Thoughts on Honesty in Blogging

On Thursday I published a post that was simply a run-down of my mom’s last day on earth. It was told from my perspective – just a “day in the life” post like plenty of people do, but looking at a particularly difficult day.

I struggled with the decision to post it. In some ways it felt self-indulgent. There was no lesson to be learned and no knowledge imparted. It’s just a summary of the hardest day of my life. It’s reads like more of a journal entry than a public blog post.

To some degree, I think that’s missing in the current state of blogging and social media. Vulnerability. Emotion. Honesty. So much of what’s online is heavily curated. I’m guilty of it. My blog’s Instagram is a collection of beautiful images (credited mostly to other people with considerably more skill than I have) in a lot of pastel tones. I love a beautiful image, even if it doesn’t reflect real life. I try to keep things very real in the commentary though.

It’s a catch-22. I think many people are craving a more realistic portrayal of life online, but we’re also more likely to like and engage with the photos that are over-exposed and styled to the max. The photo of the girl with beautiful hair throwing up a peace sign while holding a Starbucks cup is going to get a lot more likes than a photo of how most of us enjoy our coffee. For me, that usually means reheating it four times in my 15-year-old bathrobe while getting the kids ready for the day, or chugging it before running into a morning full of meetings. No one really cares to see a photo of that, but it’s real.

I’ve read interviews with a few people who were really at the forefront of blogging. They became burned out when the tides shifted to lifestyle content and personal musings and ramblings fell by the wayside. For better or worse, the “industry” shifted but I still believe there’s room to share things that are raw and real and personal in the midst of the content that’s optimized for a Pinterest world.

Anyway, that’s the reason why I shared such a personal post last week. Did it perform well in terms of analytics? Not really. Did it feel good to share that part of myself? Absolutely.

What kind of blogs do you like to read? Do you want 100% stylized content? Deep thoughts and feelings? Or something in-between?