I mean, it’s about a lot of other things as well- mostly it’s just me complaining a lot. However, the original idea for this blog was a chronicle of my mental health problems and how I was coping with them.
In the last three and a half years my life and my health have changed dramatically. I’ve almost gone a year without self harming or therapy. That’s a long time for someone who used to have to cut every day and struggled to live between counselling appointments.
The really weird thing that I think needs to be acknowledged in this blog is blogging, mental health and recovery. This blog was about my mental health problems. If I don’t have mental health problems then what do I blog about?
I follow a few blogs about mental health and over the years I’ve noticed that a lot of people slowly tail off as they start to recover. This makes a lot of sense, as horrible as it is, if you’re having mental health problems and appointments and counselling then you have a lot of material to write about. If you’re happy and healthy then you don’t really have anything ground-breaking to say.
As well as this I think a lot of people want to break with the past and move on from their illness and maintaining a blog about it just feels a bit like flogging a dead horse.
Of course, this isn’t something that I’ve chosen to do- so I really can’t talk about that. What I’ve written above is pure speculation and please feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments if you’ve been in this situation.
Why am I still blogging?
The answer is that I don’t know! I came back to blogging on a regular schedule in October of last year and I’ve been pretty good at sticking to that schedule. I needed my blog last year, it gave me something to focus on whilst I was going through the hell that was stage-school.
Right now I just keep blogging because I love it, because this place gives me somewhere to express my thoughts and feelings. I’m struggling with a few things, one is that I want to rejig the subjects that I talk about. There may be less Paganism and more Feminism… is that okay with everyone? There also may be more about history and writing. The quota of mentalism will stay the same, it’ll always be the main focus of this blog. I also want to change the design and write more about my personal life. The latter is the thing that I’m worrying about the most, I don’t want this to become mushy and full of TMI, but in the next few years my life will be changing, potentially radically, and it would be weird if I just didn’t talk about it.
And don’t worry, I’m going to complain just as much as I did before.
Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts below!
About three years ago in the UK something called ‘Operation Yewtree’ started. This was the name given to an investigation carried out by the Police into claims of sexual abuse carried about by a wide variety of TV and radio presenters such as Jimmy Savile, Dave Lee Travis and Jim Davidson during the 60s/70s/80s.
The scale of the abuse is staggering. What’s even more staggering is that it’s taken this long to come out. These people were in positions of power and influence, and this protected them against legal action.
It’s absolutely shocking; thankfully legal action is now being taken, but I’m sure that’s little comfort to the victims who have had to spend their lives confused, angry and violated. I’m sure that whatever punishment they get it will never make up for the years that their victims were belittled, ignored and ridiculed.
How do you speak out against someone who’s famous? Who’s loved by millions of people?
We look at these instances and try to put them into the past, as with anything like this we try to distance ourselves from it and convince ourselves that it couldn’t happen now.
But it is.
It’s happening right now.
These days we have a new kind of celebrity; the Youtuber.
Youtube is a pathway to fame like no other; people can get millions of fans by doing very little and gain celebrity-level status overnight.
A lot of people use Youtube to escape from the real world, I can understand that- I know that after a hard shift at work it’s relaxing to sit and wind down watching videos. It exists in a kind of safe bubble where audiences who are lonely feel that they have someone they can connect with who understands them. They can message this person, contact them on social media and connect with them in a way that you can’t with traditional celebrities.
This all goes a long way to explaining the deep loyalty felt amongst fans of the Youtube community.
The problem?
Over the last few years, and even more so recently, it’s come to light that some of these Youtubers are abusing this loyalty in the worst way.
Allegations of manipulation, inappropriate behaviour and sexual abuse are starting to appear. Several of these Youtube celebrities have been involved in relationships with their underage fans.
This is statutory rape.
There’s no nice, pretty way to say that… it’s true. If you have sex with someone under legal age then you have raped them. The whole point of the age of consent is that they’re not deemed mature enough to weight up their options and decide for themselves.
Some of these accusations started to appear last year and the year before, but one event that happened very recently has really blown this whole thing wide open.
If you want the background and a good overview check here, here and here.
The event that has caused the shit to really hit the fan was this.
Essentially, a Youtuber named Sam Pepper created a video where he ‘pranked’ women by pinching them on the arse. Thankfully his audience was disgusted and Youtube removed the video. He then tried to pass it off as a social experiment. Some people believed him, some people didn’t. I think it’s worth pointing out that he has a record of doing disgusting, degrading ‘pranks’ like this in the past… and as the debate began on whether he was a pervert or a champion of social justice people began to come forward.
Allegations started to appear; women came forward and said that they’d been sexually assaulted by him.
These allegations spiralled and spiralled, if you want a mature, in depth account of what was and is going on please check out Laci Green.
On top of this another Youtuber came forward and created a video where he admitted to getting a minor drunk and forcibly having sex with her. The response from his fans was one of support for his courage at coming forward and apologising for his mistake, which-
Wait, what did I just type?
WOAH. WOAH, WOAH…
It’s okay because he’s sorry? HE RAPED SOMEONE.
Sorry Ladies and Gents, but I think I may have just wandered into an alternate reality where it’s okay to rape someone so long as you apologise for it. The girl in question was underage… ergo this was statutory rape.
RAPE.
Does this not mean anything any more?
People who create content on Youtube, vloggers, youtubers, whatever you want to call them, are placed upon a pedestal where they are untouchable. They have so much power in their hands and in some cases, as illustrated here, they abuse it.
Thankfully a number of these women are taking legal action. I really, really hope that a strong case is built against these people and that they are made to legally account for their crimes, the same way anyone else would be. We need to blow the lid right off this and teach them that fame cannot protect you from the law.
The problem is that if they’re not convicted then they could easily turn around and sue the people who spoke out against them for libel. Their lives are funded by the money they get from making their videos, if no-one watches them anymore then their careers are over and they will most likely be out to get revenge on those who spoke up against them.
These people have so much power; they have audiences of millions of impressionable teenagers. There are some who use this power for good; there are others- as illustrated above- who use this power to serve themselves at the expense of their young audiences.
Another thing that really angers me is this: a lot of the really famous Youtubers who used to be close to SP have gone silent. I can understand that, they realised a long time ago that something was wrong and distanced themselves. They want to protect their image, their earnings and their businesses.
So they’re saying nothing… or saying things that aren’t really applicable to the situation. They’re carrying on with their lives, not even pausing for a moment to acknowledge and give an intelligent response.
They also have millions of impressionable teenagers watching them. Are they okay with the fact that they’re teaching teenagers that the right thing to do is ignore all social responsibility and protect yourself at all costs? Are they even aware that this is probably the vibe they’re giving off?
It angers me that few of the truly massive Youtubers (at least the ones that are big in this country) seem to be able to stand up and speak out. They are promoting a culture of silence and I find this disgusting.
To the victims (not just of this, but of any kind of abuse or manipulation) I know it’s not as easy as ‘just go to the police/authorities and report it’ and I would be a hypocrite if I were to say that. If you’ve been involved with the Youtube scandal then I do urge you to stand up, you’ll have a lot of support behind you and you could be instrumental in making them pay for their abuse of power. I’d say the same to those who are going through any kind of abuse. However, if you just can’t then I’m not going to push the matter. Just please; please talk to someone about it. Look after yourself; you can, and will heal.
Finally I want to leave you with this thought: we have created ‘Youtube culture’ we are the ones who have helped these people obtain the money and fame that they have. We are therefore the ones who can take all of that away.
If you want to hear more please check out these videos:
Today I’m doing a blog post about blogging… yeah, that’s right. I’m blogging about blogging… blogception anyone??
I’ve been blogging for three years now (well, nearly three and a half… that went fast) in that time I think I’ve accrued some small bits of wisdom that I can pass on.
Here’s a quick run down of what I think you should know if you’re starting a blog:
Write for you. No, seriously, write because you care about what you have to say. Don’t write for anything or anyone other than you- if you don’t then you will get bored very quickly. And you will stop.
The first comment will take your breath away.
You will meet some wonderful people.
Time will pass very quickly; I’m slightly scared that I’ve been blogging for so long- it is, however, a great way to record things that happen in your life and gives you a pretty detailed idea of who you were and what you were doing at certain points in the past.
If you are starting an anonymous blog it will be hard to get readers. All of the common wisdom is to share your new blog posts on social media to gain followers… if you’re writing anonymously you can’t do this. It’ll be pretty lonely out there for a while.
Don’t compare yourself to other people. I’ve been at this for three and a half years, in that amount of time a lot of people have created blogs that are so successful that they can live off them; they have huge cult followings and are minor celebrities in their own rights…. so… good for them! As with most things it’s part luck, part hard work. If you start getting caught up in what other people are doing then you lose motivation for what you do.
Celebrate your achievements. Gaining ten or twenty followers, one hundred likes, thirty comments; they’re all big things. Even bigger is writing your tenth, fiftieth or one hundredth post. Go you!
It’s a learning experience. I hope that my writing, spelling and grammar has all gotten a lot better since I’ve started this blog. Part of that will be age, the other part will be experience.
The typos will always be there. But proof-reading helps a lot.
Some days you won’t want to post. It’s the same as with anything, some days you just can’t be bothered to spend that time tapping away at the keyboard. I get that, I seriously do… but every time I miss a post I feel rubbish, and every time I put up a post I feel great. Nowadays I only miss a post if I have no internet access or physically don’t have the time to write. For the most of the last year about half of my posts were pre-written and then scheduled to go up at certain times on certain days.
You will draw a blank. That’s okay, when I don’t know what to write about I either stick up some photos, scroll through the news to find something or just work out what’s been occupying my mind lately and put that into word form.
When I first started I think that the internet wasn’t quite what it is now, a lot of the YouTube stuff was only just beginning and things like tumblr weren’t quite as massive as they are right now. The blogosphere wasn’t by any means quiet, but it was different.
I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to get an amazingly successful blog, I knew that I wasn’t going to be drowning in comments every time that I opened up my dashboard. I started this blog for me, it was something that I needed and it helped me to put my thoughts into order. I’ve always kept a diary but it got to a point with my mental health that I needed something more.
When I sit here, on my bed with my laptop in front of me and music playing through my earphones, and stare out of the window at the dreary grey skies of Yorkshire I feel like I’m talking to myself- not in a bad way- but I just do.
I feel very much like I’m doing this for me. It almost surprises me when people comment on things; it’s a brilliant surprise of course, and as time’s gone on people have been commenting more and more which is amazing!
I love getting a good comment, it really makes my day. Now that my crazy training schedule has let up I actually have the chance to start a conversation instead of just churning out content. That’s a really nice feeling.
When you first start up a blog the silence can seem daunting, I think there comes a stage when everyone falls behind on their blogs- I think I’ve had that stage about three times. I don’t know if I’ll have it again, I might- but I might not. I’m very settled into who I am as a person, I know that I can keep up a good blog schedule even when I’m really busy and I also know that I have people who care about what I write.
As an interesting side-note; I don’t really post anything on my Facebook page, I post way more stuff on here. I care about this blog so much more than I care about Facebook… that probably tells you something interesting about me psychologically…
If you haven’t been paying attention you may not know that I’m an Actress.
…
So, erm… I’m an Actress. There. Now we can move on…
I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately about losing my anonymity on this blog, I tell you a lot about myself- my age, where I live, what I do for a living (though I’m not disclosing exactly which supermarket I work for) and I also let you see enough snippets of my face that you could probably make some sort of strange, horror film-esque collage of it.
Recently I went though and made a few posts private, I basically either took down or password protected anything that I wouldn’t want my friends or people who knew me in person to read. I should also probably mention how impressed I was with what a coherent and level headed teenage mentalist I used to be… my old posts seem pretty mature
And no, that’s not an invitation for you to go and check up on that claim- just trust me.
This all lead to me thinking about how easy it would be for me to slowly stop being anonymous… which was ‘very’. I mean, if I think about it I’d have to say that I would be pretty proud to put my real name and face to this blog.
However, there’s one big problem.
The acting.
The quote at the start of this post comes from one of my tutors, it’s something she said to us during a lesson about acting and social media. I’m going to have to have a separate facebook account for my ‘career’ self and change my name on my normal account so that prospective employers can’t find it… not that there’s anything interesting on there at all.
I want to stop being anonymous, I want to make video posts (I should have said ‘vlog’, now I sound like I’m eighty or something) for you guys, I want to be able to talk about my love for vintage clothes and hair and make-up… I want to be open and honest with you but my career is quite firmly getting in the way of all that.
You know from previous posts that I’ve struggled with this before, and I still haven’t come to an honest conclusion about it- maybe in another three years I’ll be in a place to drop the (semi) anonymity, but for now some semblance of it has to stay.
The Druid Bird 