Billboards for Brands

I've been deep in thought the past few days... Partly over personal things in my life, and mainly over my blog and the blogging industry. The blogging industry - isn't it crazy we can call it that, an industry? When The New York Times article was published, Who Am I Wearing? Funny You Should Ask, I felt a sense of pride. Look at us, being acknowledged by The Times as major influencers, style beacons, and billboards for brands. I then went on to my daily blog reading and found myself captivated by Leandra's words in her most recent post An Afterthought. In it, the Man Repeller addressed the effect of street style and street style photographers on fashion goers. Do we get dressed for ourselves or the people who are watching us? A question that has always been present, but just recently brought to surface with the evident authority bloggers have on consumers and press. "Street style isn't street-centric anymore, it's a string of calculated outfitting chronicles that every so ofter register somewhat contrived." I like this statement, and hate it because it's mostly true. Reading on to the comment portion of this post, I found something interesting by a girl named Hannah. She commented that it seemed like we were challenging the ideology of "pics or it didn't happen," which is really something that started with the growth of Facebook (in my opinion). I'd like to think this is partly due to something I myself suffer from, FOMO (fear of missing out). But let's call this one FOOMO (fear of others missing out). It's the fear of others missing out on our outfits, our great style, and our potential fame. This is really something we (and I mean I) must get over before it saturates the blogging industry and causes something so organic to become even more of a "business" than it already is. "We love fashion because it provoke an emotion without our knowing, but when you contrive that emotion, the fashion doesn't matter anymore. Being known matters." Let's keep it real guys.