Instead of getting excited for my next travel blog, here I am cringing at the selfies in the travel posts I curated. For the love of Hive and @worldmappin, why? Why do you make your selfies your thumbnail photo or your first photo? I thought Hive is a bunch of introverts banded together with some level of anonymity, but here we are, bombarded with selfies with the same angles. Worse, the photo above aptly showed the state of your faces. Can you at least smile? So that when I open your posts, I won't get that usual jump scare, followed by an endless cringe and a tremendous dose of self-loathing.
Just to make things clear, I'm not against you for taking tons of selfies. It's your blog after all. No, I'm all against it because I'm a curator and most of the time, I deal with your travel blogs. Please, for the sake my sanity, tone it down. Like, remove it completely if possible.
As a curator, I would like to start the trend of phasing out selfies in travel blogs.
For clarification again, I'm not speaking in behalf of all the curators of @worldmappin. I'm just one curator who curates three times a week. If you want, @lizanomadsoul, @lauramica, @glecerioberto, and @ninaeatshere, you can share your thoughts about this. You are free to fully counter on me about this.
If it can't really be helped, again, can you at least be happy in your selfies? Smile like the world is very bright and wonderful place. After all, you're all so proud of your travels to the places that you often describe as paradise, heaven, or magnificent creation.
Before the trend takes effect, let me share a selfie. Or a groupfie if you might. Weird flex, but my blog, my rules.
We (@indayclara, @cthings, and I) watched the Sinulog Festival today. It was bright, colorful, and we are all smiling! That's how you share a selfie! Not the ones you're sharing that make an impression that you're Atlas, carrying the world in your shoulders.
Your blog, your rules.
Agreed. As well as: our community, our rules. As well as: I'm a curator, I make the choices.
I remember this one author, who's not active now, who shared about the beach that he went to. As I was reading his blog, I was amazed by how he described his experience while on that said beach. However, the blog ended without even a sliver of sand in sight. There's nothing in the blog except selfies!
If you're wondering why your travel post isn't curated, even if it's solid by your standards, then maybe it's time to evaluate your posts if they have a significant amount of selfies in them.
On a serious note, it's not like I just woke up and decided to wage war against selfies. The whole time I was a travel curator, I have been against selfies. It's distracting for me. Instead of focusing on the places you're sharing, I'm drawn to your faces. Not in a good way, though.
Travel should be about the places you visited and your experience while in there. It's not about your faces!
Again, this is not a blanket ban on selfies. How I wish I have that power. I just want to emphasize how selfies ruin the experience while reading your blogs. There are proper avenues for selfies and Hive has a lot of communities for those frowning faces.
Look at the Top 3 in the Travel Digests. The best travel blogs from seasoned members of the Worldmappin Community and the best travel authors don't have a single photo of themselves. I'm not saying you should do the same. Having a single photo of yourself to the places you visited is like a proof of your visit.
I guess that ends my war against selfies in travel blogs. Now, I'll go back to curating because it's still my curation schedule. If I see one selfie in the two hours worth of curation, I swear I'll flip my laptop.
Bye! See you on my next post and please bring your selfies somewhere. Just not during my curation schedule.
Kim Ybañez
Welcome to Kim's small corner in Hive. He is a chemical engineer by profession but a blogger by passion. He is a wanderlust and an adventure seeker. Join his quests as he visits remote destinations, climbs mountains, tries new and exotic dishes, and explores his country (The Philippines). He's also a trying-hard photographer, so stay tuned as he shares his photos and his thought process while creating them.
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Hear Hear!
For months, I have been contemplating writing a post on what I look for in an interesting, enjoyable post, a blog as a whole, and all that, as well as what I like to see before I curate a post and/or someone. Whenever I wanted to sit down to start writing, I didn't pull through. I didn't know what tone I should use, for one. Thoughts are constantly in my mind, my 'rules' aren't strict. Though I do dislike certain things, especially in a community I founded, but in general as well, which includes boring blog channels with posts that are same same same, without variations, not in style, not in the content itself, wrong balance in posts and comments, empty nothing containing comments and more of such.
Your post I really really really love! You took out one topic and started with the exact right words and sentences! It'll serve as a great example of how I shall go about things. Thanks for sharing your curator views, your post, your message. NJOY this week curation and life in general 🎉🥳
ps Selfies = Selfish: Why do people take them anyway?
😮😮😮 Thank you so much for this! While I'm naturally aversive to compliments or validations, I'll take this. I really thought I don't have it anymore because I had a long hiatus. I also have a problem with synthesizing my ideas into one cohesive blog. Lately, I'm trying to get back to my flow in terms of blogging, so I am trying to write as much as I can. I want to start with the topics that really bother me and I'll write about them no matter how polarizing they are. Like this one, I could have used a toned down version and less direct approach, but I should show in the blog the severity of my dislike to selfies.
Glad you're with me on this! I'm also not too strict. One selfie at the end of the blog will do. However, if you make your selfie as a thumbnail, I'll automatically pass on it. 😁
Hopefully your direct approach and clarity will change the blog posts peeps will write and publish.
This morning I thought for the community I founded to start challengers, directing the community to create certain types of posts with certain type of content to get out of the spiral of boredom, same posts, same approach towards more variety.
Wish you a lot of success with the Travel side of things.
Thank you! Hoping you will also be successful in your challenges in your community. I'm sure you can come up with something that will spur the creativity of your members.
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I feel this depends on some other factors, as yes im not a big selfie fan, unless in a family photo so kind of needed, but the people you encounter on your journey who may live there or be traveling themselves add to the journey of discover as well so are a big part of the photos.
Just my view on it :)
of course, they are! And in the end, we write travel blogs also for ourselves to keep our memory of the travel, so that's at least why I also add pictures of myself and my travel buddies. But I agree that the focus of the travel should be the place itself ;)
I'm not against adding the people you encounter on your journey. What I'm really against are those endless selfies that don't really add value to the blog. Like I can understand if one will add one selfie as proof of their visit to the place, but adding 10 selfies of the same angle at the same place is just too much. And I see a lot of people doing it.
I also add photos of myself in my blogs. At least smile if you're adding selfies. 😆
Hahah very funny this post. I also don't like to see a lot of photos of people on travel blogs, although if they are new authors I like to see at least one photo to check that they really were in the place and they are not photos from the internet. And posts where the person appears in every single photo seems a bit unnecessary and takes away from the main point of a travel blog. In my own evolution as a blogger, I used to include at least one photo of myself to show that the trip existed, but lately in many posts I don't even appear anymore. After more than four years of doing this, my public have to trust that I really am the photographer, editor and main character of all my journeys 😂.
What's the story behind your tag "Likes a night out" in this community @lauramica? 🤣
@ninaeatshere in my early days on Hive I used to write in this community about going out to bars and dinner, talking about prices and stuff ~ then I stopped creating content about that but the tag remained, plus other specific communities started to appear. If @cmplxty wants to update it I'd be grateful :-) (anyway, I still go out a lot at night to bars 😂)
Hahah sorry I should update it! I've got some ideas of what it can be now :D
Great, thank you! I'll be waiting to see what you come up with 😅
I know right! All it takes is one selfie at the end of the blog to show that you actually visited the place in your travel post. And that's it.
Since you're not showing yourself anymore in your travel posts, it means you're a seasoned travel blogger. No one dares to question your credibility as you already built a reputation and you also have that writing style that makes people distinguish you from others.
Glad that you're with me on this!
I don't see much of thr worldmappin posts but notice this a lot.
Selfies are good, but not always. I agree with you even if I'm no curator!
So I'm not the only one! Right! I'm okay with selfies if they're good. But most of the time it feels like I'm haunted by ghosts through their frowning faces. So yeah, it's war against selfies. 😭😭😭
😂
Wuah, this is great warning. Like you said that sometimes we put the selfie because we want to show that we visited that place. I will take it as a note. 😁
It's okay to have it in the end of the blog. Or have someone take a photo of you with the place you visited at the background. That way, your face won't take much of space in the photo. 😂😂😂
I'm not talking about you in this. I'm just speaking in general. Your photos are not selfies anyway. You have great photos.
That is acceptable. I see, I love your post, even though I do selfie in my post I have never think you against my post. I can understand you even though I am not a curator 😊
Hahaha almost every post of mine starts with a selfie 😇😱 I still consider myself a good travel author though but I got your message haha. I like it when people show pictures of themselves as well. Like that we see if they really were there and also if they liked it there (smiling :D)
But I know what you mean. A lot of times the posts are full of selfies - only selfies.... that I can´t understand either.
The place should be the focus, but the individual experience is also important. - I love how our curator team is so diverse. Following the rules of the community is of course the most important but it's also good to have individual preferences.
Yours is an exception, Liz! You're always smiling in your selfies, so I'll make it an exception to the rule. What I hate are those selfies with faces that send shivers to my spine. 😂
Hahaha 😂... That has happened to me many times too, I enter to read a post of some place, and the place is not shown, they only put selfies, and as you say, there are other communities for that. It's not bad that the person appears in a couple of photos, but in the traveling community the protagonists are the places, so modeling in all the photos is not the idea 😉.
😂😂😂 I made it with a little bit of sarcasm, but it's really disheartening to see a lot of selfies in a travel blog. I feel like the place is being disrespected.
Totally agree 😉
I can feel your pain. Ï think one selfie in a travel post is (more than) enough - a proof that the person really was there. Never understood why some people put so many selfies in one post, especially those taken from the very same spot and angle. Narcissism maybe? :)
@tipu curate 4
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I initially thought it was narcissism, but also maybe no one directly pointed it to them that it's not really a good idea. Maybe because we are so fixated in proving our identities and authenticity here in Hive, they forgot that it ruins the experience for us readers when we see a lot of selfies in their blogs.
But yeah, many people are so narcissistic nowadays that we can't discount that as the main factor.
Right, travel blog should be about the places you travel with maybe one to two smiling selfies, and more of the place itself. At least, we'll feel like we explored the place with them while reading it. And who knows, people might even consider visiting the place because they showed us the beauty of these place 😆.
Agree! We should show the beauty of the place so that people who read our blogs get inspired to visit.
Well said mate! I want to see wonderful countryside and gorgeous beaches and.....errr.....could you change the rule slightly please? How about no selfies if you're a bloke! That's it! All the ladies who take selfies in their posts are so lovely and always smiling. Lady selfies are great, men selfies are banned!
Sorted.
I never realised I was such a great negotiator and problem solver. Compromise and balance are the keys to life :-)
Hope you're well and your sister is still on the road to recovery. Best wishes :-)
😂😂😂
I also agree! Ladies selfies are fun to look at and they're always smiling. Men on the other hand, I can't. Are they incapable of smiling? It ruins the vibe of their blog.
Thank you for your well wishes! My sister's doing great! She's on the 3rd month of treatment and she's now doing most of the things on her own. She can also start to work again, but in a work-from-home set-up.
That's really good to hear. Being able to not feel as helpless will boost her strength and self-confidence.
Take care fella, keep doing what you do :-)
Thank you! 😊
Thank you sir Kim for the reminder. Thank you for guiding us from the beginning until now. This is of great help to those who are new to blogging and the old ones.
Hopefully they will heed my advice. I just want to see an awesome travel post. 😆
Very logical, it is better to refrain from unusual behavior.
Grumpy Kim! 🤣
hahaha
I should be grumpy! I'm tired of seeing frowning faces in travel blogs! 😂😂😂
Thank you for this very informative, frank yet wonderful reminders sir @ybanezkim26. This gives me more ideas/clues on how to go about my next blog after several months of being dormant. Hoping to get back on the track soon.
Glad to see you back! 😀