Oh, what a fun day I've had on Facebook. Trolls are like the number 19 bus: You wait forever for one, then three come along at once. Oh, the joys of social media...!
Once again the ugly side of social media has reared its ugly head in my part of the blogosphere. On a day when everyone is already being vile enough following yesterday's election results (my goodness I got sick of people telling me who to vote for - tell me to vote, yes, just don't tell me who to vote
for, thank you very much), you'd think people would perhaps wind their necks in a bit. Or maybe it got them worked up enough to go out and do a spot of trolling. Who knows.
So what happened?
On my Facebook page I posted a picture of an outfit. Nothing too strange about that - I even gushed about how much I "ADORED" the outfit (because, well, I did). I even wrote it in caps, so I was effectively shouting it.
What followed was a stream of somewhat vile, vitriolic and downright rude comments from one particular commenter - a woman, no less. (Men often think it's funny to be vile, they just get blocked immediately.) Before I'd even got to the post and reply to anything, her comments went forth one after the other like this:
"Trousers are shockingly bad"
"I'm a rude girl haha"
"If u want to look like a twat"
"Clothes are shit anyway"
Another commenter thought she'd chip in with a put down: "Meh...doesn't do much for me." No, not that bad, but she'd picked the wrong blogger on the wrong day to write something so unnecessarily pointless and negative.
On another page (yes, this was all today), someone shared a Facebook (outfit) post of mine with the caption:
"I usually like her outfits, but here is what I think about this one... no. It's right up with the torn/shredded jean thing. no. [sic] What are your thoughts? Please share!"
... I was wearing dungarees. Big deal. SO controversial. I've worn dungarees countless times, in real life and on the blog.
The point they're missing
What all of these trolls don't realise is that I SIMPLY DO NOT CARE WHAT OTHER WOMEN THINK OF WHAT I WEAR. I'm not 25, I'm 45. I'm old enough to know what I do like wearing and don't like wearing. And I've long since passed the point of worrying what others think of me, or what I wear. (
Dressing without the fear of "What will others think...?" is
incredibly liberating.)
In fact I'm not sure I ever really did care, to be honest.
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GUESS WHAT? I GO OUT INTO PUBLIC WEARING CLOTHES. THAT'S A PUBLIC SPACE. BUT I SHOULDN'T EXPECT TOTAL STRANGERS TO COME UP TO ME AND TELL ME THAT I "LOOK LIKE A TWAT" THERE EITHER.
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On my blog and social platforms I
never invite comments along the lines of "What do you think of my outfit?" - I may ask people if they love dungarees yes or no, for example, but I never invite critiques of what I'm wearing, because guess what?
I don't care what people think.
But when will some people realise that I'm not putting my outfits up for scrutiny? They seem to think that the point of all style blogs is to get other women to tell them what they think of their outfits because, you know,
You should expect it if you're posting pictures of yourself on the internet.
Guess what else? I go out into public wearing clothes. That's a public space. But I shouldn't expect total strangers to come up to me and tell me that I "look like a twat" there either.
And as for "here is what I think about this one... no" - what exactly is the point of asking women to critique each other this way? All that does is give women permission to tear each other down. EVEN IF I read a post where someone asked if she looks good or should be wearing X or anything else I still wouldn't go on there and say ANYTHING unless I had something positive to say. But as for the page that shared my picture and asked the question, then shame on that person for giving women the green light to behave towards each other this way.
It needs to stop.
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I POST MY OUTFITS ONLINE TO ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO BE FEARLESS. TO OWN WHAT THEY WEAR. TO WEAR WHAT THEY WANT. TO STOP WORRYING ABOUT PLEASING OTHERS. TO EXPERIMENT. TO TALK POSITIVELY TO ONE ANOTHER.
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I'm not after compliments
Another thing that these trolls seem to think is that I'm upset because they didn't like my outfit. (Yeah, boo flippin hoo.) I'm a little more grown up and tough than that. I've had FAR worse said to me, and those things didn't upset me that much. The mere fact that I started the hashtag
#iwillwearwhatilike says volumes about what I think about others' opinions of what I wear.
No, I post my outfits online to encourage women to be fearless. To OWN what they wear. To wear what they want. To stop worrying about pleasing others. To experiment. To talk positively to one another because you know what? Not everyone will like what I wear. That's fine. But someone else might, and by being fearless and wearing what I want it shows other women that it's okay to do that, too. If I get compliments and people actually like the outfits, then that's just a bonus for me personally, of course it's nice to get compliments - but that's not the point of my blog.
But to rip into someone and say their clothes are sh*t and that they look like a twat? TOTALLY unacceptable.
Not to me. Not to another blogger. Not to your best friend. Not to your sister. Not to a stranger in the street. Not to a stranger online.
