Across the diverse channels of fashion media authorities: blogs, magazines and opinion leaders, affiliate marketing has taken over and it’s easy to get annoyed by articles masked as advise or suggestions for women looking for love in all the wrong places.
As much as I want to believe most people understand how this game works, I am sure there are still fools out there that believe they are getting useful advise. But this is not for them, this is for women that are sick of being treated like a clueless, superficial, brainless dummy.
The way I see women through the eyes of fashion marketers is: insecure, helpless, confused, frivolous and in urgent need of help to perform very basic tasks like choosing what to wear and putting make up on.
Titles like the following are examples of how little women are (perceived to be) capable or doing by themselves and how much crap they are luring us to buy.
“How to Wear High-Waisted Jeans”
– I say: you put them on.
“Don’t Tell Your Vegan Friends, But Calf Hair Is Back For Another Season”
– I say: f u, I don’t wear fur
“The Post-College Version Of A Sexy Halloween Costume? 50 Shades–Duh!”
– I say: are you talking to a 16 year-old?
“Alexa Chung’s Printed Burberry Dress Is A Totally Reasonable Fall Splurge”
– I say: seriously? I don’t even know who that is…
“The 31 chicest ways to work a shirt this fall”
– I say: again, you just have to put it on. And I’m pretty sure “chicest” is not a word.
We all want to be models, taller and skinnier, we need diets, beauty treatments and optical illusions to be worthy of that rich husband we are all looking for. We don’t have any sense of style and cannot think independently, we need a gift guide and a shopping guide for every season and we need a trends report, because we follow every irrational trend out there and we buy millions of things we don’t need.
I felt rather unsettled when I saw an article on the blog Who What Wear titled “The secret to looking taller without wearing heels”. The note, like a great percentage of this kind of publication’s material is just another affiliate marketing plug to push ugly overpriced items down the throats of the site’s readers. The list of “tips” is accompanied by photos of skinny and tall women that do not illustrate the main thesis suggested on the title, while promoting the products that were the real motivation for the post in the first place. I really hope people understand how most of this kind of “content” is purely profit driven and that such blogs and magazines make money every time you click and buy some item advertised on their website disguised as a “tip” or “inspiration”.
The way I analyze an article before deciding if it’s worth clicking on it:
- Do they want to sell me something?
- Is this about celebrities?
- Is this likely to be good advise?
- Is this media platform recognized for its quality?
- Have they published interesting and smart stuff before?
- Are their titles usually misleading and disguised advertising?
This process pretty much leaves out every mainstream fashion magazine and blog. I have resolved to be very aggressive with deceptive people or media: I have unfollowed, unliked, unsubscribed and unbookmarked any website that engages in shameless advertising and I think it’s the best way to protest against what I consider a dumbed-down version of real content.
The next step is to actually complain, which I have done mainly through social media. I love it because you can be honest and others will read your perspectives and maybe get inspired to do the same. So far, I haven’t sent emails, but maybe I will… I guess I just decided to stop spending time reading these things and I don’t have time to email some intern that has no clue of what an editorial line is.
So, why do they treat us like idiots: because we keep clicking on their ingeniously titled posts and cool graphics and photos. Demanding good content starts by rejecting the bad one.
Note: When I started to write this, I had all these examples and links, but I didn’t want to increase their search engine ranking by linking to any of these useless things, so the above are just text and you could look them up, if you want to verify it, but please don’t click on them!