In 2013, the two can be quite similar. There’s bloggers who have regular writing jobs with newspapers and magazines. Award-winning journalists maintain personal blogs. Some blogs have a team of writers and editors. Some publications crank out content so quickly they don’t get the attention and editing they really need.
I started blogging in 2005, and though I have updated Wardrobe Oxygen over the years, I still see myself as an old-school blogger. I write what comes to mind while I condition my hair or drive to work. I often write frantically during a lunch hour, publish, and then later edit out the glaring typos or the errors my readers note. I write for a message, not a Pulitzer. I don’t want anyone to confuse Wardrobe Oxygen for a magazine or a newspaper or a glossy online publication. The content may have a few rough edges, but it’s original, it’s mine, and it’s from my heart.
I don’t have an editor. Sure, sometimes I send posts I think may seem controversial to my sister or closest friends for a sanity check, but 99.9% of the posts that go up here are reviewed only by moi.
I don’t have a copy writer. I do the research myself, create my own graphics, try to write in a manner that isn’t robotic or redundant, is infused with my personality without being too casual.
One of my most popular posts has a mega typo in the hyperlink because throughout the entire post I misused a word a dozen times. I was inspired by a moment, came home and wrote furiously on my husband’s laptop and hit PUBLISH. The next day, I realized I wrote about self-depreciating comments when I meant self-deprecating. A reader kindly informed me of my error, I thanked her, updated the post.
I’m not offended when you let me know I make an error. Let me know when I used depreciating instead of deprecating, or when I said an image was of Mia Farrow when it was actually Jean Seberg. Giving me the heads up educates me, and improves the blog experience for fellow readers. We bloggers will make mistakes, we’re not perfect, and we rarely have someone to edit and provide feedback on our content.
I must say, I have never confused depreciating for deprecating since that comment. Thanks to you readers, I will never again confuse median and average, will always know the difference between Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, and of course Mia Farrow and Jean Seberg.
However, when you call me stupid for misusing a word or phrase, having a grammatical error, or mis-labeling a celebrity’s photo, you’re not helping anyone. You look like an asshole, and you end up having me focus on your asshole-ness instead of learning from you. This is not the New York Times, this is a blog written by a woman who has a family and a full-time non-blog job. A woman who feels as though she writes relatively well, but with her limited time would rather write freely than obsess over whether every paragraph is structurally perfect.
Now, if you find issue with the grammar on a professional site, by all means call them out. But if you choose to read blogs, love them for their occasional human imperfection.
Sincerely,
Alison
P.S. I wrote this in fewer than ten minutes, so I KNOW there will be errors (including two in this P.S. that I have already fixed post-publishing!). Bring it on people, bring it on!
