Fashion Blogs are Dying

Fashion blogs are dying.  Take it from the girl who writes one.

Just as there are now famous personalities on YouTube, Instagram and Vine, there were once famous fashion bloggers. There still are - but they are no longer what they used to be. Blogging was at its peak in 2011 and 2012, right when I decided to join the community. Fashion blogs were a dime a dozen, but everyone had dreams of becoming the next Sartorialist, Style Rookie or Cupcakes & Cashmere. We watched bloggers sit front row beside industry elite, and we all secretly wondered whether an influential fashion insider would chance upon our blog and "discover" us. We spent hours commenting on other fashion blogs, blithely leaving our URLs at the bottom of each comment, desperately trying to drive traffic to our sites with "follow for a follow" promises (although between you and me, I hated playing that game and I never actually followed anyone).

But as much as fashion blogging was sometimes a shallow system, there was a community. I still remember the people whose blogs I would visit everyday, and who would visit mine in return. I remember how we marvelled at our surprisingly similar personalities and opinions, gifted each other with blogging awards, and of course, bonded over our passion for fashion. It was this community that I owed my thanks to for the initial growth and visibility of my blog.

However, the tides changed in the world of social media when platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube showed us the power of having fewer words and more visuals. New talent was being discovered on these platforms, and blogs were suddenly the old mom trying to be hip and cool. Blogging became increasingly self-centered (I remember coming across blogs where people simply posted 10 different full sized photos of themselves in the same outfit), and if you were just going to post photos of OOTDs with two or three lines of text, then you may as well have done it on a site that was actually made for that, such as Instagram. Blogging stopped trending, we lost interest, and we moved on. Tavi Gevinson saw the impending shift and knew when to move beyond the blog and into other creative outlets. Any fashion blogger would be lying if they said they still have the same community they once did in their comments section. I recall the days of scrolling through The Sartorialist's hundreds of comments. Nowadays, The Sartorialist clocks in at less than 50 comments per post.  The Sartorialist, people.  At one point probably the most popular of fashion blogs. Even I've seen a noticeable impact on my blog.  In case you were wondering, I'm very much aware I basically have zero comments per post. One if I'm lucky. Two years ago, I received an average of 20-40.

To be fair, the community still exists, but not on the blog itself. The community is now on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so if you want to continue staying relevant, you better be on there too.

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to revisit some of the bloggers I used to know.  Many have stopped blogging, some have deleted their sites, and only a handful remain active. The obvious question is, why am I still here?  And the answer is simple: I love fashion blogging. I imagine some bloggers joined the community hoping to chase fame, while others just as a passing hobby, but I joined as a form of self-expression. I did hope to connect with like-minded individuals, but I've gotten more than I could've ever asked for from this blog: a group of wonderfully supportive friends, an internship, a job, and most importantly of all, happiness. I truly see myself blogging until a ripe old age; no one will care about what I have to say at that point, but that's perfectly fine with me. That's not why I started blogging anyway.

Image Source: Photo1, 2