Dictionary.com defines purpose as “the reason for which something exists or is done”. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my purpose in blogging. Most of the time, bloggers are expected to find and hold fast to a niche. I’ve never really enjoyed that idea because I’m an interesting human being with many different passions. I love fashion and style. I get excited to read my New York Times Daily Briefing, filled with political and societal news, every dang morning. Science puns are fantastic.
There’s also this secret expectation to work with brands and treat this space like a business. I’m kind of tired of that, too. It would be a lie to say that I don’t like making money from my blog. Truthfully, most of the money that I make gets poured right back into my site maintenance and design. It goes towards hosting fees, new themes, and fun plugins to make the user experience more enjoyable.
I read all the responses to my reader survey and I marinate on them. I engineer most of the questions to help steer me in the right creative/content direction. A lot of my blog posts are written so that I can motivate myself or because I think it’ll help readers. It would be remiss to say that your opinions and requests don’t matter. A major reason why I’m still doing this is because of the people who are still reading my posts.
Reflecting on Your Responses
My favorite question this year was, “Describe Gabby In The City/The Swirl Blog in one word?” The most popular responses were: “fun”, “relatable”, and “aesthetically pleasing”. I’ve been reading a ton of hot takes on the blogging, content creation, and influencer space recently. Most of them are attacks on “instagrammable moments”. As someone who features a lot of these moments on my feeds, I see where they’re all coming from. BUT, I truly don’t think that we’ve ever only followed people because of their access to avocado toast or cute murals. We follow and engage with most people because their content has generated an emotional connection in us.
I’ve thoroughly been enjoying Twitter recently. It’s simply a place where I can put out unfiltered, spicy content and people love it. There’s no visual content here and yet aesthetics are still in full force. I guess my point here is that I’m going to continue to be me on all these platforms. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking 2 extra seconds to get the best angle of my brunch spread. I’m truly funny as heck, so my Twitter renaissance will live on.
So, what is my purpose in blogging?
My purpose here is to share my life in real time: what I’m buying, reading, listening too, annoyed by, and enjoying. I’ll give insight where I can and ask for help when I need it. Truthfully, I don’t want to create an army of people who are identical to me. I’d rather celebrate the intricate fact that we are all so wildly different but can be united, connected, and inspired by similar things.
My purpose is to blog in this space intentionally guided by aesthetics which I’ve always appreciated. *Seriously, I organized TV remotes into a particular pattern at the young age of 5 and yelled at anyone who messed it up*. I will continue to post pretty pictures in pretty places because that’s what I love. I use presets on my photos because when used correctly, they make a photo pop. Quite frankly, I’m tired of this attack on the pursuit of an aesthetically pleasing feed.
Getting rid of Lightroom presets and shaming people for appreciating street art isn’t going to destroy the comparison game. Life cannot be distilled down into a grid. It is a million tiny instances that are happy, sad, beautiful, ugly, scary, and surreal. I don’t owe social media my intimate thoughts, emotions, and moments. It is my choice to decide what I want to share and when. Someone shouldn’t have to prove to you that they are a human being with insecurities and bad days. More importantly, a poorly lit selfie isn’t telling me anything other than the person in it doesn’t know how to find their light.
keep on keepin’ on,
