That's what YOU think!

I haven't had a really good opinion piece in a while, but a blog post was brought to my attention today and a quote from it made me roll my eyes.

"So while I understand that a lot of designers refrain from giving out review copies, we bloggers rarerly blog things we have to pay for."

So. Not. True.

I would gather that in most of my style posts, I've paid for at least 80% of what I'm wearing. It takes money to become a blogger, something that most people starting out fail to realize. Unless you're blogging nothing but freebies, it takes money. It is such a horrible misconception that bloggers have their Second Lives basically paid for. Sure, there are some bloggers that get a ton of review copies - but those ones are few and far between.

Now I'll admit that I'm fairly lucky. I've made friends with some pretty kickass creators, and I get things for free here and there. Other lists that I've managed to get on, it's because I have bought things in the past from that store [you're delusional if you think creators don't check that] and I've blogged items from there before.

But, for the most part, I spend a GREAT deal of money financing my hobby. Yes, hobby. Fashion blogging is not a job for me. None of the creators I blog pay me except in thank yous and sometimes in free items. If there is something I think I'd like to blog and I'm not on that creator's blogger list, I buy it. If it means that I sometimes show the same item a few times in different posts, hey, that's just how it is. I do not ask for review copies. I'm the one who chose to be a fashion blogger, so it's up to me to finance that. Any free items I'm given, whether from a friend or from someone who happens to like my blog, I am grateful for.

This quote from this blog bothered me because I see how hard my creator friends work. And I also see how they choose how a blogger gets their items. Some take the somewhat easier route of passing blogger copies to a blogger group and hope that someone blogs them. Others have a delivery system that sends to a list of people that they like. And some others still do it by hand, passing out to bloggers that they like. Almost always, with the exception of the group givers, they choose bloggers who have either blogged their items before, or who have at least shopped in the store before.

YES. SHOPPED. As in "Oh hi, you spent the money to buy something from me." They are 10 times more likely to give to a blogger who requests a review copy if that blogger has shopped with them before.

Because you know, we see how it goes. We see the bloggers who believe that having a blog means they can ask for the whole store.

Honey, it so doesn't mean that at all.

You can't have a blog that has no posts and yet ask for fatpacks of items from stores that you've never shopped at before. Yes, we all start somewhere, but usually we start by opening our wallets.

So, Ms. "Bloggers only blog what they're given" Ma'am. You are desperately, completely wrong in your statement. Maybe YOU only blog free items you're given, but the rest of us are shopping, and I'll take a guess that our blogs will be around longer because of it.