This outfit post comes with complaints.
I recently heard about Gomi and their "Worst Fashion Blogger Photos" forum. It's just a bunch of photos of normal looking girls paired with comments picking apart their posture, faces, and bodies. I was like "Geez, any one of my photos could be on here!" Like, 4 days later I got a spike in my blog traffic. Can you guess the source?
Someone had linked to a picture of me making a stupid face and started making fun of it because I have yellow teeth. Whatevs, right? I'm posting these photos of me, I won't freak out when someone mocks them. Someone even started hating on a photo of Travis. Make fun of my teeth if you want, but step off my boyfriend!
But what really bothers me about this forum (and those like it) is that it is dedicated solely to making fun of girls for how they look. I hate to throw this term around, but if there was ever an example of internalized misogyny, this is it! How is any girl supposed to have healthy self esteem if when she posts a photo of herself online, a group of her fellow women tears her apart because (and this is a real example) her foot is turned at an awkward angle? C'mon ladies. It's hard enough having to deal with the media's examples of what women should be without a whole community of other girls hating on you for not living up to it.
Everything I'm wearing is thrifted except the brooch.
I wish I had a real ugly face to finish this off with, but I didn't plan ahead!
I hope you all had a great weekend.
GOMI has a no body snark rule, which doesn't always get obeyed by commenters - it's more to do with criticizing hypocrisy/shady blogging, and the fashion itself. For what it's worth, I started following you because I saw your photo there and you looked fun and interesting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, second me on that. That photo on that forum is the whole reason I decided you looked like somebody badass to follow. That's actually happened with a LOT of the Worst Fashion Blogger Forum for me - they link someone who looks pretty seriously cool to me, I roll my eyes at whatever the complaint is, and go follow the person on Bloglovin' ASAP.
DeleteThere are a lot of people who think eccentric = terrible, but honestly wouldn't we all be bored as hell if everyone dressed like the people in InStyle or Vogue? I would be.
I noticed a lot of people came to my defense on there, and that I got a few new followers, which was pretty cool. I don't mean to attack everyone that uses the forum, just the general premise of the thing.
DeleteGOMI is the worst. I first had a spike in traffic from it because they picked up a picture of my friend from one of my holiday posts - we were dressed up as Disney princesses doing joke poses. She was Tiana from Princess and the Frog, so pretending to be a frog. The stupid thing is that they see these pictures and don't read the post then snark on them. So they all saw this picture out of context, thought she was the blogger and mocked her because she clearly thought that this post was awesome and flattering...or not, if they had read the post! I later had one of me posted wearing a blouse that was slightly see through under which I had worn a bra that didn't fit right. If they had read the post, they would know that I'd done that deliberately because I am BIG on bras not fitting correctly, and when I'd been sent one to review that didn't fit, I wanted to show this, but not with no shirt on. But no, they then all got on the fact that I didn't know how to choose my underwear properly, despite the fact that I am probably waaay more educated than every single one of them at that, having done a survey and a study on it. GAH! Oh, and then they said that as a '40 year old woman' I shouldn't be wearing clothes like that...I am 22.
ReplyDeleteSooo, basically they are awful people. I am terrified of the next thing they'll decide to dig up on me because I have some reaaally bad photos back in my archives, but I don't care they're bad and I'm not about to delete them just so that they can't find them.
Sorry for the massive rant, I just know how bad it feels!! I'm just glad I'm not one of the ones with a whole thread on there :(
I'm so sorry! If I ever notice traffic from there again, I think I'd rather not know what they're saying, haha.
DeleteNever heard of GOMI before but that is absolutely ridiculous. For the record, your funny faces are awesome. Just because you don't airbrush every outfit photo to magazine standards doesn't mean you aren't a wonderful fashion blogger or beautiful person. Ugh, I cannot believe that's a thing.
ReplyDeleteNot all of us can look like models! I think the point of personal style blogs like mine is to show your personality and make friends, not look perfect.
Deleteah, i had to comment when i saw you taking about gomi on the link to this post. i discovered this forum earlier in the year because i was drawing a lot of traffic from it as well, which lead me to discover this thread about my blog. it ranged from calling me a mom blogger (which i was also on some mom blogger post), only getting press because i know people who get me it, and copying my tattoos from another blogger. so, i'm definitely not a mom, i don't know how anyone could know who i know, and i pretty much got all of my tattoos when i turned 18 (and blogging was not as mainstream them.. plus none of the blogs i would read really even had tattoos). the whole concept of this site was so strange to me.
ReplyDeletei'm really glad you posted about this, because this site completely blew my mind. i know that when you put yourself on the internet in any way, there are bound to be things like this come up. but, a whole website dedicated to saying random things about people we actually don't know?! i mean, people can do what they please with their free time, but you just have to remember they know nothing of who you actually are and their opinions do not matter. my thread actually made me laugh quite a bit, but what if someone doesn't look at it the way we both did? i really hope to hear less of this website in the future, and maybe the commenters will realize they should contribute their time to something meaningful and stop dwelling on things that don't exist/have no knowledge of.
The anonymity of the internet does some really strange things to people! A lot of the commenters who made fun of me are probably nice people who wouldn't actually say anything like that to my face (because that's rude). I wish people would conduct themselves like they knew the butt of their joke was within earshot.
Deleteugh that is awful! i didnt even know this existed. No wonder people have image issues! Screw em rach! you rock :D
ReplyDeleteOh godddd I know I'm destined to end up on the GOMI forums one day--if I'm not already. I can't believe it took me as long as it did to discover the site, but I only did a few months ago. I tweeted that it was awful and pathetic because I was mostly reading a thread about a favorite blogger of mine where people GO TO TOWN on her--hunting down her photos from her tattoo artist to discuss possible plastic surgery, finding her house online to discuss her mortgage payments...INSANE stuff. I got some defensive, nasty @ replies from GOMIers which made me like "oh shit, they're gonna post about me any second haha". It's hilariously ironic how defensive GOMIers get when you judge them...
ReplyDeleteAfter hanging around GOMI a bit more, I do think some of it is valuable critique--big time bloggers need to remember why people followed them in the first place and I'm sorry, if you're a fashion/lifestyle blogger who's suddenly hawking free wine and fucking tampons, you deserve a little critique. Just to remind you what your readers are really thinking. If you're making money off these people, you need to value your integrity.
I'm sorry you got mentioned. :/ If you were critiqued for your looks or style, you're probably doing it right tbh. I almost always love every blogger who gets ripped for being ugly or having ~crazy~ style. Sorry, I don't follow bloggers who dress like JCrew models. BORING! I'd just look through a catalog or watch What Not To Wear if I wanted boring, safe, "flattering" style. :P You do you, gurl! You're fab. <3