”Why Does Everyone Look The Same?”
This is one of the subtitles of Graces latest blogpost. Why am I borrowing it? I hear you wonder. Well, because she is annoyingly right in her question.
This is in regards to the bloggers blog awards shot list being announced this week and the lack of diversity in them can’t be ignored.
We can all do our bit here to shine light on the problem that so openly stared back at us. I won’t try to rewrite Graces text because she put it out good enough for everyone to understand the gist of this situation. I will however give you a small sample of how this affected me once.
*If you would like to read Graces blogpost you can find a link to it at the end of this text.*
Ten whole years ago I started a fashion and design blog. I wrote about different design and fashion houses, how they evolved, and how their style is a trademark for each individual designer. I wrote about clothing and furniture and jewelry too. The aspects of creating a brand and how to evolve it was what I wanted to write about. I soon noticed that the bigest hits and comments came whenever I wrote about fashion. So I slowly started to focus primarily on fashion, clothing and style. And slowly and steadily the blog was growing. I got people inviting me for fashion events in China, Spain and Germany. I had to decline them all because I had no income at the time that would allow me to drop my work for a few days and enjoy these events. What I regret more however is the behavior I encountered from agents in Sweden. I live in Sweden if you did not know, and at the time of me having said blog I lived in Stockholm.
When I realized that there was a potential for my blog to grow so much as to have event planers and companies reaching out to me I looked into pr and agency firms that at this time were starting to reach out and cater for bloggers. As a blogger the business beyond gathering content and posting it was beyond my knowledge back then and I wanted to look into getting the appropriate help for this. However every single one that got back to me said basically the same thing. ”They didn’t know what category to place me in and market me as” and when I replied fashion, their answer was that they already had fashion bloggers and I was writing differently from them and they did not believe they had the right people to help me.
My best friend Lina and mine arm placed side by side.
”I was writing differently”? each blogger should have their own voice. That I am a firm believer of. Don’t copy your content. If you write about similar or even the same thing, do it in a way that sets you appart from the rest. And now these agencies told me that I was different. Surely they should be wanted that? What point is it to work with yet another blogger that is the mimic of the others. In hindsight I realize that that is actually what they all wanted! One assistant had the decency to take me for a business fika to talk. It was not different from the other answers but she was kind enough to meet me in person and tell me that what she understood as being the problem was that they didn’t know what to do with me. Not because my content wasn’t good enough but because I did not fit their mold of a 20yr old Swedish woman and how could they sell that? The agency didn’t believe there to be a audience big enough for someone like me and they didn’t want to take the risk.
Not until she told me that did I realize that this was why everyone else had turned me down too. I did not fit their preconceived mold. What the - is that suppose to mean in 2010? I was too shocked at the time to do much about it. Not only that, I was not born with a quick business brain and at 22 I did not have the knowhow to get in touch with those agencies and set my point of view straight to their faces in this matter.
But I was confused, I was sad and angry - frustrated that all this time I spend on blogging, because it does take an enormous amount of time, not only on the content but to write and edit and the image layout and post at the right time and all that, was not really leading anywhere any longer because those who held the market did not find me interesting enough to make a place for me. I should have made a fuzz, I should have written names and companies out in black and white and I could and would have acted very much like a vindictive child and not really gotten anywhere with it anyway! But at times I wonder, if I back then would have highlighted what had happened to me, would it have made a difference? Would I have seen more diversity in the bloggs of today? As I wrote before, seven years later I realize that the sweet mainstream young white woman is what they wanted and still what they want it seems. Back then I kept my blog for two more years but it had reached it’s limit of all I could do to boost it and I was not feeling as invested as before. I had grown tired so one day I just decided it was done. I erased every trace of it that I could. I had grown too frustrated in doing something that I enjoyed when I just felt like I was trampling water - not getting anywhere.
Life took me to other places and different works and meetings with new and exciting people. All the while YouTube was growing.
I started a YouTube channel this past december. It’s fun. A small scale thing that I try to get done whenever I have the time to set up my camera and film something. It’s different from a blog. Sure, preparation and content all takes time here too but I am for the first time sharing me. My stuff, not highlighting others work. It’s different and sure I would love to work more with the design/fashion side of things but that requires contacts that I do not have and that also requires a financial situation that I too lack. But I am enjoying it. And a few months ago I decided to create a blog on the side of youtubing. The blogging world has changed tremendously since I left it. Just choosing where to have my blog was a knot that took me weeks to undo. Then I started slowly with placing my youtube content and Instagram feed into the blog. But what was I suppose to write about? Last weeks post was one that just landed on me and it felt easy once I knew the subject. This week I was dragging myself, all the time pushing the deadline for this weeks blog post. Then yesterday I read Graces blog, I looked at the twitter conversations that had been taking place and I genuinely decided what to write as I realized that here we are again. I’m not going to build my blog as I did back then, I don’t have the time to follow each fashion house as closely as I did ten years ago, but I am definitely making sure that I stay active this time around. Visible. Sure I still don’t fit ”their” mold of a blogger, I just need to do a quick search on Google to see that the Swedish and European bloggers still fall into that same category as they did in 2010. Nothing bad with that, I follow a few of them and I genuinely like them, they deserve their place. However, do they deserve it more then others just based on them fitting a mainstream notion of what is the norm? And around the world it looks pretty similar too! It’s a disgrace. And the agencies who work with these bloggers and search the internet to find new ones should feel a bigger shame than the one I know they don’t.
If the representation always looks the same, if all we see are young, white, 20 something women as being the representatives for every single woman on this planet then brands and companies will only create products that fit in to their daily life. And everyone outside that mold will never really be given their true right to exist to their fullest self.
I will never fit that mold even if I tried. Not by nature nor by design. Let’s do this: It would be a lie to say that your looks isn’t the first thing someone notices when looking at you on a blog, YouTube channel or in person. At first glance many people tend to believe I’m Asian, I’ve never minded that however I’m Latina, from Chile to be more precise. But I grew up in Sweden and going back to my ancestors I am Scottish and Italian, and Spanish and Native American and probably Asian and African too. If I go by my ancestors family names then I have jews, muslims, christians, pagan and native american roots. I have big dark brown eyes. A defined nose that is either Mapuche or Scottish (if not a mix of both). My skin is darker than light but lighter than dark. I’m 1.73m. I have wide shoulders and hips with a smaller waist. I have black hair with red (dyed) ends. My upper arms are thick and long sleeved shirts are always to short for my arms. I have a stern looking resting face but have a positive disposition and a genuine love of laughter (and books). I dress more modestly then not and I have six piercings in one ear and two in the other. I am as Swedish as all my white friends I grew up with. And yet if you look at me I am different from them by nature. I don’t mind that some of you see me as a foreigner. I have luckily (how this is in any way lucky is just another thing that shows us how wrong peoples perception of acceptance and norm is) only ever directly face to face encountered discrimination for my born looks four times in my life (counting the above experience together as one). When I was a teenager I encountered more negativity from people my own age on my looks but that was based on my style and makeup so it is a difference. Still pathetic to evaluate someone based ont their looks but one I create (style) the other I am born into. Yet I go into beauty shops and can’t find foundations dark enough for me. I can’t fit my jeans over my hips unless I go up in size but then they will be loose at the waist? I understand that ready to wear fashion is made after specific guidelines but why can’t those guidelines vary more? And why can’t brands make skin toned products that are for people of all colour too? I’m tired of always seeing those 10 shades of beige.
I love the way I look. I like that my features are a huge mix from all over this world but that does not mean I should be excluded form the conversation as it where. I do still live on this planet with all the others, and believe you me, white is not the only colour that should be catered for. This time, I’m here to stay. I’ll proudly do my bit to be visible, even if that means being a torn in the eye for some because the other choice is not an option any longer. It’s been ten years and nothing has changed in the blogging world. I will do my bit to make sure that when the next generation grows up they get to see more than a pale monochrome woman talking about fashion, design, arts and beauty in this industry.
Thanks so very much for reading this text. I’ll write to you again next week.
I encourage you all to read Graces blogpost if you haven’t already done so, through the link here:
http://www.graciefrancesca.com/2017/08/lack-diversity-blogging.html
Grace also posted this list which I hope she won’t mind that I share with you:
The question that I get asked time and time again is 'what can we do?' and my honest answer is 'I don't know'. The lack of diversity within blogging is a reflection of the world we live in. That, and the lack of appreciation/respect/understanding of POC and very little intersectional feminism understood and recognised by our white feminist sisters. These are all societal issues which have to change via movements, governments and the very system racism was born from. However, as a blogging community we can all do our bit to improve on the issues we are face re diversity.
Call out brands who don't produce makeup for POC
Call out brands who don't use POC in campaigns
Support your fellow bloggers when they are tweeting about their experiences as a POC
Do not disregard a POC feelings and experiences
Ask questions to POC when you feel like you need educating or you don't understand something that relates to them
Seek out content created by POC
Follow POC who actively talk about racism and prejudice
Read books on intersectional feminism
Recognise your white privilege
Recognise your light skin privilege
Celebrate diverse voices and opinions
Go to events that discuss the lack of representation
Read posts like this to educate yourself
Collaborate with more POC
Share content from your favourite POC
In anything you do, be inclusive of marginalised people (the less abled, fatter bodies etc)
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