Blogging

One day months leading up to my high school graduation, one of my closest teachers told me that I should start a blog and get to the point where I could make money from it. He said I should start it right then rather than wait until after college, so my followers could go on the journey with me. The journey of my life, I suppose.  He was adamant about it, and gave me all the reasons as to why this was a good plan. I thought that would be a cool idea, but never thought it was a reachable, obtainable goal. I didn’t start a blog. Well… I have a blog started of my letters home while on a study abroad in New Zealand, but I think I stopped about halfway through because I got too busy. Anyway, I also thought that the people who end up getting thousands of followers, getting sponsors, and making money from their blogs were simply the ‘lucky ones’. And who was to know whether I could be one of those ‘lucky ones’?

As it turns out, it is not because you are a ‘lucky ones’ that your blog becomes successful; it is as much of an art as you choose to make it. There are blogs on blogs about how to be the best blogger you can, how to start a blog, how to monetize your blog, blogging tips, spicing up your blog, and so on. In fact, here is a website listing these types of blogs:

https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30311/10-Amazing-Blogs-About-Blogging-to-Start-Reading-NOW.aspx#sm.00001ey8k0fmeuej2xlgresmbl8z6

And here another excellent article on how to start a blog:

https://www.bloggingbasics101.com/how-do-i-start-a-blog/

I also watched a Ted Talk given by Mena Trott, who they call the ‘founder of the blog revolution’. She explains that there are many of types of blogs out there, but it is the personal stories that interest her. She says, a blog is “a record of who you are, it is your persona… it is about writing things that interest you”.

            Our human minds crave stories. We remember them, we are drawn to them, we want to hear them, and we understand concepts through them that we wouldn’t understand otherwise. We as humans also like to tell our own story.

            So this makes me think again about the advice I got a few years ago to start a blog. If I wanted to truly make something out of it, it would be a lot of work. And if I am to do it, I want to do it right. I hope I can inspire and uplift my readers. I will use it as a creative outlet, and a place to share the stories of my journey.

Ted Talk link: https://www.ted.com/talks/mena_trott_tours_her_blog_world#t-610835

Social Media Change

The impact that social media has created - seen everywhere in the world around us -is too vast to adequately describe.  These changes and influences that have resulted in social media are sometimes a very positive, uplifting, inspiring, and happy. At other times it has resulted in feelings of jealousy, self-doubt & discouragement, and can even be destructive. 

An article written in 2015 talks about how social media has changed the way we communicate and our interaction with others for better and for worse. Some of the positive ways social media has impacted the way we communicate is that we can interact with a large number of people, and quickly. We are able to reach a far wider audience than we would without it. We also have very open freedom of speech that before was only attainable if you were face-to-face with the person you were interacting with. With both of these positive things comes great power. Unfortunately, in many situations, that power is abused and wasted.

The article also talks about how addicted some are to constantly be checking their phones, and would rather do that than engage in a meaningful conversation with a child or spouse. In fact, some people are “completely incapable of carrying on a normal conversation or interaction with people in person because of the dependency of social media”.

            I want to talk about one more point that I think is important to touch on and goes hand in hand with how social media has effected our communication. Social media can bring forth many insecurities. Hailey Devine recently wrote posted a blog post about how we may be taking what is posted on social media too seriously. Because people appear to have these “perfect lives”, viewers can feel frustrated that their lives aren’t going as smoothly as what they are seeing in their feeds. Or, they can feel as though they are being lied to and that the people that are posting are being ‘fake’.

            Hailey’s expresses her dilemma that she wants to be genuine in her posts, but she also loves to create and share her creativity to inspire and uplift – so she wants to do a good job of her posts and make sure they are aesthetically pleasing.

            “It comes down to how we as viewers choose to look at social media”. Hailey reminds her readers that no one is forcing us to follow anyone, and to “keep spaces around you that fill you with inspiration and make you feel uplifted”. Her suggestion for herself and others is to remind yourself to not take social media outlets so seriously, and remember that “for most people, it’s just a highlight reel of a very real and imperfect life”.

Social Media & Communication Article: http://millennialceo.com/social-media-changed-communicate/

Hailey Devine’s blog post: https://www.somewheredevine.com/2017/01/my-imperfect-life.html