Hey there,
Maybe this is the wrong thing to post just under a drop-down menu for my Media Kit, but I think honesty is the best policy and I think those who read this blog have come to expect it from me.
I’ve noticed a rather large drop in my Instagram follower count the last few days (but an increase in blog follower count, though they’re unrelated). I stopped posting images of me traversing the city of New York (because I came back home), took a break on photographs of clothing and beauty (because I didn’t buy anything new worth sharing), and started posting more book/coffee photographs because those are always being enjoyed by me so I wanted to share it with the world.
I simply don’t live a high-end life that would allow me the opportunities to skip work and sit at coffee shops with expensive handbags, fly off to new and exciting places frequently, or pose in front of fancy buildings with brand name outfits. I follow a lot of accounts that do this and I think they’re awesome! I’m not holding their success against them by any means. It just doesn’t fit with my life or lifestyle because it’s not in my pay grade!
You may catch me at a small coffee shop on the weekend with my Winner’s handbag, and you may see a trip to Montreal to visit family (by car, no fancy plane ticket shot in those), and you may catch me striking a pose in my thrifted outfit! This is authentically me, and this is the content I cultivate.
I have considered the importance of a theme when trying to gain IG followers, but if I can only share one aspect of my life in one feed and the rest in another secret account, what’s the point? That’s not why I use IG! And the goal of my feed is to cultivate ALL beauty, not just what looks good to a certain group of people. I can’t stick to one colour because my life is too colourful! I can’t stick to a minimalist look because chaos can be beautiful! I can’t stick to just fashion because there’s more to me! I can’t stick with just books because that would eliminate so much else that is of importance to me!
My IG’s theme is a message of beauty and dreaming. I will make an effort to capture all the beauty my eye can spot, and I’ll continue to spread my message of dreaming as a way to plan and achieve your goals. If this gains me the right kinds of followers who want to dream along with me, then I’m pleased. If this eliminates the followers who want an inauthentic aesthetic and not authentic living, then I’m pleased as well. I didn’t create lifeofcloud to get popular or get famous or gain followers, but to share beautiful aspects of my life on a very wide-reaching platform.
My world is a smorgasbord of beauty, and I hope you’ll join me in a taste.
xo
C
Post Scriptum … 11/03/2016: The other challenging part about being a content creator is you get people like you see in the comments below.
lifeofcloud 
“I simply don’t live a high-end life that would allow me the opportunities to skip work and sit at coffee shops with expensive handbags…”
Very subtle indeed, C.
For someone who has the audacity to write entire blog essays regarding friendship, authenticity and veering from jealousy I find some of your written content troubling. I find it especially troubling since you seem to have a fixation on my personal blog content and in turn use it as ammo to rant and rave about lifestyle choices. Your content should be your own and not derived from creating contrasts. Who you are shouldn’t be contingent on what other people are doing or not doing. If you were truly authentic you wouldn’t need comparisons to describe yourself or your “lifestyle”.
Generalizing and stereotyping other blogs based on their content doesn’t serve to make yours more authentic or more valuable. As I can already imagine, you will rebuttal this by saying that you never claimed to be perfect or that you never actually put down any blogs (nor their content) directly. However, I am reading between the lines and all I am taking away from this is condescension and passive aggressive judgment followed by feeble attempts at back peddling.
People don’t “skip work” people take legally provided/enforced vacation time. People can use whatever means of transportation when travelling or sit at coffee shops wherever the fuck they feel like and people deem different things worthy of spending money on. The point is, you nor anyone, is entitled to comment about it.
“I won’t make you feel guilty for living a good, successful life.” These are the words you’ve written and I think you may want to give that a shot.
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Joanna,
You literally searched out my blog, took the time to read some posts, made the assumption that it’s about you when I have no access to your content and no reason to shame you for it, and wrote a verbose post to criticize me at one in the morning. And you’re an adult!
What a sad life you must live.
Best of luck finding something better to do with your time.
xo
C
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C,
Ah, surprise surprise classic hypocrisy. You took the time to write a whole essay regarding friendship that essentially was one long winded subtweet. “And your an adult!”
What a sad life you must live.
Good luck with your life, C.
Ps: your posting on the internet, so essentially anything you write is open to people reading it. If you can take the time to make snide comments on people’s content, expect the same in return.
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You’re×
And you’re back for more. I don’t get it.
Is this really how you spend your time and energy? Going to the blogs of people you don’t like and calling them names?
Don’t be sad for me, Joanna.
I live a great life surrounded by great, positive people. And I don’t go actively searching for people’s websites to waste my time (and my mind) attacking them. Take a minute to pause and reflect.
Honey attracts flies.
Confident people attract the negative.
What about my life makes you so upset? How do I directly impact your life in any way that you feel the need to come to my website and write these comments?
I really feel sorry for you, if I do have that great of an influence on your mind that you feel this is necessary; these are the kinds of issues I negotiate my 12 year old students out of! “Don’t waste your time on the mundane, on people that really have no importance on the life you’re living. Don’t actively search out people to argue with when you could just be living your own life and letting go. Why are you so obsessed with (Person A)?”
Why can’t you just “let go” of me Joanna? Is my existence that much of a threat to your life? To your ego? What is it that Beyoncé says… “You know you’re that chick when you cause all of this conversation.” Do I have something in my life that you lack? Do you really have nothing else to do or talk about? My blog posts bother you so much and yet you spent a handful of valuable minutes reading them and criticizing them. Why? Why is this where you’ve chosen to spend your time?
Use your time wisely: better yourself as a human being. Small minds focus on people. Great minds focus on ideas. Make your focus on ideas and not me, please. I really don’t want to be your fascination, thanks!
xo
C
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Honestly, you can turn this around if that makes you feel better. The reality of this situation is that you posted negativity on my content for whatever reason first- unprovoked. I never followed your Instagram blog and definitely don’t now and have no interest in doing so. Therefore, I don’t find you threatening to my ego, I find your attitude and “verbose” passive aggressive bullshit truly disgusting. It’s pretty sad to me that out of the thousands of followers my partner and I have you were the first and only person to comment negativity. And the saddest part is that you actually know me and have for years. Shame on you. All of your comments and Beyoncé lyrics are a moot point because you’re clearly the kind of person who likes to victimize yourself. Victims aren’t confident. They thrive on projecting their own issues onto other people. Take responsibility for your shit. If you can’t handle criticism, then don’t dish it out.
If attacking my maturity is all you have, then have at it. But you’re still responding, which puts you right on my level, which is pretty comical.
Have a good one, Hun.
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Okay, Joanna, this is absolutely absurd. I don’t have time for this.
Of course I’m going to comment on content on MY PAGE, but you literally keep typing in my address into your URL and coming back to this to continue spewing your nonsense. Instead of spending your time here, on my page, which you just “happened upon” (because we all know that Googling “lifeofcloud” is a common search word), I would like to direct you to other Google suggestions for your age that are a better way to spend your time:
– real estate
– mortgages
– health benefit plans
– how to help homelessness
– donating to charity
– investments in mutual funds
– tax returns
– therapy as a healthy outlet for rage
– anything but lifeofcloud
xo
C
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