Perceived fakeness of curated style blogs drove some bloggers to quit

Evidence

Olivia attributed her decision to abandon her blog to a series of factors: intensifying demands on her time, a nagging sense of discomfort about the necessity to put herself out there, and a feeling that the genre of personal style blogging had lost its distinctive qualities. She invoked the much-lauded ideal of “authenticity” when discussing the latter: [On their blogs, I] see girls running around San Francisco at 11 am wearing tutus and glitter shoes, and it’s ridiculous! … These girls are trying to live out their fantasies by creating these worlds and it just seems so fake … these people are creating these perceptions of themselves that they want people to see them. Obviously, my life is not all dressing up in designer clothes, and going out to eat for every meal and drinking wine every night, and going to Paris, that’s what these girls are showing you and you think that [lifestyle is] attainable in a sense. I think that you’re given a false illusion. — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, 298

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Successful bloggers can become unwitting advertisers posing as authentic people — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 300; The imprecision of ‘authenticity’ conceals class hierarchies in aspirational labor — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 357