DON’T vote for me…

This is officially the strangest post I’ve ever written, and I realise this is going to be a little controversial (some are not going to like the stance I’ve taken, some will hopefully respect it) however I do think that I need to explain why I DON’T want you to ‘vote for me’ and why I made the decision over the weekend to revoke my acceptance of a certain beauty blog award nomination.  I didn’t intend to actually write about why I took myself out of the running, however I have had an overwhelming amount of emails and messages asking why the website now states ‘gurlinterrupted was removed at the nominees request’. If you never knew anything about the award, then feel free to click out of this post now, as it will probably bore the heck outta you.   So, here goes…

Last week (Thursday or Friday I think it was), I was informed that I had received nominations for the “Beauty Review Best Beauty Blog Awards”, and was asked if I would accept the nominations and thus be a part of the competition to vie for the award.  Admittedly, I was at first flattered and quickly (clearly too quickly, without reading all the details) answered in the affirmative that I would indeed accept the nomination and was excited to be a part of it.  I then received an email saying that a voting system would be in put in place and a number of ’rounds’ would ensue to see who came out on top, and so, that’s what I did – I asked for your vote and that was that.

Cue forward a day and I was off to Blogcademy – an intense two-day course, run by three of the worlds biggest names in blogging (the course was amazing by the way!).  It was at Blogcademy that I was made to take a really good look at who I am as a “fashion, beauty, lifestyle blogger” – what my brand (gurlinterrupted) means to me, what my values are, what my point of difference is and what I need to do to accomplish everything I want to with my blog!  In short, I now know exactly where I want my brand to go, what my goals are and how to reach those goals, the new direction I will be taking, and most importantly, what I value and stand for, and of course, not compromising those values.  I spoke to the teachers at Blogcademy, and to several fellow bloggers about the beauty award I had just been nominated for.  I said I was excited, however felt weird about having to ask for votes for the first round, but it was all part of the process.  I was asked by the teachers “given that Gurlinterrupted isn’t solely a beauty blog, you cover fashion and lifestyle as well – are you worried you’ll potentially being pigeonholed?” Admittedly, that hadn’t crossed my mind. The real doubt around the award came when they asked “who’s on the judging panel, when does the judging take place, and what criteria did you have to meet?”.  I realised I had no idea at what stage any of this would take place.  When I returned home from Blogcademy on Saturday night I re-read the email only to find that in actual fact, the entire process was based on ‘voting and voting alone’. This meant that in essence there was actually no kudos (in my personal opinion) behind this award, and that it didn’t actually recognise what I felt the award was stating e.g. ‘Best Beauty Blogger’.  It was solely going to be based on how many votes I could wrangle up and in turn this would mean constantly asking friends, acquaintances, colleagues e.g. you guys reading this right now, to go and vote for me to win an award that actually doesn’t recognise what I want to be recognised for – my blog, my writing skills, my content, my qualification in makeup artistry, my background in beauty writing, actually it had nothing to do with my content at all.

Throughout day two of Blogcademy, the more I thought about it, the more I felt uncomfortable about having my name/my brand attached to an award process, that for me personally, wasn’t what I wanted to be recognised for e.g. ‘being capable of getting the most votes’.  The fact I kept hearing things like ‘only do and write about what you’re passionate about’, and ‘if your gut-feeling is that somethings not quite right, it probably ISN’T right’ (for a moment there I thought, sh*t these girls aren’t teachers, they’re blo*dy mind-readers and they’re directing all these messages at me ha ha ha). Well that was it for me, I got home Sunday night and sent an email stating that I would like to revoke my acceptance of the nomination and asked that they remove Gurlinterrupted from the competition.

I do feel like I need to state that no fault lies with the beautyreview website – I still think it’s a great website, as well as a great source of information!  And had I of read the entire email that informed me of the nomination, I would have known from the get-go how the whole process was going to play out, and in turn I wouldn’t have accepted the nomination.  I also don’t want to offend anyone still involved in the competition – in fact I wish everyone still in the running all the best – the fact of the matter is, it just wasn’t right for me!

Aaaaaanyway – Sorry for the ramble – this turned out to be a novel rather than a simple explanation – it’s just that I couldn’t reply to all the messages individually that asked why I had taken myself out of the running, yet I felt I did owe everyone an explanation given you all took the time out of your day to vote for me (which I truly appreciate), you shared my ‘vote for me’ post, and wrote gorgeous, positive messages urging your friends to vote too, and I want to thank everyone that got behind me, especially those that nominated me in the first place. You’re all amazing!!

Ange x
Gurlinterrupted
A Girl Interrupted By Fashion, Beauty & Anything Pretty That Catches My Eye