Fuck. Yes.

Agreed. This whole notion that it’s PC and even ACCEPTABLE to bash thin people on a blogvthat purports to espouse women of every shape and size is a double standard that my slender (and every bit as female) friends are getting sick of dealing with every time we turn our backs.
If it’s not okay to call an overweight girl a heifer, then what the hell makes you think it’s okay to call a thin woman a “bag of bones”, or as the OP stated, assumptions of eating disorders. As soon as you stop this bullshit double standard, THEN maybe you’ll have an ounce of credibility instead of coming across as a bunch of whiny bitches.

Let’s be honest, the top tier of bloggers are running full-on businesses. They receive free designer clothing by the box-ful and can afford expensive cameras and willing photo-takers. The same set of women are featured everywhere and invited to everything.

Most bloggers out there hold down full-time jobs, buy their own clothing, and still have to find time to create lovely, compelling, and well-composed posts. So, one would assume that to have a top-tier blog you need to quit your day job and get sponsored. How does one get sponsored?

You generally have to be thin and gorgeous and tall and flawless helps, too.

I have nothing against the top-tier. They are stunning, talented, and work hard to inspire with their posts. But, the fact of the matter is the fashion industry — through sponsors, free clothing, invites to events — begets this kind of only the hottest survive environment. The beauty standard is very narrow and will continue to be until readers get behind non-sample size women in droves and until fashion power players decide to sponsor those women who aren’t sample size or model height or getting all their clothes for free.

It’s sad how polarizing the blogger world has become. It seems that — like the fashion industry before it — it’s turned into another ultra competitive, me-first, who-can-get-into-the-most-events type space.

It’s enough to make me consider giving up on the blogger thing.

I’ve found the world of fashion blogging to be polarizing across size, race, and monetary lines. There are inside crowds in not only straight size fashion blogging but in plus size fashion blogging, there is racism and sizeism in both worlds. I wanted blogging to be about inclusiveness and love, positivity, laughter, and caring about one another. But it’s not, and that’s okay. We’re all bumping along learning from each other.

We all choose to read whatever blogs we choose to read, but if IFB doesn’t take the time to explore what else is out there, even beyond the “niche” bloggers they already regularly highlight, of course the same bloggers are going to take center stage over and over again. That happens even within those niche communities, and it happens overwhelmingly so in the fashion community and industry.

I’ve always stayed away from joining groups like IFB because I’ve never felt like I was a part of the in crowd (and have never thought I would be). Even though I’ve met and made friends with many of the wonderful women who have commented on this post and written responses and who are IFB members. It’s a part of my own, very personal self-esteem issues that I have continued to feel that way over the years. But I think that is also why so many of us get into fashion blogging – I have felt a lot more accepting of myself and my personal issues through fashion blogging because of the support that I’m finding from these women for my dreams. And I get letters and emails from girls on a regular basis thanking me for being so open.

I do everything I can to support the efforts of other bloggers who are highlighting the changing world of fashion, feature those efforts in my videos and in my blog posts, actively tell these bloggers on a regular basis that I think the work they do is important and amazing. That is the real power of communicating through a medium like the internet that is so openly accessible to all of us. We are able to make connections with each other.

At the end of the day, fashion blogging has become less about fashion for me and more about that sense of community who has been there for me through several different sizes, boyfriends, jobs, lay offs, crappy family members and friends, and dying pets.

If we’re going to continue to allow “fashion” to control what we aspire to look like and forget that this is can all be about making ourselves and others feel better, then I think we’re failing as bloggers. But perhaps that is because I write to express all the things I know someone else must be feeling. I just happen to do it by talking about trying to find a bra that fits me and boots that will zip up all the way.

Summary: I’m glad we’re talking about this. We should all be nicer and more understanding of each other. Lots of different kinds of people and women and men and transgender individuals of different sizes, colors, shapes, backgrounds, and abilities have something to offer and are creating quality content. And IFB and other groups who are supposed to teach us how to be better at blogging about fashion should do a better job of uplifting all of that diversity and all of those voices on a regular basis. Not just in one-off “look we talked to some fat bloggers, brown bloggers, bloggers in another country, etc.” articles.

And to everyone I offer a hug and a smile because this truly wouldn’t be an xoxo nettaP post/comment without one. 😉

Also, be secure with you and your site and you won’t feel the need to compare yourself. GabiFresh is a success because she embraces who she is, especially her killer curves! Do you, be you!

Overnight success is an exceptional thing, not the norm. And, success can be measured in many ways. How do you define it?