Don't Believe The Hype

August 05, 2016

Can you believe it's Olympics time again?

The 2012 London Games seem like a world away, possibly because my life has changed in oh so many ways during those four years; pregnancy, resultant parenting, house move, change of role at work and starting a blog.

One thing I remember about those games is all the hype around our swim team and how it all ended badly. Poor performance was blamed on social media and whatever else was going on. This year, the athletes seem to have wound their necks in and are concentrating on their sport rather than the tickets on themselves, so I'm looking more forward to cheering them on over the coming weeks. I'm also totally looking forward to my four-yearly dose of gymnastics (all disciplines) and diving!

Now, on the subject of hype, it's something I've had to battle since starting a blog and increasing my social media participation. Not so much believing in my own, but that of other things.

You know I love blogging. It's opened up a whole new world of people and ideas and things and I've made actual friends, it's all quite jolly. However, it's really super easy to fall victim to hype; namely, buying stuff. Whether it's a product or a service or an event, when it's all you're seeing over your Insta feed or in your blog reader, it's hard not to get sucked in. I must admit, I have dropped bucks when I couldn't really afford it just for the sake of being in with the cool kids or getting that "must have" new product. When you blog about stuff like fashion and beauty, the self-propagated pressure to buy can be so very real and when you're not gifted on the regular, that can hurt the old PayPal account.

Sometimes, hype is justified - I got a lot out of attending the Little Blog Big and Bloggers United events in Adelaide. However, I sold my ProBlogger ticket even though I'd decided I was so totally definitely going this year because I realised I wouldn't get the value out of it that I needed (plus the associated expenditure of flights and accommodation on top of the ticket). I'm not saying ProBlogger is overhyped and I know people who have benefited enormously from it, but it wasn't right for me at the time and I could have easily got badly burnt on the ticket cost. I just wanted to go because everyone else was going - or so I thought!

I recently purchased an item of clothing from an Australian online boutique popular with some bloggers I follow. It was a flash sale announced on Instagram for a matter of hours so, dizzy with excitement, I clicked "add to cart" and eagerly awaited delivery, mentally planning a blog post around it, so excited was I to be a part of the action and have my very own piece.

When I received it over a week after ordering *side eye*, I decided I could probs size down for a better fit and set about checking the returns policy, where I found that exchanges weren't permitted and any return would be at my cost for store credit only. So if I wanted that same item in a smaller size, I'd be out $50+ to buy it all full price, plus my return postage, plus another $10 shipping fee. How not cute. Even on sale, the item cost more than what I would normally pay (despite it being of obvious quality, no complaints there) so it was meant to be a bit of a treat - but I could have got a more satisfying result going to a retailer with less Insta cred and more customer service focus. I fully accept it's on me to read the returns policy before purchasing but STILL, I mean, COME ON.

Similarly, remember when Sephora was set to open and we all* lost our collective minds, then it was a fizzer? Likewise with their online store that came over a year later, with stuff frequently sold out and a price point that wasn't on par with what we'd been hoping?

So yeah, hype is a thing, so here's some things to think about