Being Real and Transparent as a Blogger: Beware of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
I recently have had this subject come up for me in the world of social media whether it’s on Instagram or Facebook or reading some article about bloggers.
Not long ago, I read an article about a blogger – Neely Moldovan – who bashed and defamed her photographer so badly that the photographer went out of business and wound up suing them over it. The Moldovans were ordered to pay somewhere over $1.08 million in damages.
This week, I learned about Paul Swenson and his wife, Ashlee Swenson, who is a popular blogger. Paul has gone missing, but there are a lot of unanswered questions about this, which has led to speculation from the public. Prior to his leaving, she wrote a blog post about “monsters” being around us in a lot of aspects of our lives. This article could be interpreted as an affair or drugs that Paul has been involved in. Apparently, she has heavily edited the post since he left. I am not sure of it’s content prior to that, but monsters are not a good presence and we all face them over our lives, so obviously they are dealing with something heavy.
We all have issues that we deal with in our lives, whether we publicly share them or not. As a blogger, I am willing to share with you images of real life around here. My house is not perfect, despite the fact that I blog about home decor. I will never lead you to believe that I have everything together, though. I don’t know that many bloggers would. Some do, though. They want to have that picture perfect life because outward appearance and impressions are more important to them. And it gains them more followers to have such a beautiful life. That’s not me. But I also won’t be airing out all of my dirty laundry either while soliciting your help.
I am not sure what could drive someone to be so nasty as to drag someone’s name through the mud to the point of causing them financial distress. It’s disgusting and cruel. If you have a bad experience, leave an honest review, but don’t get everyone you know involved in your business. There are consequences for your actions if you do. Some people get so brave online and some bloggers abuse their following and use it as leverage for a personal agenda. That is not how business should be conducted.
As for Ashlee and her husband, there are many questionable things going on in that story, but I won’t list them here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she posted about their marital issues and his cheating just a month before he goes “missing”. In that time, he also deleted all of his social media accounts and sold off his “toys”. It sounds like to me that he was a guy planning to erase his existence as the man he once was, but that’s just speculation. Maybe he no longer wants that life. Who knows? I just think that this is something that should have never been made a public announcement. If he decided to leave his family, that’s a personal issue. I’m sorry, but it happens. Marriages fall apart. People change and sometimes fall apart.
I think it’s great to use social media as a way to support each other when we need it, but I think we need to be leery of those who are using it for personal gain by misusing that power. Does anyone remember the blogger MckMama who was HUGE and wound up being this huge scandal? She had several kids, one who was sick (Stellan). She called her kids MckNugget and Small Fry and so forth. She talked about being a very religious person and posted lots of photos of her sick son, all the while hiding the fact that her husband physically abused her while pregnant with Stellan, she had bankruptcy and foreclosure after foreclosure? She was envied for her seemingly perfect life and people wanted to support her in every way when Stellan was born. I’ll let you read more here. There is so much. I was a big follower of hers and I always felt something was flaky and off and she made a TON of money off of it all.
In the end, be aware that some people are in this whole blogging thing simply for financial gain, which there is nothing wrong with. We all would love to make a living posting our beautiful outfits and trips across the world, right? But when there is truly no passion to it and their only reason is money, I think some people become so engrossed in dollar signs that they will do anything to keep them coming. I am not saying Ashlee or Neely are guilty of this, I am just warning others that not everyone is as picture perfect as they seem. Even Ashlee has shared that as evidenced by her Monsters post. What I am suggesting is to wait before you contribute in any way or before you choose to side with a blogger who seems to be dealing with something big just because you like them. You never know what the whole story truly is and you definitely don’t want to get involved in someone else’s drama or legal issues. And you definitely don’t want to get duped.