So I might be a little hungover… like not hungover to the point that I am growing up every ten minutes. But like the kind of hungover where you just feel like a doctor is pronging your temples with a device you know neither it’s name or it’s purpose… the point is I am delicate.
And Ellie’s delicate brain decided that the best thing to do is to scroll through Instagram and pretend that the world doesn’t exist.
And one thing that hungover-scroll-through-instagram-ellie noticed was how many things bloggers push. Be it products with affiliate links, brand collabs or sponsored post.
And it got me thinking about how much we trust bloggers. How much we value their recommendations and whether actually press that ‘buy’ button on a product they have linked.
When chatting to friends I actually found that most of them just completely dismiss anything that bloggers recommend, partially because they know the blogger will get an affiliate link from it and partially because they just assume it’s sponsored content.
And to be perfectly honest, and as much as I argued my case…. I kind of agreed with them. Or at least I saw their point.
As a blogger who can barely afford a topshop bag, I choose to only promote (or recommend) less expensive products that I actually like. I choose to link to products that I own (or are in my wish list) and I don’t push products that coat a bomb or that I don’t love.
But some bloggers don’t have the same morality as that. Some bloggers (and before anyone thinks I’m talking about anyone in particular- I’m honestly not) but some bloggers will link to 10 pieces of clothing daily, including expensive or designer products.
Whenever I get recommended by a blogger, it can be hard knowing whether the actual product is good or not. I mean take the Glossier acid for example- when it first came out bloggers RAVED about it. They linked to it and told you how AMAZING it was…. that was until it came out that the product was perfumed, low of actual acid and, frankly, shit.
But until her review came out, everyone loved it. Overnight their opinions were changed, links were take down, bloggers suddenly spoke about how their skin reacted and how bad a product it was.
So what are bloggers? Girls that we consider friends or girls who push products just to get back a bit of income?
It’s a hard topic to grasp, especially because SO MANY girls in the industry will pride themselves on only posting or promoting products that they genuinely love, genuinely use and would genuinely recommend to a friend.
But there are a fair few who just ruin it for us. They see the income they make from affiliate links. They see the offer of a rather large campaign and they put that £££ sign above their morality.
Most of my posts I usually give a conclusion. I like being able to round my posts into an overall opinion or though or conclusion. But actually, and I am really sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have one. I don’t have an answer. I don’t feel like I can sit here and tell you that all bloggers are your besties who have your back and will only show you products they LOVE. But I’m also not going to sit here and tell you that all bloggers want is a bit of penny from you and so will post anything that will give them cash.
I guess in a way, I’m leaving it up to you. And I would love to hear your opinion- do you consider bloggers to be your friends? Or are they just a sales rep trying to pinch a bit off your pocket?
