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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