I remember the first time I got a ‘’gift’’ from Paris. It was a box of fresh macarons, sent over by a company coming to establish themselves in the city I’m living in. I say ‘’gift’’ because that was what they wrote in the email though secretly it was a marketing ploy for me to promote their company on my social media. Who cares if they’re sneaky, I’m getting free macarons! Macarons are my absolute favorite treat, so I was ecstatic to get them.
The afternoon I received them, I call my sister to share with her what I got.
She was in the car with a friend at the time, and when they saw the macarons they simultaneously groaned. We all laughed at how unfortunate the circumstance was between us but that moment hit me hard: Here I am with a certain number of followers on Instagram and I am being gifted macarons from Paris, whereas here are two young adults figuring out how to manage school and life, working hard on it all, but not being as recognized, treated and honored as they should be. Hmm, something’s not right here.
While I won’t go into the unfairness and deception behind social media and marketing right now, I want to say that from that moment on with my sister and friend, life as a blogger became much more humbling for me:
I started to drop companies I did not support and found irrelevant to what I was writing about. I started to question me and what I stood for. I started to reach out to other bloggers and share with them how life is too short to write content and support companies you don’t care about.
While it is truly amazing the opportunities that can come forward when you work within the blogging / journalism world, I find that it's equally important to USE and LEARN from the opportunities you're in and GIVE BACK by SUPPORTING yourself and others wherever possible -- otherwise, everything will be done in vain.
More on this another time!
