Are We All Just Content Clones?
Are we all just content clones?
Oh gosh the age old blogger dilemma - can we actually be truly original?
Scrolling through my Bloglovin feed the other day I just kept clicking 'mark as read' without actually reading anything. I just kept seeing the same kind of content, content I'd seen 1000 times, the same sponsored campaigns....just the same old stuff cropping up again and again.
Don't get me wrong, I'll read anything my favs write, any old topic I'll be there. And don't get me wrong again, this is not a criticism of any bloggers in particular - lord knows I'm in the same boat.
I've written the same old 'how to create a media kit', 'how to use Pinterest for your blog', '100 blog post ideas'.....these are by no means crap topics, that's why they're so popular. But they're just the same. We all write them.
And that got me thinking into copying content (hence, the content clones). We all know the difference between taking inspiration from someone and downright plagiarism but at the same time, by writing the same kind of content are we all just at the same game anyway?
Does it make blogging a dead industry? No of course not, we all know it's still booming and changing faster than we can hit the ground running; so what is it?
What is it that makes me click as read as I scroll 200 blog posts? What is it that makes me wonder what the magic formula is for originality? To create that viral post nobody else has done yet.
My most popular posts are off the cuff posts, things I wrote on a whim or in a rant and they felt like I was the only one speaking it. As I was writing them, I knew I was writing something special, something full of life and when they were published they were full of comments affirming what I thought. But even then, those weren't wholly original posts....sure I wrote them in a way people related to but other people have done the same kinda content.
I sure as hell didn't steal my ideas but I sure as hell am not the only one to have written them.
So what's the answer? Are we all doomed to writing the same old stuff?
Maybe.
Is that a problem?
No I don't think so.
There's only so much content in the world, I firmly believe this. There is an infinite number of topics but we can't ALL write about them. We write about what we know and what we relate to and for me that means my life, bullet journals and blogging and for other people that's makeup and fashion and travel.
So whilst there's an infinite amount of ideas out there, most of us only write about the portion we know and that means, our content is limited. Hence we end up all writing the same kinda thing; us content clones.
But when blogging gets me down and I start looking for answers on how the flip can I write something original or when I feel like my content is stale, I inevitably come back to the same comforting conclusion.
Our content is original because WE are.
Sure we might all write about the same kinda things, sure we might get a bit bored of that sometimes but ultimately, each of the 2390489385738578 posts on Primark lippies are individual because an individual wrote them. Every post on how to gain Twitter followers might have the same title, but they're all unique because of the person typing the words.
So I'll embrace my clone alter ego, tomorrow I, like most of the Blogosphere will be posting about Mother's Day but ultimately it'll be original because I am. The real MVP.
