Why fashion and beauty bloggers deserve our respect

Recently, I decided to embark on a bit of “livin’ la vida blogger” action, to see what all the fuss was about when it comes to fashion, beauty, Instagram and influencerness in general

It initially started out as a way to better understand an important aspect of the industry in which I work (fashion and retail marketing) but I soon found myself dreaming about whether I could become the next big thing myself, like I used to do with X Factor.

Addictive and ego-inflating it most definitely is.

Easy and 100 per cent enjoyable it most definitely isn’t.

My research has lead me to discover that being an influencer – especially a half-decent one who can measure success not only in terms of following but also monetary gain – is much harder than it looks.

Not only have you got to spend ages writing, producing, photographing, videoing and uploading all your super amaze balls content across several different channels, you’ve also got to dedicate a huge amount of time communicating with your followers, interacting with people you don’t know and generally nurturing your fanbase, or ‘managing your community for maximum ROI’ as we say in the trade.

If you fancy giving it a go yourself, below are a few musings that might help. But be warned: it will start to take over your life.

Setting the scene – all manner of messy crap in the background when you’re taking photos looks sloppy and unprofessional. Keeping the room tidy and ‘on brand’ is really difficult, as too is making sure you angle the camera in such a clever way you manage to conceal any junk on top of your wardrobe or rogue naff artwork adorning your walls.

Getting some perspective – we’ve all seen unflattering photos of people that do them absolutely no justice at all, so at least when you’re the one in charge of the shutter you’re in full control of your own image, not just in terms of the shots you take but also what you make public. But getting the perspective right on selfie mode, or when taking a picture using a mirror, is hugely challenging and often creates a bog-eye effect and weirdy-looking wrists. I’ve yet to discover how to avoid this, in spite of many ‘stare into the middle-distance and try to hold the phone in a natural way’ attempts.

Strike a pose – if you’ve never noticed you’ve got odd ankles or freakishly pointy elbows, you will now. And as for creating the right shape and silhouette, without looking like an absolute idiot, don’t even get me started. How on earth people manage to contort themselves with such ease and grace is beyond me. It must be witchcraft.

Face up to reality – even when you’re doing a full-length shot rather than a close-up, you’ll probably still end up gurning. There’s just too much to think about all at once and the concentration shows.

Light the way – professional snappers know all about this trick of the trade, but we mere mortals are often at a loss as to why our eye bags look so huge or our face looks particularly fat. Yet lighting is one of the hardest things to get right and control, especially if you don’t have a professional set-up. You can of course buy various gadgets and tech to mitigate against such disaster, but this inevitably leads to dangerously fraught and obsessive Amazon shopping sessions, which is a truly perilous endeavour and one best avoided at all costs.

Filters and other cheats – as well as trying to get the actual shot itself right without getting RSI, there’s the whole issue of post-production, too. Choosing the best app and filter to make your gurning, contorted, awkward, badly-lit attempts at looking half human while wearing clothes is a whole other befuddling experience in itself. Plus, if you go too far, you end up looking like an alien or as though you’re in some kind of weird parallel universe that has a very odd and otherworldly feel.

 

This is why I wholeheartedly believe we should respect successful bloggers as much as we do people in other professions. All too often we hold influencers in contempt, ridiculing them for having an easy ride of things as though their lives are an absolute doddle, when in fact what they do is really tricky.

Yes, those at the top of their game invariably have a team around them (including an agent, publicist, photographer and quite possibly a cleaner) and no longer need to keep their bedroom free of background junk, but just because they enjoy what they do and make it look good to others doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be admired.

We do the same thing to singers and musicians. Few of us know from personal experience how scary, tiring and daunting it is to have to perform hundreds of gigs in front of gazillions of people. It involves talent, personality, strength, commitment and a knack-load of very hard work.

So let’s give the ‘lucky’ people of this world a break. After all, if it were that easy to make a living from it, we’d all be doing it – right?