does what we say on social media matter or does the problem lie with those who focus on negative posts?

top - new look

I had the idea for this post, at least the first half of the title, back in January during the Australian Open when Tennys Sandgren's dream run was overshadowed by his appalling Twitter profile on which he had liked a bunch of alt-right racist tweets. Then I wrote a post because I wanted to go back on something I said in a blog post previously, and in it touched on this new thing we have of dragging up public figure's old offensive tweets and holding them accountable for it, so I thought I'd mentioned the subject already and put this post to one side.

Then, in the last couple days, another Twitter dramzzz kicked off in the world of the ATP tour - this time centred around Fernando Verdasco, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios. And it got me thinking not only about this original blog post idea I'd had but also how the media chose to focus on Nick tweeting one petty lil thing over his recent involvement with the MSD school tennis team after all they'd been through. So is what we say on social media really going to make an impact, or is it the stuff people choose to focus on and ignore that shapes our public perception?

Quick background info on this Kygs Kokk FerVer situ. On Monday Kokkinakis and Verdasco played a match against each other in the Miami Open, during which Verdasco complained about someone in the crowd clapping or shouting in between his serves, someone who turned out to be Thanasi's dad. They then had a heated discussion on their benches during the changeover, where Verdasco was adamant he wasn't talking about Kokk's dad when every single thing he said and every description of the culprit he gave matched his dad. When Thanasi told him that was his dad, Verdasco apologised and said he didn't know, then after the match when he spoke to Sky Sports he reiterated that he didn't realise that was Thanasi's dad and he never would've said anything had he known. During this match though, Nick Kyrgios (top twenty player and Kokk's longtime bestie) tweeted that he hoped Thanasi would win, that Verdasco was the 'saltiest dude' (lol) and made fun of Verdasco's record against Australian players which, at the time, was 0-6. He deleted it, Verdasco found out and tweeted him about it then blocked him, Kyrgios then wrote a tweet aimed both publicly and at Verdasco justifying his decision to delete the initial tweet and then everything was left. And then, yesterday, Verdasco decided to tweet that it wasn't Thanasi's dad he was talking about which is an obvious outright lie as he spent the entire day before saying he didn't realise it was his dad but now he knew he was sorry.

Now the thing with this, I get why the tennis media focused on it. It's tennis, nothing this ~exciting~ ever happens. It's why I like the younger players tbh, I find it more relatable to see these younger guys not afraid to put out a funny, petty tweet like me in my Script days would than see the older ones who are too scared to ever express an opinion in fear of it being bad PR. But, the day before, Kyrgios was hitting on the practice courts with the kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (the school that had the horrific shooting back in February), and that drew almost zero attention from the media. Nick didn't do it for publicity at all and didn't make a big deal about it so naturally it got less exposure but the tennis world was aware that he did this too but chose to focus on one tweet over this. It wasn't mentioned once after he tweeted about Verdasco the day after, nobody who spoke about HOW BAD HIS TWEETS WERE!!! also mentioned this other amazing thing he did.

Nick has his own charity, the Nick Kyrgios Foundation, for underprivileged youth. He's always inviting kids in hard situations to his practices and not too much is said about it by the media. On Sunday the MSD High tennis team were invited for the Miami Open's own mini March For Our Lives with lots of players participating, but it was Nick who went out of his way to hang out with them before and after this. Nobody focuses on this stuff anywhere near as much as they focus on a tweet he made calling another player salty. Also, Nick was tweeting along to a tennis match. Something most viewers do. If it's fine for tennis fans and journos to tweet along to a match and voice their opinion as events unfold, why can't Nick do the same?

I understand that saying something negative or controversial on social media will always come back to bite you, especially if you're a public figure with a following who really keep up with what you say, and everyone on social media has some sort of responsibility for themselves to think about what they post and how they want to be perceived depending on what they're posting. But, is it really that important when the only thing others will focus on is the one negative thing you've tweeted amongst the dozens of positive actions you've taken?

There's a massive difference between starting some dramz and being genuinely offensive. The Tennys Sandgren thing that happened a few months ago was far worse because some of the content he liked came from discriminatory, racist, sexist accounts. Nick just called someone salty. And yes, it's hella funny seeing middle aged tennis journos trying to give viewers an accurate definition of salty. Whilst Sandgren got a lot of shit for it at the time, it's sort of been dropped. Nick's tweet to Verdasco is being sensationalised at the moment because the media love to construct him as the bad boy of tennis, just because of the way he acted when he was eighteen and first turned pro. 

So why should we bother to filter out what we say if we are going to be put into a stereotype anyway? People who want to see us as the bad boy of tennis, or ykno just the bad guy, are going to see us as that and that's their problem. You could tweet compliments to 100 people a day but if you tweet that you hate mules suddenly someone will come at you like stop hating on looks people enjoy pls x and label you a hater or a judgemental bitch or something like that. Ofc I mean this in the posting something funny and sassy and slightly controversial sense, not posting discriminatory stuff. 

We're always taught and told to not post anything we wouldn't want a future employer seeing, and I carry this now but didn't as much when I was fifteen and running my mouth off in The Script's fanbase, and I find those old tweets so damn funny when they come up in my Timehop that I refuse to delete them. People who have good judgement and people who matter will know that I am no longer like that and wouldn't have tweeted things maliciously if they were to ever see the tweets. Tbh, when I look back on them, they're not even bad. 

In terms of these controversial, drama-causing tweets - how much do they really matter? If something is opinionated but slightly negative when almost everything else you do/say demonstrates that you are a nice person then does it really matter that much? If someone is going to pick out that one opinionated tweet and judge you on that instead of everything positive you've always displayed, surely it says more about them than you?

The funny thing is, when I initially planned to write this post after the Sandgren incident, my view was wow what you do on social media really matters (I mean, I already knew this but that was my only take) but now, seeing how this Kyrgios thing has played out, I think there are factors that determine whether or not what you've said matters, and just how much it matters.

Being offensive or prejudicing others is just a no. But when it's something opinionated it's important to take into account who follows you, how much influence you have (eg public figures are always held more to account than 'normal people', the fairness is another debate but that's just how it is regardless), whether or not you care about people's perception of you for a certain post, the type of reputation and online presence you want to have, whether your tweet offends or targets someone and if it does, how it offends and targets them. 

Calling someone salty isn't that bad, and stating a fact about their 0-6 Australian players record is a fact a la Kygs so it can't exactly be bitchy and shouldn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things. Belittling people because they may possess a trait or even possess a certain type of hat is unfair and matters. Picking on people for their life choices matters, it makes you look like a lil bitch. If you don't even want to look opinionated, then it may matter to you if you tweet something with a strong opinion even if it doesn't hurt anyone. 

There's a line we cross where we become fake and hide parts of our personality because we are too worried we will look like we are offending people online. This is exactly what happened to me. Is it worse to be fake in order to look like you're staying in line, or should we voice our opinions if it's not going to really target or hurt anyone? Pretending to be something or someone you're not will catch up to you the same way an offensive social media post will so it can be hard to balance the scales.

My view? As long as you're not outright targeting and hurting people or groups and being discriminatory, you should be the one determining just how much what you're about to post matters to you and you should post it if you don't think it matters that much. If it's not really offensive, it's fine to tweet along to a TV show and say you think x person is bad in the role or fine to say you don't like someone's new album compared to their old stuff. It's fine to post that you do or don't agree with something. This is a fragile subject, but to me as long as nobody is being hurt or discriminated against then it's really up to you what you want to say, share, post, like, retweet, regram. I try not to say things that will catch up with me, but yes I happily voiced my opinion in this whole grown-ass-athletes-indirecting-each-other-on-twitter business, I will happily voice my opinion when I don't agree with something that I think is straight up wrong like sexism, and as long as nobody can be hurt by what I say then I'll hit share. After writing that post about losing my sass, I realised it would end up being fake if I kept every opinion I had to myself and sat on the fence constantly. I'm happy with how I'm presenting myself online at the moment, people generally know that if I voice something negatively that it doesn't reflect on my character and know that I am a good person, and I know that everything I say now can't be held against me unless someone is really trying to reach.

There will always be people in life who don't like you, these are the people who will find any excuse to construct you as the bad guy in their minds and that's when they'll use your one opinionated post against you despite overwhelming evidence proving that you're just a regular nice gal. And the media will always be looking for a story, it's up to us as consumers of the media to get more information in order to make a balanced judgement. Don't let someone else's version of events and selective use of information affect the way you view something or someone. If everyone's going off at someone for calling their colleague salty (ha, now this sounds like something that would've happened in my old retail job) but that person is really out here creating a charity for underprivileged children and taking the time out of their day to do something nice for a group of kids who went through something traumatic because they genuinely care, what do you think defines them more? Are you really still going to think they're a bad person?

And the Kyrgios/Kokkinakis/Verdasco incident that made me write this post? I find it hella funny. It's not really changed my perception of any of them, I'm just enjoying sitting here watching the tweets roll in and having a good laugh. Here for a good time not a long time n all that x

Sorry if this post seems a bit all over the place btw, obviously these events are so recent that I didn't manage to write this post in advance because the idea only sparked again yesterday after this twitter tennis incident. And soz for lack of outfit posts, the weather is tragic so I couldn't go shoot and had to settle for this pic my friend took of me at coffee yesterday which obvs wasn't a fully fledged outfit shoot hence there only being one.

♡

Yasmin

on 'revenge bodies', doing things for yourself instead of boys and finding happiness in being single

Have you ever broken up with someone, or even just stopped talking to them, and told your besties group chat that you were gonna 'get hot', show them what they're missing and make yourself desirable af now you're single?

We have this slightly strange culture of doing things post-breakup to announce our single selves to the world and make our exes regret ever losing us. Whilst this can spark self-love and empowerment and give you that lil push in the right direction of getting your shit together as a thing you want to do for yourself, it has also given us this idea that we need to do it as some sort of justification, to prove ourselves to everyone else and especially for whoever you just broke up with.

I say doing things yourself instead of boys, because I'm writing what I know. Ofc if you're trying to get over a girl and doing things for girls instead of guys that's fine, or if you're trying to get over both, or anything / anyone else. Insert whatever applies to you, this is just what applies to me.

A common one is hearing people repeatedly say that they're going to go to the gym and/or lose weight post-breakup to show their ex what they've lost and make them jealous. The revenge body. There are a few problems with this. 1. It connotes that in order to attract attention romantically your body needs to look a certain way, feeding this discriminatory idea that only one body shape is desirable. 2. Why is your goal to make them jealous and continue to focus on someone who clearly didn't appreciate you enough instead of focusing on yourself? And 3. If you're not doing it for yourself, should you really be doing it? 

The third point is a bit subjective. Maybe this has given you the motivation you needed to do something that you've wanted to do for yourself for a long time. Maybe, a week or a month into your new exercise plan, you realise how much you love doing this and you continue to do it for yourself, having already forgotten about the little rat you set out to do it for.

top - topshop // skirt - topshop // baker boy - asos [similar] // boots - river island

Self love can almost be a taboo, you don't want to look like you're ~obsessed with yourself~ so maybe you don't do things for yourself because you don't want to come across as selfish, or maybe because you're just too selfless to actually do things for yourself. This idea needs to go. Too many people aren't doing things for themselves because they just don't think they should. Maybe you're using your breakup as an excuse to do something you've wanted to do for yourself for so long, and just disguising it as doing it to make your ex jealous. There could even be instances where your current partner is holding you back, not letting you reach your full potential or doing all the things you need to do for yourself, and you don't realise that until you're broken up so that's when you decide to start bettering yourself.

My view on anything that people see as controversial - plastic surgery, losing weight, only posting pics of yourself at your 12/10 best - is that you should do it if it makes you happy and you're doing it for you. The problem starts when we create a whole concept of doing it for other people, a la the revenge body.

It might not be a revenge body for you. It might be a revenge job, a revenge holiday, a revenge car, a revenge wardrobe, even a revenge face. If you're literally only doing it as a big fuck you to your ex, it's not worth you doing it. Your heart won't properly be in it so you won't even see desired results, and if you've made a pretty permanent or expensive change then in six months you're over it you have to live with a decision you made solely with someone else in mind for the rest of your life.

The idea of doing things now that you're single makes it look like you need to justify being single and succeed at being single. What does that even mean? Can you succeed at it? Is there anything to actually succeed? It creates a shame around being single, which has always been the most ridic thing to me ever. It also, again, fuels the idea of making yourself desirable in one way or another. It makes you feel like there must be something wrong with you if you're single.

To me, being single is just as small a deal as not being single. I know both are a big deal as in your significant other (lol I hate this phrase and hate when I read articles with it in but it's one of the only inclusive terms) means a lot to you, or a big deal as in your relationship status alters a whole lot about your life like where you live, who you live with, the direction your life is headed in the near future. But the actual status itself, being single or not, is just another fact about you. The same as if you told me you had brown hair and your friend told me they have blonde hair. Just a fact, a detail, like cool let's move on don't rly care, only care if you're a nice person. 

We shouldn't be living a life where we can feel ashamed or sad to be single. Finding happiness in being single is super important because it's a time you have to focus solely on yourself and don't have another person playing such a big part in your life. If you feel ashamed to be single, feel like it's something you need to succeed at, or feel like it's a status you need to change asap rocky that's when you're doing single life wrong. Just think of it as another little fact about yourself, like your hair colour. It's not something you should go out of your way to change, it's just another time in your life like school or work. 

Shall I throw in that quote? That 'nobody's going to love you until you love yourself' thing. Which, tbh, can sometimes be wrong but most of the time it's true and you get the sentiment. If there's ever something you want to focus on whilst being single, it should be yourself and your happiness. Do things for yourself, make yourself happy, be selfish and don't get affected by a label of being single or how you want someone not even worthy of your time to view you.

In fact, if you need to leave a relationship to focus on yourself then do it. It always seems like the biggest cop out of a reason to break up with someone but you gotta do what you gotta do to find happiness within yourself. I ended a thing I had (yep, a thing. Why is this my life?) with someone because I wasn't feeling 11/10 about myself so I wanted to go away and sort my life out and do things to make myself feel better about myself, and it worked. I came away happier and more confident.


The TL;DR of this post and I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not worth worrying about what other people think and doing things for other people. Don't change yourself to make someone jealous, don't feel like you need to succeed at being single in fear of being judged for actually being single. Just live your best life, have fun, and make sure (nearly) everything you do is in your interest.

♡
Yasmin

five recent makeup + skincare favourites

Feels like it's been approx. ten years since I did a beauty faves post so it had to be done. And not just because I'm running out of outfit photos from the last time I bulk shot at home. I am p sure the last time I did a beauty faves post was back in July (wtf?!) and the last time I did any sorta beauty post was January, and even then that was about hair. 

There are a whole ton of products I've started using or started loving way more since the last time I did a beauty fave posts, and I've also changed up the way I do my makeup which has brought some old loves back into my life. So ykno, girl's gotta share it all with you. 

maybelline gel eyeliner

I've been using this for a long time - exhibit a. But I've always been a bit on/off with eyeliner, I'll go through phases of wearing it everyday and phases of only using eyeshadow and mascara to the point where I forget how to actually apply eyeliner when I wanna go back to it. At the moment I'm peak eyeliner phase, I wear a wing every single day without fail. I want to try the ones people talk about at some point (Inglot? Sigma? Are those the two popular ones?) but this one is so damn good, especially for the price, that I can't part with it. It also lasts years, this is the same one I bought like two years ago and have been using ever since, I know you're not meant to do that but why throw out a half full pot of liner because of an 'expiration date'🙄. Now that daily wings are back in my life this is my holy grail. It lasts all day and literally does not budge, it applies like a dream - creamy enough to glide on nicely but firm enough that it doesn't melt and go in directions you don't want it to go. Obsessed. Get this in your life.

glossier solution

When Glossier announced this I freaked tf out. 1. I am a massive Glossier fan, I believe the hype and tbh I still think they are underrated. 2. Every problem they described in the screenshot they used to promote the product and hint that it was coming is every problem I have, so I was buzzin to find something that would solve my skincare woes. I will say this though, the fact that Alpha H Liquid Gold came into my life a few months prior to this product being released probably helped with the results Solution ended up giving me. If I had never used Liquid Gold I think Solution would've just done for me what Liquid Gold did, but because of LG (lol I read that as Lady Gaga - still a lowkey little monster) it gave me a better starting point to then use Solution because my skin had already cleared up loads since August, and Solution cleared it up even further. I still have some skincare issues but using Solution took my skin to another level of clear. The only time I get a breakout is when I've gone from Brighton to Bournemouth or vice versa where the water is a bit different and my skin has to adjust, and they clear up super fact overnight after using this beauty. My only criticisms are that it seems to be going down much faster than my Alpha H Liquid Gold does, and also that the pump really annoys me. I know most people love it but I find it so so so hard to get product out and wish it just let you tip the liquid onto a pad instead of pressing for years to get 0.01ml out.

glossier skin tint

More Glossier ??? Shock !!! Like eyeliner, I've always been a bit on/off foundation. I stopped wearing it from 2013-2015, got back into it, then stopped again in Summer 2016, then again from Summer 2017 onwards. Since August/September I've not been wearing foundation and, when I stopped wearing it again, I knew I wanted to try this out because it'd give me what I wanted. I am obsessed with this, seriously obsessed. I use a Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector as a primer underneath to give me some glow then pop this over the top and adore the natural look it gives. It evens out your skin tone and covers really subtle blemishes but your skin can still breathe and is still relatively visible under the tint. I don't mind the look of the odd lil blemish or bump coming through your makeup, the natural vibe is the vibe I like, so this is an absolute dream for me. It applies beautifully and is the best go-to on an everyday basis. I still wear foundation for occasions but I happily shoot for the blog, go out out, go somewhere ~important~ wearing this because I'm p happy without foundation all the time. Though saying that, I do wanna get back into foundation so pls send me some recommendations! The new NARS one sounds good, if not I really love their older All Day Luminous Weightless, and I still have my Makeup Forever HD for occasions. I want to get into a happy medium of skin tint some days and foundation others, because when you wear this you can tell you're not actually wearing foundation. People who have known me as long as I've been wearing this can 100% tell the difference between when I wear this and when I wear foundation so if that's something you care about it might not be for you, if you don't care then I 11/10 recommend.

glossier lidstar (in cup + slip)

Oh look, more Glossier. Told y'all I proper buy into the hype. The day these were released I bought two, I wanted the two pinkier shades because I've always loved the look of a glossy pink shimmer washed all over the eye lid. For some reason, I was expecting these to be much more pigmented than they are. For the formula and the ~concept~ of what these are meant to be, they have great pigmentation, I have zero idea why I expected more intensity from them. I was extremely worried about having my gel eyeliner melt over the top of these, in the past I've had cream shadows from Mac that melted off and melted my gel liner off with them, but these dry fast enough that you don't have to take a break between applying these and applying your liner but slow enough to work with them and blend them out with your fingertip to get your desired look. I prefer these without eyeliner but, as mentioned, I'm having a liner phase atm so still put my wing over the top. I loovveeee the look of these with a super natural, no-makeup makeup look. V pretty. Worth the hype.

ALSO: I would totally put every single Glossier product I own in this favourites because they've all become favourites since July, but I wrote about my other Glossier products here when they first launched in the UK so I also love and recommend those, just didn't want to basically rewrite my opinions on them. And if you want 10% off your entire Glossier order click here!

nars laguna

So yes, this is a cult classic and yes, I've spoken about it more than once on this blog before. But, I've re fallen in love for the millionth time. There's a reason this is everyone's holy grail. I'm a huge fan of cream and liquid products for the face, so usually unless there's an occasion I just use my contour stick and be done with it, I can't be bothered to add bronzer on top. I've started doing it again in the last couple months though and I swear, Laguna transforms my face. It literally goes from meh to wow with a few quick sweeps of Laguna in my cheekbones and temples. I use this to contour, I can sorta get away with it because of my skin tone, and it ends up adding such a nice amount of warmth to my face as well as sculpting it. The other reason why this is mentioned as a recent favourite for the millionth time on this blog is because I've been using it differently - as my crease colour. I've kinda gone off eyeshadow now that I wear winged liner everyday, I just can't be bothered to waste my time doing both for an everyday look. Laguna is the perfect lil substitute for a proper eyeshadow job. I do my eye makeup before my base, so when I'm applying my bronzer as contour I then go in with a lil crease brush and swipe some across my crease in an I-really-don't-care-how-precise-this-is fashion. I feel like I've always gotta have something in my crease to give shadow and definition or I look like an albino rat, and Laguna gives a subtle warm shadow to make my eyes stand out that lil bit extra.


So there we have it. I think that 3/5 of these products being Glossier rly says something about how good they are so if there's anything you buy based off of these recommendations it's gotta be from them!

♡
Yasmin


check out some previous beauty faves and recommendations

a review of all six glamglow masks // july '17 faves // october '16 faves // my clinique picks // august '16 faves // top 5 mac picks // the best product for dry skin // mac ellie goulding review // august '15 faves // makeup to get a glowy skin complexion // products worth the hype

british people, it's time to stick your nose in other people's business

I planned the ~concept~ for this post back in November when this little encounter happened to me on the train and I tweeted it. In the last tweet of the thread I said 'british public: stop being too scared to get involved / ‘stick your nose in’ when you can see anyone is being harassed or heckled.' And that's when this post idea was born.

I toyed with the idea of it for a good while, as you can tell by it taking four months, and I decided to get rid of it because something about it cringed me out. Then I read it today when going through my blog post ideas / plan list to decide which to write for Wednesday's post, and thought that it was worth chatting about. The fact that it cringed me out is all the more reason to discuss it. Us Brits are known for being a bit too polite, not wanting to intrude in anyone else's business and happy to keep to ourselves - so much so that the thought of sticking our nose into other people's business, even for good reason, can make us cringe. 

Of course I don't mean start invading in Jenny from work's private life and eavesdropping on her conversations in the break room to hear about her latest Tinder date when it really doesn't concern you. I mean when it is justifiable and for good reason. And this definitely spreads beyond British people, but being British and knowing that we have this overly-polite culture where we are too scared to get involved in something that doesn't concern us, it's the context I want to use.

jumper - topshop // jeans - topshop // boots - river island // necklace - brandy melville

Being on a packed out Brighton to Southampton train at 6PM, still part of peak time rush hour, a train that stops at basically every little town on the south coast between these two cities, you would think that if a carriage full of people witnesses a grown, drunk man harassing a young woman at least one person would say something. Perhaps this is the problem, we think that out of all these many people at least one has gotta say something, right? So everyone thinks that someone else will do it and this is why they don't do it themselves. What was even worse about this situ was that the guy was asking them a question about me, albeit a petty one, and passengers were responding to him. They were really answering yes or no to his question. Not one of them told him to calm down or leave me alone or anything along those lines. Whilst I didn't feel like he was going to attack me or put me in any real danger, I felt extremely uncomfortable and didn't want to say something to him because he was drunk, much older and bigger than me and I was on my own lugging a big handbag and luggage around. I couldn't exactly make a quick getaway if he started getting even more angry with me.

I got myself out of the situation, as you've probably now read in that lil thread. The thing is, I don't feel like I should've had to get myself out of that situation. I did nothing wrong. It's a shame that we have this way of life where we will let someone who is not in the wrong, who feels uncomfortable in a situation but not through their own fault, be the one who has to go out of their way to leave the situation rather than getting the person in the wrong to leave. And my experience was not that deep at all, I just felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable because I was the youngest person on that carriage by years, surrounded by people coming home from a day of work who were probably around my parents' age, give or take. These people probably have kids of their own, kids ranging anywhere from a few months old to in their twenties. How can you, as a parent, witness this happen to a young woman who is young enough to be your daughter and just turn a blind eye?

My assumption that all of these people must be parents just because they're middle aged on their way home from work is just an assumption, based on a stereotype of what you expect someone of that age travelling home from a proper job (ykno, not just like my old Saturday retail job) and I'm sure that not all of these people had kids. But, removing this assumption and going back to my previously asked question. How can you turn a blind eye to this - especially if you have a kid who could easily be in my position? Because you're too scared to stick your nose in other people's business is my guess, a good guess at that.

Lets say x person sat opposite me was a mum of two, her oldest in uni (I feel like if these passengers were to make their own general assumption of me based on the age I look and the fact that I had a luggage with me, it'd be that I'm a student travelling either to or from uni) and her youngest having just started Sixth Form. Let's say she was on a train home from a fun day in Brighton with her daughter and her daughter was sat opposite and they didn't realise that it was going to be an older, drunk guy sat next to her. And they certainly didn't realise he was going to start verbally harassing her about petty little things. There are no other seats on the carriage, it's rush hour. They don't have the option to just move a few rows up. Let's say her daughter is in the exact same situation as I was, except she has her mother sat opposite her. Without a shadow of a doubt, her mum would say something and step in to defend and/or save her daughter from this literal fucking weirdo. But because I was not her daughter, I was nothing to do with her, merely a stranger on a train, instead of trying to defend me she goes along with the drunk guy. When he asks the other passengers if it's rude that I'm not allowing him to see what I'm doing on my phone, she gives him a yes or no answer. She enables him, she makes him feel like he has a right to be questioning this if it's worthy of an answer. If nobody is stopping him, he feels like it's an acceptable thing to do to a young women travelling alone with a hell of a lot of stuff compared to everyone else with their standard laptop bags. 

It comes back to that lesson we are taught in school, don't be a bystander. I don't know about your school, but almost everywhere I've been we are taught from a young age to not to just stand by and watch someone get bullied. We can step in, or if it seems too dangerous to do so we can go and get a teacher to step in for us. So why do we struggle to do this in the real world? Why can't we stand up for someone, or go get someone authoritative like the train conductor or whatever those people are who come to check your tickets?

When we lived in Australia, I remember an elderly man fell over outside the big supermarket in my suburb. Very busy area, and this was literally right outside the supermarket with windows in the entire shop front. Everyone outside the shop and the surrounding area and everyone inside the shop witnessed it. Nobody did anything. Everyone collectively held their breath as the man fell, and then once he was on the floor they carried on with their lives, maybe giving the odd few glances over in disbelief. My mum went over to help him. I am so glad this is the example being set for me and the way I have subconsciously been raised. Also, this supports the it's-not-just-a-British-thing argument.

I understand full well that it can seem intimidating to stick your nose in when it's a bit of a threatening situation, you're scared someone will transfer their anger for the person you're debating defending onto you if you step in and try to stop them. But are you just going to stand by and watch someone else, especially someone more vulnerable, be subjected to this harassment because you're too scared to be subject to it yourself.

In the case of the man falling over, I know it didn't happen in Britain which doesn't support the title of this blog post, but if something like this happens and you can just walk past without helping then you are the worst type of person. If you really absolutely cannot stop because you are in a rush to go see your wife give birth or attend a funeral or a wedding (though people at these two events, for want of a better word, should understand if you're late tbh) then ok, you're let off the hook just a bit. But if you see something bad happening to someone else and there is absolutely zero risk posed to you for getting involved and offering to help them and you choose not to, you need to re-evaluate this part of yourself. Even if you offer help and they refuse it, you've done the right thing and done all that you can.

Please, when you can see that someone is in distress or is hurt or is being harassed and nobody else is helping them, be that one person everyone thinks will inevitably step in. Stick your nose in other people's business if it's to help them out. Don't use the excuse of 'it's nothing to do with me' if you see someone being bullied, someone injured or unwell, someone struggling with something. Offer to help. Go and get someone with authority to deal with it. Do something. Stick your nose in.

When I moved carriages after staging a phone call with my mum in which we pretended she called to tell me that she was also on my train but a few carriages down and that I should move there, I finally found a seat a couple of carriages down. After struggling with my mum on the other end of the line, speaking through the mic on my earphones whilst I had my phone in my pocket, trying to carry my bulky heavy luggage through the narrow path between seats, with my stuffed handbag falling off my shoulder and down to my wrist, I sat down just a bit flustered and upset and annoyed with tears in my eyes (yeah, I had been scared and distressed, and I had to have a tiny lil release moment. You could see on my face that I was distressed, so I can't imagine how distressed I must've looked sat next to this drunk older man whilst he heckled me) the woman sitting opposite me in my new seat asked if I was ok. I said yes, I just had to move from someone stupid in a different carriage. She said something about how that was horrible and a couple more times throughout the journey she asked again if I was alright. This is the type of person we should all be. Man do I wish she had been in that previous carriage with me.

I know my tale is very minor, but if this is how bad I felt I can only imagine how it feels to be in a much more distressing situation, feeling even more vulnerable, with even more people around you actively watching and listening but doing nothing because they don't want to stick their nose in your business. Please, do not be this awful bystander. It's time to erode this culture of not wanting to involve yourself in something that has nothing to do with you when it can really help or save someone from an awful situation. It's time to stick your nose in other people's business.

♡
Yasmin

exposing my draft tweets from all my twitter accounts

Lol can you say clickbait? This is what a journo degree is doing to me. Anyway, it's not clickbait because yes, I am exposing the draft tweets across all three of my twitter accounts, but the wording just seems so clickbait-y, ya feel?

I wasn't feeling putting up a 'think piece' blog post today. I've so many ideas planned and half written and as much as I love writing about topics and issues that I genuinely care about, I also want a lil break from looking inside of myself and putting a lot of myself and my thoughts on here. Just wanna have a bit of fun. So this week when I was looking at some of my most recent draft tweets on my main account whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, I thought hey why not make a blog post out of this. And here we are.

Quick clarification, I have three twitter accounts. My main account, @YasminStefaniee, that I call my main and/or blog account is the one you probably found this blog post from - it's where I promote my blog posts and share my thoughts and tweet along to tennis matches. A note to my friends from school / uni / work etc - don't follow this because you will literally get nothing out of it. You don't wanna see my blog posts shared multiple times a day and me tweeting about how lush Federer's backhand was in the match he's currently playing. 

Then there's my private account @yasxcx on which I only accept my real friends so like please don't be offended if I don't follow you back, it's not because I'm not bitching about you. My priv account was born during my Script days, when I was a little bitch and wanted to have an account to be a little bitch on in private with my close Script friends following it and having a laugh at the truth tea I would spill. Now it's where I share my weird thoughts, screenshots of conversations I think are worth sharing, and rant about boys / shit people I've been stuck with in group projects and yes, sometimes still about my Script days - though now it's to make fun of myself. 

Finally, there's @yasminsyed_ which is just my personal account that I barely tweet anything on but like a whole load of v funny viral tweets and share stuff I don't mind irl people seeing.

coat - i am gia // body - brandy melville // jeans - topshop // boots - river island // necklace - brandy melville // hat - old river island [similar]

I'm not going to go through every single draft on all three accounts otherwise we'd be here for years and also because my main account has so much tennis shit in the drafts. There are bound to be more drafts for my main account because, ykno, it's the main so I use it the most, but I wanted to mix the others in here too because they're my more ~real me~ accounts. Plus the private is where it gets juice and beefy.

I can't believe I bought a tennis tv subscription yesterday adamant that shapo would win his first tour title at delray beach and I wanted to be able to watch it, then he loses his semi final.

(@yasminstefaniee)

Oh look, tennis ! What a surprise ! This is true though, if you don't know (I know you don't - pretty much only like two of my regular readers care about tennis) TennisTV is like a Netflix for ATP / men's tennis matches, live and in full on demand. I finally decided to buy the subscription because Sky don't show the lower-point tournaments and I thought my fave guy Denis Shapovalov was gonna win here and he didn't even make the final. Maybe I should've had the logic to wait and see if he at least made the final.

I watched this last night as soon as I read this moment, then watched it over again straight away because it was so heartwarming

(@yasminstefaniee)

This was my response to the twitter moment about Drake's God's Plan music video. This basically does what it says on the tin - I watched the video when I saw the twitter moment claiming he had a $1mil budget and gave it all away, and when I was done watching I replayed it straight away because I enjoyed it so much just because it melted my ice heart. 10/10 recommend, but I'm p sure everyone's already seen it.

i love judgemental people i should surround myself with more n more xxxxxxx

(@yasxcx)

Not even sure who this was about, it's one of my most recent drafts on my priv but also still a few months old. Also I really did count the number of sarcastic kisses so I could retype the draft exactly as I originally wrote it.

my mum's clients just bumped into ruth wilson aka alison from the affair I'm so jel

(@yasxcx)

Ok so this is my fourth most recent draft on my priv but it's like a year old? I really don't draft much on here. The Affair is a sick show and I really recommend it.

work would be so much more bearable if they didn't play the exact same shit songs every single day ever

(@yasxcx)

V true. My work played the same songs all the time and now I can't listen to any of them even though it's been nearly six months since I left. They'd always swap out one or two every month for a slightly newer song but kept most of them the same - even when I go in the Bournemouth or London branches now they still play the same shit music.

yday I got my supervisor to put some girl I don't like on shoes all day after the girl there called in sick so I wouldn't have to talk to her😂😂

(@yasxcx)

Lol I remember this. It was Summer 2016 when I worked there 5-6 days a week instead of Saturdays only and we had a lil squad and I guess my supervisor was part of it so they just listened when I suggested this girl go on shoes when rly I just didn't want to waste time making small talk with her during the day.

hotline bling was the best song of 2015 bye

(@yasxcx)

Jeeeeez these drafts get hella old hella fast. True though, don't @ me.

truly believe that my 1h45 journey from southampton to brighton by myself killed my soul

(@yasminsyed_)

Umm, ok. Truth time. I'd never looked at the drafts on this account before and just assumed there'd be enough. This is my only full draft on this account. There are three more and they're all incomplete, ready?

i have rly

(@yasminsyed_)

this is the first time since starting

(@yasminsyed_)

every night in i say i'm going to sleep at 11:30

(@yasminsyed_)

Told y'all I barely write on it and just use it to like memes. Guess we're stuck with the other two accounts from here on out.

you get people complaining about how our money goes to the EU (meaning we have no barriers to travel or trade), how if tuition fees were abolished we'd just be paying for the education of people who can afford it etc, yet they don't realise how much £ goes into this.

(@yasminstefaniee)

This was a quoted reply to a Sky News story that said 'More funding for Madeleine McCann search requested by police'. I mean, what I said is true, but it's down to you whether you think her search in particular deserves more money. I just don't want to die without knowing what happened to her because it's been in the news for as long as I can remember.

this is what I'm doing my journo degree for x

(@yasminstefaniee)

A quoted reply to this tweet. Says it all really.

ew remember when i actually liked mouthguard boy 

(@yasminstefaniee)

This is in reference to tennis player Milos Raonic. In 2016 I really thought he was the ~next big thing~ in the same way the media now think Lil Zverev is, and really liked him / how he played. But now I rly cannot stand Raonic, and his mouthguard is annoying af, especially because he plays with it in his mouth in between points. Nobody else has one, why do you need one?

srsly don't get when girls get pissy that you happen to have the same item of clothing as them, we aren't in year 8 anymore it's not that deep

(@yasminstefaniee)

I think I ended up tweeting something similar to this on my main account anyway, but it's a point I wanna reiterate. I think it's soooo pathetic when you post a pic in an outfit and someone messages you like 'where is x from? because if it's from x shop then I have the same one' like ok cool? Fuck off? I hate this whole idea that if one of your friends / someone you know and see often has the same item of clothing as you it's a sin and especially in the case where you wear it at the same time. 1, just tell them you're gonna wear that item on a day where you're both meeting up or 2, laugh it off and don't care because it's not that deep.

***** wanna sort their fucking grammar / spelling out before they slag people off for having self confidence

(@yasxcx)

No I'm not gonna say who the tweet was about but this is a hella old draft and I remember the situ I was responding to and yes my response was justified. 

don't understand girls who get with ugly/creepy/desperate guys purely to be able to say they have a boyfriend. have you no self respect😂😂😩

(@yasxcx)

Ok, I thought this account was gonna have some super beefy drafts from 2014 and my Script days but it seems that it doesn't because I actually tweeted all the beefy thoughts. Don't hate me for this judgemental lil draft pls!! It's the oldest one on my private so I have no more to expose, which is a shame because I thought this would be the best expose account. I must've been fifteen at the oldest when I drafted this. I worded it awfully and probably meant it in a bitchy way, but I do now think that women shouldn't feel like they're worth any less than others if they don't have a boyfriend and shouldn't just go for the first guy who gives them attention and isn't right for them / they don't really like just to settle and be able to say they have a boyfriend. Young, bitchy me definitely aimed this one though.

genuinely think shapo is dethroning muzza n wawrinka as my faves

(@yasminstefaniee)

Genuinely think he has, or at least put himself on level. I'm just deprived of my faves whilst they still recover from injury. This was drafted during the US Open 2017 I think.

NICHOLAS KYRGIOS WON A MASTERS [with the drake standing up and clapping gif attached]

(@yasminstefaniee)

I drafted this thinking Kygs would win his Cincy Masters 1000 final against Dimitrov last year, and claim his first Masters title, and he didn't. Cry.

dya know what I'm still so buzzed I got to go to a league of their own it's just my absolute favourite thing

(@yasminstefaniee)

I still am so buzzed I got to, especially now I know that was Jack's last series of it. I went to the Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill / Robbie Keane / Romesh Ranganathan episode in series twelve and it's deffo the best episode of the series, give it a watch.

last year I bought tour finals tickets before roger + rafa said they wouldn't play it, this year if muzza + novak pull out I stg👀👀👀

(@yasminstefaniee)

I'm just posting this for the irony. Because they then did pull out and the session I got was awful and almost the exact same as my awful session from the year before.

wish I was cool enough to pull off the kinda aesthetic the weeknd has lol lol lol 

(@yasminstefaniee)

I think the three lols at the end were just to soften the tweet so I didn't look like I really thought I was cool enough to pull it off. This is from last 2016 and is the second oldest draft, the oldest being lyrics.

So, umm, I'm a bit disappointed tbh. Clearly I should've checked through my drafts before writing this post, but I didn't want to so I could get my real first thought written down. Don't really see this as much of an exposing because there's nothing that really exposes me on here, bar one or two. Maybe one day I'll scroll to the bottom of my private account when I first created it and expose those tweets instead. Sorry for the let down lol.

Nonetheless I enjoyed my lil trip down memory lane and may do it again with my early private account tweets or the most embarrassing stuff on my timehop one day.

♡

Yasmin

am i losing my sass because i'm trying to be too nice online?

If you're one of my followers who has stuck with me since my Script days, and maybe that's why you started reading my blog, you may know about the sass queen title bestowed onto me within that fanbase. I half bestowed it on myself, half had it bestowed on me because of the way I acted. Hell, even they still call me sassy because it's how they remember me being within their fanbase.

I feel like that was my identity - sassy Yasmin, sassmin. And now I feel like it's kinda gone. I don't sound sassy online anymore, I might make the odd sarcastic tweet and add the odd sarcastic 'x' on the end of them (ok I might tweet these a lot) but I feel like that's just standard. That's not the sassy Yasmin I remember.

body - brandy melville // pants - pretty little thing [grey currently sold out] // boots - river island // necklace - brandy melville

I'll be doing a blog post at some point reflecting back on my so called 'Script days', what it was like to grow up as a teenager in such a close, tight-knit fanbase where everyone knew who everyone else was, full of drama and anons on ask.fm but also full of fun times and making new friends. So like, I don't want to go too into that here, but it is where my sassy personality was honed and really flourished. Whilst I am no longer a bitchy lil fifteen year old moaning about indirects and answering all my hate on ask.fm feeling so bloody cool (eyeroll moment), I feel like the part of me that was sassy but not outright bitchy is me to a t, but it's a part of me I've lost because I want to be nice and not give off the wrong impression.

Moving from the fanbase part of twitter to the blogging community on twitter, I wanted to leave behind the controversial reputation I'd earned in The Script's fanbase and just be a nice person, because I was a nice person but had acted differently at times online so wasn't seen that way. Plus, I was growing up and seriously outgrowing petty online fan dramas. Now that my socials are used as extended platforms past just this blog, I'm always worried about giving a strong opinion that could be seen as offensive (unless it comes to equality), but this has trickled over into the sassy part of me. I don't want to make a sassy comment that can be seen as offensive and look like some sort of playground bully that excludes people and makes fun of them. The funny thing is, now that I sit here and write this post and take a step back, I feel as though people must know me enough by now that if I make a sassy remark they'll know I don't mean it offensively. But, of course, you never know who could be reading your words online and they could be completely misinterpreted and suddenly you're on the receiving end of a hate campaign (any of my Script pals remember the 'i hate the regulars' twitter account? good times x).

A lot of people talk about our generation being easily offended by everything. This I dispute. I think it's amazing that us millennials are aware of issues and that we try to make sure that we aren't prejudicing anyone. This awareness may perhaps be a double-edges sword though, we become so hyper-aware that we don't want to say anything even slightly out of line because we don't want to offend anyone, because we know how awful it would feel to be personally targeted and offended by something or someone.

A large part of me feels like the biggest narcissistic cringe ever for calling herself sassy dozens of times throughout a blog post. But this was my reputation, and it really was me. It still is, it's just a part I've felt like I need to suppress in order to not offend anyone and be ~the nice one~. It's become a part of me I've almost forgotten, especially as part of my online presence. I'm still that way around my friends and they still call me sassy, but I need to bring that back online in an inoffensive way because can I really say I'm being myself online if I'm hiding this part of my personality just because I'm trying to be too nice?

I'm not sure if part of this is a case of worrying too much about what people think, but I do know that I don't want anything I say online to come back and bite me in the arse 5-10 years down the line when I'm applying for a job and having my social media trawled through all the way back to when I was thirteen years old and I don't get the job because in 2014 I expressed an opinion about people the age of my own mother stalking a band instead of 'getting a life' (soz for that by the way) or because in 2019 I said that x tennis player acts like a prick in their press conferences. I think I need to find a balance though, because I can't just hide and lose a part of my personality that defined me for so long.

People do grow and change, obviously this is something I've done since I was 13/14/15/16 and active in said twitter fanbase spouting out contentious opinions about anything possible, but being 'sassy Yasmin' was my identity, and still is irl, but I've lost that in the sea of trying too hard to not be derogatory or disrespectful.

Moving forward, I think I need to build this part of me back up online because, as I said, I'm not truly being myself by trying to quash it. To me, as long as I'm not being prejudicial or insulting to any person or group of people, it should be fine to express my opinion in as sassy a way as I'd like to.

Now, that's me off to go throw up in a bucket a few times because I've made myself feel sick calling myself sassy so many times. Literally embarrassing. Soz.  I really don't think I'm that cool.

Have you ever found yourself suppressing your opinions because you're trying to be too nice and inoffensive?

(I'm getting all the Commando Steve vibes from the outfit in this post and just had to mention that)

♡

Yasmin

PS: for something in a similar vein, check out my blog post about going back on things you say online and the culture of dragging up offensive things public figures tweeted when they were younger and more naive. 

is there a blogging 'mould' and do diverse bloggers who don't conform to it get less opportunities?

Discourse in the fashion and blogging industries has, as of late, focused on the lack of diversity in each respective industry. This lack of diversity covers race, class, body shape, age, identity. We've seen countless blog posts about it, from both those who fit the mould and those who don't. 

 We all know that most commercial bloggers fit the mould of a white, slim woman who has a comfortable disposable income. There's nothing wrong with these people having success (depending on your definition of success whether it be followers, collaborations, campaigns) the problem is that bloggers who don't fit this mould often do not see the same numbers of followers and opportunities. 

Who does the problem lie with though? If we were to place blame on someone for the lack of clear diversity in the blogosphere do we blame it on brands for not choosing to work with a diverse range of people? Do we blame it on ourselves as readers and consumers of blogs for not following and engaging with more diverse bloggers?

Wherever this problem comes from, what it breeds is insecurity and a lack of inclusivity. POC, those from a working class background, people of a dress size bigger than the bloggers they see being pushed to greater heights, older people, and those who identify as LGBTQ+ question why they aren't seeing enough bloggers who are a closer representation of themselves, and this can lead to them wondering if there's a reason for it.

coat - i am gia // body - brandy melville // jeans - topshop // boots - river island // necklace - brandy melville

The whole point of blogging is, or was, to break the mould seen in traditional outlets like magazines and some brands' official website and bring real people (if you want to call it that) to the forefront of the fashion, beauty, lifestyle, travel, food, fitness, parenting, and wedding industries. Yet we are still having this discussion about a lack of diversity in the blogging community.

The thing is, there are so so so many bloggers who don't fit this mould. However, if you don't go and try to seek out these bloggers yourself you will probably never discover them. It's easy to find bloggers through brands reposting them, articles telling you who the most popular bloggers to follow are, features and campaigns on a big scale, but the bloggers featured in these do usually fit the mould. If a more diverse range of bloggers aren't being featured in these places they get much less exposure and it becomes much harder to find bloggers who are more relatable to you if you don't fit the mould.

Whilst I myself am not white, a lot of people think I am and wouldn't question it to find out that I'm not. I'm petite and, whilst my family aren't middle class, we are comfortable enough to not struggle financially. You could read this post and wonder why I am questioning the mould because you think I am the mould. I don't, because I know that I'm the child of immigrants and to this day am racially profiled because my surname (it's not Stefanie if you thought it was that lol) and I'm not tall and I'm a student so I don't have a proper income. But I know that I'm not unlucky and I completely accept that I face pretty much no adversity compared to people belonging to minority groups, despite the fact that I (half?) belong to one myself - because a lot of people just look at me and assume I don't.

I still don't feel like I'm a proper 'blogger' though, stepping away from the slim, white woman mould I still feel like I can't be taken seriously. I am 100% aware that I do not face prejudice in the way that others do, and I am 100% aware that you could place me in this mould based on a matter of opinion, but I know that some people who perhaps could theoretically fit this mould still don't feel accepted as a legit blogger. To be a blogger, you need to have a blog. Like, that is it. I barely posted on this blog for two years and all my social media bios still claimed I was a blogger. But it's easy to not feel like one.

I don't want to take away from the lack of diversity thing at all - what I do want to say is that it's ok to still feel like you don't fit in even if you are a slim, white woman. For me, I never feel as though I'm a ~proper~ blogger because I don't have my angles and poses worked out and I feel like I look a bit not-put-together in photos. I still post my outfit photos because I don't dislike them to not use them, I just know that with more practice and experience in taking them I can get them to a place I want them to be because as of right now they don't look the way I'd like them to. I also feel like I'm just the girl who tweets along to tennis matches first and a blogger second and, although this may have been the case for the last couple years, it definitely is not now because I've re-prioritised how I want to utilise my social media and online presence. That doesn't stop me from feeling like I will forever be the tennis tweeter though. But am I facing adversity because of that?? Hell no.

I want to say that yeah it's ok to feel like you don't fit in with the figurative blogging 'mould' even if you hypothetically could, but it's important to keep in mind that you don't face prejudice in the way that minority bloggers do. But I kinda hate that whole concept of making someone feel like they're not allowed to worry about something / be upset about something because someone else has it a lot worse. And I know that people who perhaps feel similar to me will still also be aware of the difference between how they feel and how those who are under-represented in the blogging community feel.

Without a doubt, I recognise that this mould has been created. Perhaps not by those who fit it, but because it is easy to typecast 'commercial' bloggers who see more opportunities as white, able-bodied women. I think it is important that instead of bashing bloggers who fit this mould, we work with them so we can all use our voice to question why there isn't a diverse enough range of bloggers being selected as part of a campaign and we champion a diverse range of bloggers whenever possible. Bringing up this topic to provoke discussion and awareness is something we should all do, but it should be done in a way where we give the issue attention so we can then give diverse, minority bloggers the space to speak for themselves rather than speak for them. This is something we saw recently in the Keeping it Candid podcast (which I love and is great, give it a listen) which discussed a lack of diversity in street style photography following on from this article. The responses I've seen in the blogging community to this podcast episode have been understanding and have given space for those in the minority to speak up for themselves, and that's what we need. After this recent discussion following the podcast that's when I knew that this lil blog post idea I'd had planned was extra fitting at the moment to keep the discussion going.


Taking all of this into consideration, when you look from the outside-in where your vision of bloggers is perhaps more narrow, you may only be exposed to bloggers who you believe fit a certain mould - perhaps those in the same campaigns for the same brands because they fit the brand's vive and aesthetic - but you don't see the bigger picture, the hugely diverse and unique range of bloggers out there.


Do I think that brands who work with bloggers could work with a more diverse range of bloggers? Without a doubt, YES. But I also think that bloggers who do fit this 'mould' shouldn't be shamed just because they fit it and they are given opportunities. I don't think that using a blogger who is part of a minority group should be a token thing either, like oh look at us we are amaze because we used a plus size blogger wow publicity x it should just be because they produce amazing content. I think, for me, this is the main point. A lot of under-represented bloggers produce content as good as, or better than, bloggers who fit the 'mould', and have the same amount of followers, but aren't presented with the same opportunities. If brands and audiences went into blogging blind and judged by quality of content and yes, from a brand's perspective, level of engagement so they can see the ROI, I bet you we'd have a more even spread of the types of bloggers reaching new heights in the industry.


What do you think of the current state of the blogging industry RE diversity, do you want to see a better representation of different types of people achieving greater things for their blog?

♡
Yasmin