Rookie is no longer publishing new content, but we hope you'll continue to enjoy the archives, or books, and the community you've helped to create. Thank you for seven very special years! ✴
Rookie is no longer publishing new content, but we hope you'll continue to enjoy the archives, or books, and the community you've helped to create. Thank you for seven very special years! ✴
43 Comments
First off, Amber is one of my favourite people on Rookie!
Okay, as an aspiring young bloggess, I think this story is kind of a morality tale? I started my blog a few weeks ago, and so far I have two followers, which is really exiting! But, I wouldn’t mind just having fifty followers or so, as long as they were all awesome people who would leave interesting comments. Thus, I feel that I’m quite different to Amber, in that I started my blog mostly to find people who have similar interests to me (I’m kind of isolated).
Also, would anyone like to comment on the first part of this short story I wrote? () It’s inspired by greek mythology, and it has mentally unhinged mermaids!! Any advice would be much appreciated.
slightly-surreal.co.uk
I’m always searching for new blogs to fangirl, and therefore I absolutely love it when people post links to their blogs. After all, blogging is a community activity! But for the blog to stand my approval’s test… THAT is the challenge!
Oh man. My blog only has a few readers, but it’s a personal blog for writing and photographs so I doubt I’ll ever feel the same tension.
Instagram is another matter. When I started using it I was definitely obsessed with getting followers, and did the same thing you did – commented on a bunch of people’s stuff to try and get them to notice me. I didn’t do it for too long thank god.
It’s a weird addiction to get swallowed up in, and ultimately doesn’t make much sense. I just take pictures for enjoyment and share with the world, and if people like it, then great. If not, it doesn’t really matter, because ultimately what I do is for myself.
I just got an instagram account and I feel like I’m being obsessed already!
Oh my god… just wait, haha. It is so much fun though! Remember that followers never matter in the grand scheme of things anyway… but it does feel pretty good to have so many people “like” your shots. I won’t lie.
Ha, this is perfect! I’m starting to feel the pressure on mine that everything must be perfect. I want to be successful, but I’m afraid that I’ll end up exactly like this. Great job!
I loved this! It is exactly the process that we all go through. Even if it’s not with blogging, we attach ourselves to things that we feel define us. The weird thing is I don’t know how to make something of my blog, I dont know what to say- usually I just write about how much I dont know what to say. I love writing and am super inspired sometimes.. so I dont know.
If you have any tips on how to get over that barrier I’d love to hear it!!!
waitingforeuro.blogspot.com
This really speaks to me. I started my blog about a month ago, and desperately wanted hits (mine doesnt accept followers). However, my obsession with statistics didn’t really start until I began Youtube, then I felt a real desire to have as many subscribers as possible. I felt jealous when people who started after me got more subscriber, and it became completely consuming. A week ago, after I hit 25, I realised there was 25 people in the world who wanted to watch me. I stopped caring about subs, and started to care more about my content :)
I used to have a blogspot, but I decided to devote my time and energy to the best social media platform ever-TUMBLR. I did this for the same reason as anyone else who wants their stuff to get out there-for the high follower counts. On tumblr, you can post anything, and there almost a one hundred percent(so ninety-nine?) guarantee that someone, somewhere, will actually use half of a second to pay attention to it. Which I think is a GREAT thing, especially for someone with a personal blog where I post everything and anything I want, an online feminist zine, and a webcomic about two emo teenagers.
Your emo twins thing is hilarious!! When I saw the My Chemical Romance one I spit out my water!
OMG thank you SO MUCH!!! :D You have no idea how happy your comment made me!!!
Hahaha! I love your Emo Twins tumblog. It’s actually quite funny and I have all of those ‘me’ moments as opposed to the regular person moments.
Good stuff!
Hey! Thanks so much!!! :D Thanks for telling me that, your comment made my morning! :D
This is so great!!
I am also a blogger, and I used to be very jealous of others. I was kinda competing with another blogger girl (who is a friend of mine and I’m ashamed for having being that jealous) about the number of followers. When I started blogging, I looked after how many hits I had every few minutes. Today I am less obsessive, and I have way more fun. My blog is doing well, and the number of followers is increasing rapidly, although I don’t comment on other blogs that much anymore. I think when you love blogging, people will love it too.
This was me when I first started blogging.
Although hardly anyone reads my blog anyway, I am way more chilled with it, it is way better now I am actually talking about what I want, instead of what they want.
In other news, if anyone cares, I totally discovered a girl in my year at school who READS ROOKIE, I AM SO EXCITED OH MY GOD.
i feel this! i have a pretty popular tumblr blog and i used to be obsessed with the follower count! now i just blog for MYSELF.
I have been waiting for an article like this. My blog is hidden. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who ever reads it! I’m torn between trying to make people follow me and keeping it all to myself.
Anways, here’s the link.
i just started blogging and have no followers yet, so i understand the whole feeling that you need followers! i’m going to try not to get all maniacal and obsessed with getting followers though. thanks for the insight, and i’m glad you finally got to the point where you were blogging for fun, not for fame. because really, that’s what blogging should be about! :)
-lizzy
I connect with this too much, especially the last panel. I’ve been having these bad feelings from my tumblr blog. I’m ok with the amount of followers I have. However I get a pit in my stomach whenever I think about how one of my doodles has at least 26k notes on it (when I checked on it last).
I’ve felt the same way. I feel sad over the little amount of followers that I have, but get scared when someone new follows me. The thought of a stranger witnessing my emotional havoc on a daily basis frightens me. But I like it when they follow me anyway :)
Is it annoying to post a link to my blog on this post?
embarrassingurl.blogspot.com
I’m more validated by pageviews etc than I’d like to admit but I also think part of it is a healthy desire to talk to people! I always click on the links to blogs other commentors post cause we’re all fab.
yeah i get you like sometimes i look at my tumblr and im like “damnit i lost a follower im sad” and then other times i look at it and im like “why does this matter? this wont matter in 10 years who the heck cares??” its a never-ending cycle
Lol… WE ALL JUST WANT ATTENTION.
This kind of brings you back down to earth and makes you realise that followers aren’t everything. Great wake up call.
Omg I can’t believe how relevant this is to me right now because I created a blog really recently and am currently on the quest for followers and it’s difficult and involves a lot of commenting on other blogs and yeah I WANT A LITTLE BIT OF INTERNET FAME OK ugh attention feels so goooooood waking up with new comments and new followers is the best.
This is so me right now.
Despite the ongoing mission for a wider readership, I love blogging and I mostly do it for MYSELF – it really helps with making my thoughts coherent, developing my writing skills, documenting events and how I feel about things at certain times, being creative, and becoming more open with others (as well as myself). It also fills me with a sense of purpose, I love being able to share my experiences with others. But in order to share with people, they need to know that my blog exists. And this means a lot of slightly shameful self-promoting. I would really like to meet new people through blogging, cos everyone is SO COOL so yeah please check out ma blog xox
HI ROOKIE, what im gonna say is a bit irrelevant to this post,but would u PLEASE interview Allison Harvard? i think she fits the month’s theme since she’s famous more than any other ANTM girl and is supercool
Yes!
This was me when I first started blogging. I was trying to right things that would only interest and bring more followers. Now, I’m not too worried about followers anymore, and just blog about things that I want to right about, fashion, feminism and art.
I only have 11 followers, but I’m happy with that, because although I don’t care that much now about the follower count, I’m glad that we have the same interest.
what is your blog? beautiful drawings! x)
apapillon.blogspot.com.au
Thanks, I think I needed this. I made a Tumblr like 2 weeks ago and I’ve become completely addicted and I think I’ve started to care too much about how many followers I have! (hah, only 11 or something) All you people on Tumblr, feel free to visit my Tumblr!
Crespalita.tumblr.com
(if you take the time to scroll past all the Doctor Who gif sets you will actually find some non-Doctor Who related things!)
I can relate with the first part of your blogging story. I’ve never wanted to be famous per say through my blog but I also wouldn’t say no to 130 subsribers who sometimes comment and send emails asking how my puberty (at 21) is going and how the kid sis is doing. That and 500 followers on twitter.
Tumblr has to be the best blogging service for followers. The tagging system just brings them straight to you!
It’s definitely worth trying it out.
If anyone here is in the Sherlock fandom, and a fan of Mystrade… (I’m guessing not really, but worth a shot), maybe take a look.
Although be warned, it is NSFW! Rated NC-17!
And please don’t look if you’re not gay friendly. :3
As a new blogger I can totally relate to this story. At first, if someone unfollowed my on twitter or instagram I would get so stressed! But now I just don’t care anymore..
The only thing that gets to me a bit is when someone I know talks to me about my blog, I can feel my insecurities filling my head and I start going through every detail of my content in my head thinking of any mistakes the other person might have found…
But I try to focus on the good sides of blogging, like the fact that doing street style photography has helped me conquer my fear of coming up to random people on the street and asking if I can take their picture.
I lost a friend to social networking! I feel like everytime we hangout she either wants to tke pictures or twitter/ post where we are and what were doing. What we do is no longer real unless it’s on her Facebook or twitter. /:
This is actually really great because it’s so relevant to so many people. We all want followers, we all want people to care about what we have to say. Be it Instagram (I’ve also got the crazy-gimme-followers-disease), Twitter or our blogs.
When you believe you’re good at something, you want–sometimes ‘need’–other people to believe that too.
I’ts kind of sad how much I relate to this post. I started blogging last June, and at the time I didn’t really care that much about followers and views and things like that. Then, a girl I knew stared a blog as well, and it became a race to see who’s blog got the most attention. I constantly checked my blog “stats”, hoping for just one new follower. And if I got one, I fell into a EUPHORIA BLACKOUT and began longing for more.
…Good times, good times. Thankfully, I’ve calmed down since then.
(My blog is Justletmecatchup.wordpress.com, if anyone is interested. Let’s be internet pals!)
I threw away my old blog because I’m bored with it and decided to build a new one. Right now I’m at this stage, sadly. I haven’t posted a lot, but still.
let’s be friends!
I was a good blog writer, when I was writing on my own language back then. I closed it because I was a pure teenager when I was doing it, and I wasn’t happy about the mistakes that I’ve done, my stupidness. That blog reminded me everytime I checked on it. I lived without a writable blog for 2 years or something, at that time, I’ve just reblogged things on tumblr and appreciate others’ blog posts, I was still a blogger but not a writer, a follower.
Then I’ve started to follow vloggers on youtube, the vlogs were in english, and they were reaching a lot of people (DFTBA). After that I’ve discovered Tavi and Rookie. I loved the articles in here, I thought I could write something like them. Not in Turkish, because I wanted to express myself to everybody in the whole world. I wanted to be friends with people all around the world and I wanted to know that somebody’s reading my words, somebody who are away from me thousands and thousands miles.
Well, I think it means that I want to be noticed, too. That’s why I keep writing my blog URL at the end of my comments on Rookie. I haven’t got that much followers but I know that people are reading my words (even if they’re one or two). That’s the most important thing for me.
And I’m looking to the blog stats everyday. I think I will stop someday, I hope. It’s weird, you know. Whatever. Here’s my blog
Yeah, I definitely get a little obsessed with statistics. I only have three followers, but I just feel validated that SOMEBODY likes what I write. It probably doesn’t help that a friend of mine has several thousand followers on tumblr and an adoring fanbase with apparently zero effort to get noticed.
And now I’m going to do the horrible self promotion thing, because Rookie readers are exactly the people I want to read my blog and exactly the people I want to have interesting conversations in the comments with.
i was wondering for the people on blogspot how to you actually find people to follow, i think thats why so many people have less followers than there tumblrs do because it hard TO ACTUALLY FIND PEOPLE!! (any tips ?) or am i just lazy and stupid ?
Ah this is so good, it’s so hard to find people to follow or people to follow you especially on blogger!
hi this post speaks to me on a very personal level. this is beautiful.