I had a planned blog posting this week, but something was laying heavy on my mind. First things first, I wanted to give a little bit of background information on how I was turned onto blogging. I hope that's okay, I figured since I have a little bigger audience now that this would be the perfect time to let y'all know how I got started and the sort of pros and cons of it.
I'm pretty sure previously I mentioned all throughout school English and any writing class was always my strong suit. Having social anxiety and always being on the shyer side, it would only make sense that I would have such a strong voice via Social Media. As soon as I graduated within my first semester I started reading more blogs and stumbled upon tumblr. I made my first personal blog and loved it, but I wanted to do what I loved most, writing and graphic design. I kept writing on my personal blog, and I made a new blog for graphics. I made a total of 3 graphic blogs between then and now, but the last one was the one that took off the most. I worked extremely hard with a few lovely ladies, but mostly took on the major load by myself, even with being busy in classes. I took a few breaks of course, I had to eat, and I did take a few vacations, but a majority of the time I had to keep it going if I wanted people to keep requesting. More and more graphic blogs started popping up and before I knew it, everyone was doing graphic requests and making new graphic blogs. Believe it or not, the competition isn't why I stopped doing graphic requests for free. This brings me to what I have to say.
Cons that I have had to deal with while blogging + making graphics for free:
- Not just the designers of these blogs themselves, but many people who had Facebook pages were copying each other and saving graphics, then taking it into Microsoft paint and writing peoples names on them as "requests". Originality was very hard to find or to accomplish because every time someone would make something new and fresh, someone else used it, or someone would take someone else's work and use it as their own, and that's not how we should be respect other peoples property. Their work should be respected.
- When I would confront people about it who were guilty doing such things, honestly I could be so sweet with soft tone and everything and it wouldn't matter I have been blocked from various Instagram's, Facebook pages, just for asking if they could put credit on my work. (hence why there will most likely be copyright on everything..sorry) and I can't tell you how frustrating it is that people don't respect you enough to at least be nice and copy-paste the URL under the photo they take. I completely understand how musicians feel about their music just by dealing with this, people think it's no big deal, but it should be.
- I did graphics for free because I wasn't at the stage where I could charge much anyway, I didn't want to start my own business, or Etsy shop while in school there would've been double the pressure. Just like my photographs, I didn't want to put a price on them till I graduated. A lot of people will complain about photographer prices, but camera's, lens', and all other equipment costs. Trust me, they deserve the price they ask for, if they deliver quality work.
- Words matter, especially if they are your own and make a great deal to you. So when mine was taken from me as far as my writing goes, it hurt. Even as something as simple as an about me or a quote, someone is still the artist of those words. To take them without permission is kind of like stealing words from someone else's essay or a book a famous author wrote and putting it in your paper without citing it. We should have this programmed in our brains by the amount of times we heard this growing up in school, plagiarizing is not tolerated in the school system, so it shouldn't be tolerated in real life either. Cite it. Cite it. Cite it.
Pros that I have had to deal with while blogging + making graphics for free:
- I have had an outlet - I am finally at my comfort zone where I can share my beliefs, outlooks, and opinions, even though not everyone will agree, it's still nice to be able to have a voice as a young woman.
- I have 'met' so many awesome people just by making graphics and it getting so big, social media doesn't always have to be seen in a bad light, sometimes it gets you where you want to go as far as a blogger. So far so good.
- I am my own boss. If I want to blog Friday, I get to blog friday, if I want to do a giveaway, I will be able to do a giveaway. I am happy to be able to work on my own schedule.
- Even though I'm usually nail biting my way through math class on a daily basis, I get to be creative here, and this counts as my 'me time' . If you're not careful blog postings can become more like a chore instead of you enjoying it, but I don't feel that way, sometimes I don't always get to post because school is my number one priority, but I am trying to always keep an extra post at hand, just incase. I genuinelly enjoy sharing my ideas, tips, tricks, opinions, outlooks, and beliefs with y'all. I hope the feeling is mutual. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment