While editing my resume this week, I decided to add a new portion to my experience. I’ve been debating for some time now whether or not I wanted to include Yow Yow on my resume mainly because I knew that once it was on there – everything would be laid out on the table. I was concerned that I would have to censor many of my posts and that wasn’t something that I was willing to compromise. It’s also weird to write “founder, blogger” next to it. It’s weird. I’m sure that I decided to write it on my resume though because in the long run this experience would help me in some way obtain the things that I may need or hope to achieve.

When I was sixteen, I read a handful of blogs. Fashionista, Glamchic, Sartorialist and Facehunter are just a few that I can remember off the top of my head. Then when I started my own, it seemed like the number of blogs I was reading were multiplying by the second. Everyone and their mother had a blog and their brother, their sister etc. Seriously – I read two blogs one run by the daughter and one by the mother. The process of creating one became so easy that everyone thought that they could blog, but it’s not as simple as that. I mean, the average life span of a blog is a month. You think you’re blogging for fun or something like that until it becomes a job and for successful bloggers – it’s a full-time job. The argument that Fashionista recently brought up  is that the content that bloggers post isn’t as genuine as it once was. And I believe it. When bloggers burst onto the scene, they were gaining attention from corporations, the fashion industry, the music industry – because they saw it as an outlet to promote whatever they were selling. And of course, bloggers eat that stuff up. It drastically changed the way a blogger wrote. I think there was some glamorous stigma attached to the role that the more successful you became at blogging (especially for fashion/street style bloggers) the more free stuff you would get along with the perks. Well, believe it or not, the free stuff comes at a price. Some companies and brands will ask you to mention specific keywords or phrases into your post or ask to see a copy of it before it goes live and before you know it, your writing isn’t your writing anymore.

I’ll admit that early on (not when I first started,) I saw the potential in what Yow Yow could bring. I posted my own outfits in hopes of molding my own blog into what everyone else had so that I could reap those same benefits that the bloggers I admired had received. The thought of changing Yow Yow into a fashion blog so that I could potentially receive Fall Ball dress options has most definitely crossed my mind at some point. It’s embarrassing that I let greed get in the way of this, but it’s a learning experience at the same time. I’m not sure when I made the decision to throw that idea out, but Yow Yow would probably suck a whole lot more if I kept doing that and I’d probably end up resenting it. If I’m gonna write here, I want it to be mine. I want it to be something I’m proud of. Luckily, my experiences with collaborations have been wonderful so far. If I receive free gifts that I am asked to review, I will announce it (cause it’s the law, kind of.) I also only work with companies and brands that I find relevant to Yow Yow. Sorry to the casino cruise ship I turned down last spring. At the end of the day, I’m going to own up to Yow Yow if I take it into an interview with me for a job and continue to do the same thing that I have been doing. I may never get those free vacations or free wardrobes, but at least I’ll know that I was able to keep my integrity throughout this process.

If you’ve got a spare moment, I strongly urge to read Fashionista’s article on the editorial integrity of personal style bloggers.