When I think of blogs, I think of my own personal blog Black Attire Aficionado, The Blonde Salad, The Finance Bar, Business Insider, Buzzfeed, Elite Daily, J. Crew Blog are just some of the ones that come to mind. The blogs above are diverse in many ways, I never thought of them as a discourse community until now. What these blogs hope to achieve is to bring users together to engage in variety of topics and give users a chance to engage in discussions and connect through doing so. As a blogger myself, I realized lately I’ve failed in the consistency department. I have been extremely busy over the past four months and have not had time to contribute to my blog that I love so much. In chapter 7 of the Carroll textbook, he creates a list of the “Ten Steps to Better Blogging,” it goes as follows, write everyday, schedule your blogging time, be authentic, carve our a niche, be curious and take lots of notes, engage, learn the software, promote yourself, breakup the text and be ethical. The list is sort of the undisputed rules of successful blogging. Since many of your materials exist online it is essential to practice these rules. I think if each of us can practice and perfect these rules, we will be very successful in our careers. 

During 2009-10 there was a massive rise in fashion blogs— it was unprecedented! Back then fashion bloggers suffered from not being seen as an authentic source or credible source for information. It was seen as a “hobby” to take photos of your outfit, write silly posts about trends. In the infancy phase of fashion blogging, many bloggers like The Bryan Boy (the forefather of fashion blogging) were not taken serious. Many fashion houses and photographs discredit as an enterprise. Fast forward to today, fashion designers are begging bloggers to promote their brands. The fashion designers send bloggers free clothes/accessories, invitations to shows, getaway trips, you name it they do it. Additionally in on page 197 (Carroll), he poses the question is there a major difference between journalist and bloggers? Is one not the other and vice versa? Just like the fashion bloggers who have changed fashion due to social media and other technologies, are they less credible? For instance when I take a photo on my iPhone and then edit it and post it to Instagram and I receive likes, am I now a photographer? Is calling myself a photographer and in doing so, does it discredit “professional” photographers? In some ways it makes us equal but I’m sure a few would say that Instagramers have ruined or taken away from the true art of photography, that moment of waiting for a perfect shot whether its been hours or years. . . Maybe everything is becoming to easy in this world. How can any decent work of art be consider a work of art if it is so easy/ accessible now? I think perhaps that is the true challenge for any writer, is to stand out in a sea of look a likes . . .

Maybe for all fields, there will always be a fight for individuality, to be unique, to have a gift unlike anyone else.