Ten Photos: What Is Blogging?

Andrea Mowery

People have questions about blogging.

Who are bloggers? What exactly do they do? Why do they blog? How much do they get paid?

Answers, respectively: Anyone. They write on the internet. Reasons vary. WHO’S GETTING PAID?

Bloggers are normal people. Regular people. People who have something to say and choose to say it on the web. Period.

Sometimes when I tell people that I’m a blogger, they get this dazed look in their eyes, as if blogging is this mysterious profession that is impossible to understand. It isn’t, not really.

But then I do a photo search for “bloggers” and see where all the confusion might be coming from.  So I decided to address the confusion and set the record straight about blogging:

young woman with computer. Blogger

photo via deposit photos

Ah, yes. The common idea that bloggers sit in front of their friendly (and clean!) laptops, effortlessly conveying words and ideas onto the screen like gently whispered breaths. Give this girl a cup of cold coffee, greasy hair, an empty box of Wheat Thins, and a looming self-imposed deadline and you’ve got what I look like before nearly every post goes live.

Symbol of sucess

photo via deposit photos

This is what I feel like after every post is finished, whether a thousand-word essay on the realities of raising teens in society today or a picture-heavy post on the shame of how I haven’t showered in three days.

what bloggers look like 3

photo via deposit photos

You may be thinking that this man is celebrating his latest post gone viral.  The more likely story behind the photo?  “I’m gonna chug this quick so I can get home and finish my post about that time I wore one navy sock and one black sock to work.”

what bloggers look like 4

photo via deposit photos

Totally accurate photo of a blogger’s regular wardrobe. I mostly wear pumps and carry an on-trend clutch holding all my blogging essentials like my tablet, notebook, cellphone, and – oh, who am I kidding? I don’t carry around anything specific for blogging, and I certainly don’t wear pumps while doing it. When I sit down to write I’m either wearing yoga pants from the laundry pile or pajama bottoms. Most of the time those things are one and the same.

eccentric and fashionable people during Milan fashion week 2014

photo via deposit photos

 “I’m disappointed that I only got 13 hits on my colonoscopy post. I poured my soul out on that one.”

Woman in bikini with laptop on beach

photo via deposit photos

Show me a blogger who blogs in a bikini, and I’ll show you a blogger who writes exclusively about how she blogs in a bikini. And then I’ll show you that she has three million followers. Sigh.

 

what bloggers look like 7

photo via flickr

There’s always a blogger who’s sort of intimidating. You know, the one who rakes in the millions while silently judging everyone else for writing sponsored posts for pennies about foot powder. Also, the one who wears fur-trimmed coats and smokes cigarettes while typing. Actually, I don’t know that there are bloggers like that anymore. Or ever.

 

what bloggers look like 8

photo via flickr

This picture (and pictures like it) came up when searching for “blogger” images. I can kind of relate. After hours of staring at a computer screen with nothing to show for it, I’m in such a fog that sometimes I feel like I’m riding a bike through the clouds. With sheep and birdlike animals. Wearing birthday hats.

what bloggers look like 9

photo via flickr

“He said I’m not a real writer.”

Photo credit: dualdflipflop / Foter / CC BY

Photo credit: dualdflipflop / Foter / CC BY

At the end of a day, whether it was productive or not, a blogger always feels as if she is a slave to her blog. Or at least, a person who appreciates finding pictures of half-naked men in compromising positions on an image search. Look.I don’t make the rules of the internet. I’m not even sure there are any. Which is probably why I’m allowed to blog in the first place.


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What is blogging? Andrea did a little search and came up with the answer (hahahaha)

This post was written by Andrea Mowery exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC.

Andrea is a former market researcher-turned stay-at-home wife and mother of two children who are racing through the teen years. Not one to shy away from admitting her mistakes, Andrea writes at About 100%, a blog about life and parenting generously sprinkled with self-deprecating humor, common sense attitudes, and heart.