Do you know what annoys me about the Blogging community?

After blogging for 5 years there is a lot I've noticed, some of it good some of it bad but mostly what bothers me is how naive some people are. I'm not writing this to cause any arguments just to give my point of view on what has been bothering me within the blogging community. Let's start off with the biggest pet hate of mine, new bloggers who think they will be able to get free stuff just because they have a blog... in all honesty, it's not as simple as that, it took me a while before I was contacted by PR'S and asked to review products. When I first started I would enjoy reviewing small businesses that I purchased from (out of my own money) I would send them an email saying I reviewed their items so they were aware of me promoting them and how much I liked their products.  I built a relationship with a few of them and they would send me free stuff with orders sometimes which they didn't have to do but besides that, I didn't get asked to review PR products for a good year and a half after I first started to blog. There is nothing wrong with wanting to review products or working with PR's but what people need to understand is it's not as easy as being brand new to blogging and demanding businesses and companies let you review their products, it doesn't only make you look bad but it also makes the rest of the blogging world look bad. Yes there are a lot of bloggers out there and it's hard to compete, but don't sell yourself short or be demanding, if your content is good and your blog itself is appealing you might get PR'S contacting me as this is how I managed to start working with them.

The next thing is being told to be positive and that they don't like following negative people. I'm sorry to say this but everyone can be negative at one time or another. If I'm having a down day I'm not going to pretend everything is OK just because you tell me too, having to put on a happy go lucky mask on for me would be torture so I say it like it is, if someone is chatting shit about me I'm not going to hold my tongue I will say something back and if that's too negative for people then unfollow me. Shit happens in life and hiding away from it and pretending everything is rainbows and flowers, that's not reality people argue and clash. The word 'negative' is bandied around far too much and has lost its meaning, as has 'bullying'. It seems when we disagree with someone we're tarnished a bully when it's not the case at all. Tone is lost on the internet and people get far too wound up and claim they've been bullied when you simply don't like the same product they do.

The biggest thing that irritates me is when people believe there is one blogger in each 'niche'. I've seen it a lot lately with disability/chronic illness bloggers. There's more than one person that writes about disability/chronic illnesses and there's plenty who have been trying their best to show others how it affects their lives and even livelihood. Let's not make this a competition with one another and try to be sensitive towards one another. The amount of people I have seen online trying to put others down because they're worse is unbelievable and unfair, we all suffer in different ways and I wouldn't dare say to someone "I would rather have your chronic illness/disability than what I have" don't be that person. Lastly, my biggest pet hate would be when people send others over to a blog to give them hate. This has happened to me, I've been accused of things that aren't true but luckily there is a feature on Blogspot where you can approve comments, it may be a pain in the bum but if it filters out the hate then it's good practice to use it. My motto is if you have nothing nice to say on a blog post (unless you didn't like a product then give your honest opinion by all means) don't say anything at all especially if the post is personal. I have a little tip to share too, don't assume every blogger is in a clique when in fact it's a friendship, there is a huge difference between cliques and friendships, for example a clique is a close group of friends who won't allow people to join but friendship is a relationship between friends, with trust and support and anyone is welcome to form a friendship. To hate on a person for having close friends is ridiculous, I know a lot of people may say I'm in one with my blogging friends but that's not the case, they've given me a lot of support and helped me out a lot, I'm not in school so why would I want to form a clique.

What annoys you most about the blogging community?