I'm all in favor of giving the blogger a click-through affiliate percentage if I buy based on her recommendation, but I want the recommendation to be from her heart and fashion eye (or music ear, or whatever), not from her wallet.
posted by immlass at 8:45 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
That's the sort of thing I find off-putting in blogs generally. I'm all in favor of giving the blogger a click-through affiliate percentage if I buy based on her recommendation, but I want the recommendation to be from her heart and fashion eye (or music ear, or whatever), not from her wallet.
posted by immlass at 8:45 PM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]
Doe MeFi still rewrite Amazon links to include their affiliate code?
posted by PenDevil at 1:05 AM on September 11, 2014
posted by PenDevil at 1:05 AM on September 11, 2014
I think so, but that isn't really the same. First of all, Metafilter is a site that exists to share links to interesting websites, not to discuss products. If you started a FPP that was just a link to something cool on Amazon, it would be pulled. Second of all, the content is provided by users, who aren't making any money off of it. There's no conflict of interest: when I link to a website, I'm not profiting from the link. To avoid conflicts of interest, there are extremely strong rules against self-linking here: it's an offense for which users are summarily banned from the site. If I link to something on Amazon in, say, the answer to an AskMe question, I, the person doing the linking, am not making any money off of it, even if the site is. This really doesn't seem to me to be the same as bloggers who cover products, link to the products they cover, and get a commission every time someone buys one of those products. I don't think the lines between content and advertising are especially blurred here.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:20 AM on September 11, 2014
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:20 AM on September 11, 2014
but if Amber Venz is 26 . . . how is the fact checking at Texas Monthly?
I think the fact checking is good. Also, a quick google search shows consistency with her age in other articles. What's wrong with her being 26?
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:35 AM on September 11, 2014
I think the fact checking is good. Also, a quick google search shows consistency with her age in other articles. What's wrong with her being 26?
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:35 AM on September 11, 2014
I'll also say I used to be the assistant to someone who was attempting to turn her vlog into a monetized lifestyle brand kind of thing, and we parted ways right around the time I realized she would literally shill ANY product, and there wasn't even a curatorial intent behind any of it -- it was all just monetizable content to her.
So, it sounds like you have baggage, which is understandable. I have baggage about doing a lot of stuff to benefit a lot of people and not getting paid for it and having a lot of people tell me that I should continue to do x, y and z because "it is the right thing to do" or some crap and also telling me I was wrong to try to monetize anything I did. (Given that I am currently homeless, my difficulties in finding a way to make money at the things I do because I believe in them pretty seriously sticks in my craw. Doubly so that, over the years, I keep being told by people that what I am doing is valuable and matters and is helping people and I should keep doing it but, god, what an evil bitch I am to so much as put ads on my websites.)
I will just reiterate that I think a better answer is not to decry that people try to make money at these things but to look for ways that things can be monetized without essentially forcing people to be sell-outs. As I understand it, Dungeon Crawl (a game) is supported 100% by donations and the author of Hyperbole and a Half did not like either ads or donations but, at least for a time, the site supported her via product sales.
I don't yet have answers for me. But it is a problem space I have thought a lot about over the years. I was a mod for a time on "the world's foremost planning site" (or something like that) and it was all volunteer labor and the owner was bitter about not getting the recognition and so forth that he craved for the work he was doing and he was, for a time, paying for webhosting out of pocket and sometimes kind of crabby about that fact. A lot of planners, including the owner of the site, are government employees. He loathed the idea of commercializing the site and badmouthed that as evil and sinful. He also badmouthed taking donations, which he scathingly talked about in terms of "not wanting to do a PBS-style begathon."
His big dream when I was active was that the site would be paid for via some kind of grant. The last time I logged in (recent-ish), that seems to still be his idea of how to fix the problems with the site -- that he will get money magically out of thin air because actually making money is somehow tainted and evil and the work of the devil. Because his day-job is a government job and taxes pays his salary. So his job protects him from the reality that work has to a) provide value and b) somehow get paid for in some way or it isn't sustainable.
When humans live in a village of about 150 people or less, which is the size of community our brains are geared towards, you can make sure everyone eats and has shelter and so forth without formalizing too many things. Moms feed their kids because it's their kids. Men bring home resources to take care of the family because it is there family. When someone gets out of line, the chieftain comes in says "um, no. You are going to do the right thing or there shall be consequences." But at the scale we have now, where we are talking communities online with thousands of people and anyone can make a blog that can potentially get thousands or even millions of viewers, a lot of the assumptions we make about the division of labor and which things should be done for "free" and all that breaks down. Currently, there is tremendous expectation that a lot of what women do online should be done for free and a lot of what men do online should pay something. The example you gave -- tech -- is male dominated. The space the article talks about -- fashion blogs -- is apparently female dominated and rewardStyle is run by a woman.
I participate in a tech forum and it's not real female-friendly. I have seen some improvement over the years and I suspect I have had a hand in that, something I probably can't prove. And one of the things that makes me crazy is that men there rub elbows, make deals and money happens. When I do some of the same things men there do to network, it gets interpreted completely differently and, so far, I mostly have not gotten out of it the things I wanted to get out of it that I see men get out of it every day, sometimes resulting in big bucks and life-changing levels of sudden improvements in their career success. And I feel very left out. Again, given that I am homeless and this is not some secret, that really rubs me raw. I am not asking for charity. I am only asking for help in figuring how to make money, just like everyone else there. And somehow that continues to fail to get me much of anything.
So I strongly suspect that part of the problem here is some deeply rooted cultural concept that "things women do should be done for free/out of the goodness of their hearts/because they CARE" and "things men do should be paid." I can't prove that but I have been online a lot of years, I have participated in both male-dominated spaces and female dominated ones and the female dominated ones are pretty consistently ghettos, where no money is made and things are done out of the goodness of their hearts and so on. It may get the moderators and so on some benefits, like help with raising difficult kids, but it's not okay to monetize it.
I was once told on MeFi that the most successful blogging space was "mom blogs" and they don't really make much money. And I can't help but wonder if that is because they are run by women and women get this cultural expectation that making money is not okay and they should do it because they care. And I wonder sometimes if I can yet do a mom blog but somehow figure out how to actually monetize it in a serious way and yet remain true to my own values and find a way for that monetization to not turn me into a sell-out, just hawking products or whatever, without really caring about the quality of the information I am making available.
And while this issue really hits a nerve for me personally, if you really value quality content, I think it should also interest you. Because I have seen good quality, free resources on the web get removed from the web when the author of the content found a way to make money with it and giving it away for free no longer made sense to them. If you want good quality content still freely available, that doesn't mean the content providers can't get paid. It means the world should try to give them some means to get paid even while making stuff freely available. Otherwise, a lot of folks eventually go "Why the hell should I?" and take their valuable content and make it available only for pay. Because nobody cares about them, so why the hell should they care about others? And then you wind up talking about the good old days, when there used to be lots of good stuff available, but now everything has gone to shit.
posted by Michele in California at 9:50 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
So, it sounds like you have baggage, which is understandable. I have baggage about doing a lot of stuff to benefit a lot of people and not getting paid for it and having a lot of people tell me that I should continue to do x, y and z because "it is the right thing to do" or some crap and also telling me I was wrong to try to monetize anything I did. (Given that I am currently homeless, my difficulties in finding a way to make money at the things I do because I believe in them pretty seriously sticks in my craw. Doubly so that, over the years, I keep being told by people that what I am doing is valuable and matters and is helping people and I should keep doing it but, god, what an evil bitch I am to so much as put ads on my websites.)
I will just reiterate that I think a better answer is not to decry that people try to make money at these things but to look for ways that things can be monetized without essentially forcing people to be sell-outs. As I understand it, Dungeon Crawl (a game) is supported 100% by donations and the author of Hyperbole and a Half did not like either ads or donations but, at least for a time, the site supported her via product sales.
I don't yet have answers for me. But it is a problem space I have thought a lot about over the years. I was a mod for a time on "the world's foremost planning site" (or something like that) and it was all volunteer labor and the owner was bitter about not getting the recognition and so forth that he craved for the work he was doing and he was, for a time, paying for webhosting out of pocket and sometimes kind of crabby about that fact. A lot of planners, including the owner of the site, are government employees. He loathed the idea of commercializing the site and badmouthed that as evil and sinful. He also badmouthed taking donations, which he scathingly talked about in terms of "not wanting to do a PBS-style begathon."
His big dream when I was active was that the site would be paid for via some kind of grant. The last time I logged in (recent-ish), that seems to still be his idea of how to fix the problems with the site -- that he will get money magically out of thin air because actually making money is somehow tainted and evil and the work of the devil. Because his day-job is a government job and taxes pays his salary. So his job protects him from the reality that work has to a) provide value and b) somehow get paid for in some way or it isn't sustainable.
When humans live in a village of about 150 people or less, which is the size of community our brains are geared towards, you can make sure everyone eats and has shelter and so forth without formalizing too many things. Moms feed their kids because it's their kids. Men bring home resources to take care of the family because it is there family. When someone gets out of line, the chieftain comes in says "um, no. You are going to do the right thing or there shall be consequences." But at the scale we have now, where we are talking communities online with thousands of people and anyone can make a blog that can potentially get thousands or even millions of viewers, a lot of the assumptions we make about the division of labor and which things should be done for "free" and all that breaks down. Currently, there is tremendous expectation that a lot of what women do online should be done for free and a lot of what men do online should pay something. The example you gave -- tech -- is male dominated. The space the article talks about -- fashion blogs -- is apparently female dominated and rewardStyle is run by a woman.
I participate in a tech forum and it's not real female-friendly. I have seen some improvement over the years and I suspect I have had a hand in that, something I probably can't prove. And one of the things that makes me crazy is that men there rub elbows, make deals and money happens. When I do some of the same things men there do to network, it gets interpreted completely differently and, so far, I mostly have not gotten out of it the things I wanted to get out of it that I see men get out of it every day, sometimes resulting in big bucks and life-changing levels of sudden improvements in their career success. And I feel very left out. Again, given that I am homeless and this is not some secret, that really rubs me raw. I am not asking for charity. I am only asking for help in figuring how to make money, just like everyone else there. And somehow that continues to fail to get me much of anything.
So I strongly suspect that part of the problem here is some deeply rooted cultural concept that "things women do should be done for free/out of the goodness of their hearts/because they CARE" and "things men do should be paid." I can't prove that but I have been online a lot of years, I have participated in both male-dominated spaces and female dominated ones and the female dominated ones are pretty consistently ghettos, where no money is made and things are done out of the goodness of their hearts and so on. It may get the moderators and so on some benefits, like help with raising difficult kids, but it's not okay to monetize it.
I was once told on MeFi that the most successful blogging space was "mom blogs" and they don't really make much money. And I can't help but wonder if that is because they are run by women and women get this cultural expectation that making money is not okay and they should do it because they care. And I wonder sometimes if I can yet do a mom blog but somehow figure out how to actually monetize it in a serious way and yet remain true to my own values and find a way for that monetization to not turn me into a sell-out, just hawking products or whatever, without really caring about the quality of the information I am making available.
And while this issue really hits a nerve for me personally, if you really value quality content, I think it should also interest you. Because I have seen good quality, free resources on the web get removed from the web when the author of the content found a way to make money with it and giving it away for free no longer made sense to them. If you want good quality content still freely available, that doesn't mean the content providers can't get paid. It means the world should try to give them some means to get paid even while making stuff freely available. Otherwise, a lot of folks eventually go "Why the hell should I?" and take their valuable content and make it available only for pay. Because nobody cares about them, so why the hell should they care about others? And then you wind up talking about the good old days, when there used to be lots of good stuff available, but now everything has gone to shit.
posted by Michele in California at 9:50 AM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I feel like SaraC and I are criticizing this particular way of monetizing blogging, which tends to restrict and damage the content of the blog in fairly specific ways, and you insist on arguing against the proposition that female bloggers should never get paid, which isn't what anyone is saying. Maybe this is the only way that blogs can be monetized, in which case a lot of us will stop reading blogs, which seems to be the way the wind is blowing anyway. But I don't think there's some sort of universal imperative never to question the funding model of female-focused media and how it affects content.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:10 AM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:10 AM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
I feel like SaraC and I are criticizing this particular way of monetizing blogging
Then we seem to have gotten our wires crossed. Because it seems to me there have been repeated statements to the effect that "making money off this at all simply ruins it" and I have repeatedly tried to say "Okay, I get that this particular way of making money off it has some problems, but the expectation that people should simply provide free content -- ie work for free -- has other problems that I think are bigger concerns."
posted by Michele in California at 10:39 AM on September 11, 2014
Then we seem to have gotten our wires crossed. Because it seems to me there have been repeated statements to the effect that "making money off this at all simply ruins it" and I have repeatedly tried to say "Okay, I get that this particular way of making money off it has some problems, but the expectation that people should simply provide free content -- ie work for free -- has other problems that I think are bigger concerns."
posted by Michele in California at 10:39 AM on September 11, 2014
Can you tell me where you think I said that? Because I actually think I pretty clearly laid out why I think there's a specific problem with a model where you're funding your site by providing links embedded in the posts to buy the stuff you're blogging about.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:49 AM on September 11, 2014
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:49 AM on September 11, 2014
I never said you specifically said that. This isn't a private conversation. I wasn't replying to you in specific in writing out my thoughts. I wasn't necessarily replying to anyone in specific in my long comment, above. As I said, it is a problem space I have thought a lot about. I thought I spelled out pretty clearly why it hits a nerve for me in particular and why I think it is probably a gendered issue, though I can't prove that, and so on.
The first criticism I recalled seeing was from mathowie, who didn't specifically talk about monetization per se but said:
But free clothes is a kind of compensation, even if it isn't money per se, and matt is saying it causes them to be tainted and biased because of how they are compensated. And part of my point is that if you really want small bloggers keeping their independent voice because you value that and want to see more of that online, one problem with you saying "I hate THIS specific way of making money" is that every single way that money can be made seems to be hated by somebody. So at some point, small bloggers either become bitter, because they keep trying to be all high minded and are getting nothing back, or they become "sell-outs." Over the years, I have read and participated in a lot of discussions about monetizing online content or particular forums or the like and I mostly hear that making money at all is some kind of evil thing, not that "well, donations are the way to go" or something like that.
So I don't quite understand why you feel my remarks are specifically about something you said. Because I don't think I indicated it was -- until I replied in specific to your last comment precisely because you replied in specific to my comment. I mean if anyone wants to feel I am talking about them in specific, it should be Sara C. because I quoted part of what she said. So, yeah, I replied in part to something she specifically said but a lot of what I said was not specifically about her remarks. And I don't know why anyone would think it was.posted by Michele in California at 11:06 AM on September 11, 2014
The first criticism I recalled seeing was from mathowie, who didn't specifically talk about monetization per se but said:
That all said, the few borderline fashion blogs I've ever followed (mostly for menswear) were great because they were independent. As soon as the authors started getting invites to events and free clothes to review, the sites always went downhill fast to the point I don't regularly read any of them anymore. I hope everyone in this article is being diligent about trying to keep their independent voice.
But free clothes is a kind of compensation, even if it isn't money per se, and matt is saying it causes them to be tainted and biased because of how they are compensated. And part of my point is that if you really want small bloggers keeping their independent voice because you value that and want to see more of that online, one problem with you saying "I hate THIS specific way of making money" is that every single way that money can be made seems to be hated by somebody. So at some point, small bloggers either become bitter, because they keep trying to be all high minded and are getting nothing back, or they become "sell-outs." Over the years, I have read and participated in a lot of discussions about monetizing online content or particular forums or the like and I mostly hear that making money at all is some kind of evil thing, not that "well, donations are the way to go" or something like that.
So I don't quite understand why you feel my remarks are specifically about something you said. Because I don't think I indicated it was -- until I replied in specific to your last comment precisely because you replied in specific to my comment. I mean if anyone wants to feel I am talking about them in specific, it should be Sara C. because I quoted part of what she said. So, yeah, I replied in part to something she specifically said but a lot of what I said was not specifically about her remarks. And I don't know why anyone would think it was.posted by Michele in California at 11:06 AM on September 11, 2014
So, it sounds like you have baggage, which is understandable.
No, it was just embarrassing to spend weeks busting my ass to get products lined up for my boss to shill on the Today Show, and then they'd come in and I'd be like "Let's go test out [gadget] and see whether this actually works!" Which would net the response, "Why?"
I mean, if you really stand by Rachel Comey's new line of shoes and you're happy to have them as a sponsor, great! I'm happy to click your affiliate links when it's time to go shoe shopping! If your entire blog is an ad, why should I waste my time reading it?
posted by Sara C. at 12:49 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
No, it was just embarrassing to spend weeks busting my ass to get products lined up for my boss to shill on the Today Show, and then they'd come in and I'd be like "Let's go test out [gadget] and see whether this actually works!" Which would net the response, "Why?"
I mean, if you really stand by Rachel Comey's new line of shoes and you're happy to have them as a sponsor, great! I'm happy to click your affiliate links when it's time to go shoe shopping! If your entire blog is an ad, why should I waste my time reading it?
posted by Sara C. at 12:49 PM on September 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
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posted by maggiemaggie at 5:38 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]