I am still getting used to talking to myself in front of the camera and hopefully in future videos I will be more comfortable.
Also I forgot to mention that I will be trying out different ideas as far as video ideas instead of just me blabbering about stuff all the time. Hopefully they won’t be too boring haha.
I’ve had my old YouTube account for a few years and never really did much with it. I mainly just had it to view and comment on other videos. I didn’t even upload anything on it until last year.
I never planned on being a “YouTuber” until recently, and I was looking at my old account username, which was MissAshleyXO and I thought, “xo” sounds so 13 year old girl, that has to go. And you can’t just change your username on youtube, you have to make a whole other account. So I figured I would since I didn’t have much content on the other one anyway. I found a way to download videos from youtube on to my computer and then I just reuploaded the videos I wanted to transfer from my old account to my new one.
New channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LoveAshleyNet
This will be the official channel associated with this blog. I plan to post vlogs (coming soon), personal home videos I take, and maybe some other stuff too. So in other words, if you like this blog then you should like the youtube channel, so feel free to the check the few personal clips I have up now, subscribe, and comment! Please be patient as I am still finding my niche as a new youtuber and figuring out my audience as well.
Also I am looking for cool youtube channels that I can subscribe to so don’t hesitate to post the link to yours, whatever it may be. I will check it out!
For quite some time now I have been seeing other bloggers using trigger warning and comment policies. First let’s talk about trigger warnings.
Trigger warnings are when the author of the post will warn a reader of potentially offensive content within that post that might trigger an intense emotional response, usually of anger, disgust, or sadness. This is usually done in either the title or the first paragraph of the post, and is usually for the benefit of the reader so they can decide whether or not to proceed reading. Now I have to admit I have always thought of these as somewhat useless to me, because I am not afraid of any potentially offensive content. Even I were, I think curiosity would always get the best of me. I doubt I would say to myself, “Oh there’s a trigger warning, better hit the Back button.” And I have to admit that I am unsure of who would actually do that, but who knows. But my “Sexism: Only Ugly Bitches Complain About It” post the other day seems to have offended quite a lot of people. Some were just disgusted with the message within the motivational poster. Other apparently, “can’t believe I posed it as a serious question.” Now first let me say that I didn’t post that pic as to say I agree with the message it contains. I didn’t mean to purposely offend anyone, and if I did, I apologize. My motive for posting that was that I was just curious as to what different people had to say about the idea. I know other bloggers might not care and they might completely ignore or dismiss anyone who wants to defend the message of the photo, but not I.
Then I got to thinking that maybe I should have put up a trigger warning for that. But if I start doing that, I might have trigger warnings up all over the place, but would it still be necessary? Just something that I started to ponder.
Now on to comment policies. Those are when a blogger will post a set of rules or guidelines for readers who choose to leave comments. If a commenter doesn’t follow the policy, there posts are usually removed and the person who made the comment could face being banned if it is a repeated offense. I have thrown around the idea in my head of making a basic comments policy. Nothing extensive, just something to ensure that no one within my blog community, including myself, feels disrespected in any way by another commenter. I want everyone to be able to have their say but also know that they don’t have to put up with someone else harassing or bullying them, which on a blog that tends to bring up controversial subjects (as I often do) seems to be a potential issue. I think I have put off making a comments policy until I gain more of an audience, but maybe I could use one already. This idea was partially inspired by a conversation and mention of a comments policy that reader Aoirthoir brought up.
So should I use triggers warnings when necessary?
Do you use them as a blogger or reader?
And should I post a comments policy?
Any ideas or thoughts on these two things would be very much appreciated.
I will be taking suggestions and ideas for topics to write about or post on. Is there a topic that you would like to know my opinion on? What would you like to see on here? Don’t be shy, it can be about anything.
Some of you may remember I had a short lived message board, called Illuminate, about a year ago. It was basically just a general discussion board for anyone to chat about whatever. It’s kind of one of those nerdy online things I do. Well it started off well until the server crashed and it was gone forever. I didn’t want to start over right away, seeing as how making a sucessful forum takes a good amount of time, effort, and patience. I figured I would wait. Since then I have been active in posting on a couple of different other boards .
I was recently inspired to start one up again. Nothing has been created or decided on yet and things are still in the beginning planning phase. Basically we want it to be a mixture of topics, aimed at ages 18-30 but not restricted to just that range. So far I have one other person working with me on it and helping me brainstorm ideas for what it’s going to be like, but we will need more people when the forum becomes closer to launch date. I’ll need moderators and content producers, and probably some other help too, so if anyone is willing to help in any way, just let me know how you want to contribute and I will take you into consideration.
Hopefully it turns out to be a fun community!
It’s been awhile since my last post, and this is partially because I have been thinking about the direction I want to go here with this blog. I’ve been wondering if I should narrow the topic down to something more specific, and this was only because I worried that my post topics were too scattered, but I have chosen to keep things the way they are, thanks to some helpful feedback I have received.
One thing that I have been thinking about trying out though is having guest bloggers come on here and share their stories, writing pieces, inspiration, or just whatever is on their mind. At the moment I don’t have anyone in mind, so if anyone would be interested on sumbitting a post, let me know.
I have also started guest blogging more lately as well. There is a blog that I have been reading for several months, called Lovelyish which is basically a community set up on xanga, focused on women’s interests and aimed at women in their late teens and 20s, where members can sumbit articles for approval on the front page and receive comments. Click here to check out my profile there. I have also linked it on my side column. You might notice the posts I have submitted so far are previous entries from this blog. I will probably start submitting content exclusively for Lovelyish and then copying on to here or at least linking it. It’s a fun community and it’s awesome to be a part of it.
I have completely reorganized my Flickr photo album! I wanted to make it so I could add more pics and put them in appopriately named sets so everything looks better and more clean. The only thing I still need to do is go through and edit/add some titles and descriptions. I even went through and found some of my older pics and added them in there too so check it out.
Just a little bit ago, I revisted a blog post of someone’s that I commented on a few days ago, only to find that my comment had been deleted. I was kind of surprised at this one, because it was on a controversial topic and I posted an opinion that seemed to conflict with the author of the post, but I was very careful in how I constructed my comment. I was very polite and respectful, but it was dismissed and deleted anyways. This used to happen to me a lot on a different blog in particular a few years ago. Basically, because I didn’t kiss ass, I was not welcome, and not only was my first comment ever deleted, but I was banned immediately. Whatever. I went back to that blog a few months later only to comment on an article that the author wrote that I actually really liked, and I told them how great it was, and it took less than 60 seconds for that woman to recognize me and tell me once again I am not to comment again, ever. Boy, I must have really pissed her off all that time ago by saying something so out of line to make someone act that way, right? No. Not at all, actually. I emailed her to ask why what I said was such a big deal, all she said, “My house, my rules.” Yes, she really said that. I was as nice as possible in saying what I thought, but it was a statement that didn’t agree with the message that she was trying to get across, but apparently that was enough to get my ass banned for life, because you know the internet is some serrrious effing business, people!
It’s just that, it all amuses me. I can completely understand deleting a comment on your blog that is undoubtedly harassing and disrespectful. “Hey you are a (insert overused female insult here). I hate you and hope you die!” Ok, I believe that one to be delete worthy, but just because someone makes a comment that doesn’t agree with the author and they can’t handle it, so they snub them off and declare that person a troll?
I just want to let my readers know that I will not be that way. Please, feel free to disagree with me and post it. I welcome it an intellectual challenge. I can handle an opinion that is different than my own. I will listen and respond, and take your thoughts into consideration. Just remember to be respectful and civilized. If you can do that, I will not dismiss your right to your freedom to say what you think just because it’s “my house.”
That is all for now.
I have changed some things around the site, like the layout, some of the content, etc. Adding some new stuff, taking out some old stuff, and I will be continuing on that in the next few days, just to keep things up to date. I will be updating my About Me page very shortly.
In other news, the Rock Girls calendar page is official up on Max’s website! You can also check them out on the photographer’s online portfolio.
I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog once a day for all of 2011. This is all inspired by the official wordpress Post A Day Challenge for 2011.
If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments, likes, and suggestions of inspiration if you have them.
Signed,
Ashley
