This morning the blogging community of India woke up a to a shock. A fellow blogger had committed suicide. And rather a blogger who was doing quite well. 19k followers? Super stylish pictures? Smiling like she had everything she wanted, right?
WRONG.
I will say this and I am sure my fellow bloggers will agree- blogging is not easy. A lot of times what you see on our picture perfect Instagram feed is far from the truth. Here’s why-
1. There is constant pressure for the perfect shot
Our picture perfect feed is not that easy to come by. Every single photo we put up is decided after hundreds or sometimes, even thousands of other “perfect shots”. To go through these shots over and over again until your eyes hurt or your mind stops working? It isn’t easy.
2. Too much competition
Yes, every field has competition but blogging can be unfairly abused by those with money to spare. Ever notice a blogger with more than 15k followers getting only a 100 “likes”? Even you get more double taps than that. See where I am getting at? Fake followers. Yes, that is something that grinds us down everyday. Let’s face it, the temptation is too much.
Then of course, there are those who aren’t actually bloggers but write the same on their profile anyway and just post pretty pictures. I am sorry, hun, but that is not blogging. Blogging requires much more effort than just pouting and clicking selfies.
3. Skill
Blogging is not just one skill. We are 100s of professions moulded into one. So we are our own writers, editors, researchers, PR professionals, makeup artists, graphic designers, website designers, tech support, assistants and in most of the cases, our own photographers and videographers. We do shitloads of work everyday for that one perfect post or that one blogpost that you sometimes ignore, sometimes double tap and rarely comment on.
4. Companies more often than not give us a raw end of the deal
Unless you are some top notch blogger with half a million followers on Instagram or Youtube, brands don’t give a shit about you. All they do is “barter” with us. They send us a product and we review it for them and bring it to you. Bloggers don’t get paid enough. Why? Because there is always another person who will do it for free. That’s how tough it is.
Don’t get me wrong, there is money to make out there. And some brands always pay you nicely for your efforts. But sadly, most don’t. And it gets really difficult to do that when you are competing with “fake followers” and what not.
5. Google Adsense, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube hates small content creators (Read us)
With so many “bloggers and influencers” cropping up everyday, our main tool- social media hates us. Algorithms keep changing everyday. And every time it changes, it adversely affects small content creators. Facebook wants us to spend truckloads of money to reach the people who have liked our page, let alone others. Instagram wants you to get all engagement (i.e. likes) within the first hour of posting itself if you want to make it to the explore page, or whatever new algorithm there is now. Youtube wants you to have a 1000 (!) subcribers and 4000+ minutes of watch hours in one year BEFORE you can start making money out of it.
And Google Adsense won’t pay you until you make a 100$ which isn’t very easy if you take all of these factors mentioned above into account.
6. Finally, our followers just don’t care about us
Sadly, this is the truth and it hurts. How many followers actually take out the time to read what we have to say? Out of my 7.5k follolwers on Instagram, 2k on Facebook and another 2-3k from rest of the social media platforms, how many actually make it here to the blog? Not even half. And how many care to leave a comment? One or maybe two, in a month or two.
I don’t know what is left there to say. We are not celebrities so we don’t rep a brand because we are being paid to do so. We always try to tell you the truth, help you make better decisions. So why won’t you with your little support help us keep helping you?
-Mrinaal
Realy Tough job but keep it up.
How does this article relate to suicide ? Were less number of likes responsible for the death or not getting paid handsomely ?
Ok. I agree with your problems, they might be there. But why did the blogger commit suicide ??
Hardik, I am not sure where you are going with this. The article relates to blogging and what bloggers go through and what causes depression in them (which is the reason she committed suicide- depression).
I can relate with you . It’s very hard.
Each word here makes a lot of sense ! Relatable much
Thank you, Bhavya!