This is compilation essay in which I discuss interesting correlations, connections, observations, and conclusions about the sub-genre that is “lifestyle blogging.” This is part of my project for class in which I analyze a myriad of blogging sub-genres. Last week when I discussed the topic of political blogging, I had trouble discovering blogs that precisely fit my definition. This week has faired slightly better, however defining lifestyle has still be rather tricky. As my project is coming to an end, I’m considering posting a final write-up about all of the blogging sub-genres I’ve covered and what I’ve learned through the whole process.
Blogs I’ve looked at this week:
Lifestyle as Fitness and Health
Early on in my blogging career, as I was just discovering the world of blogs and the vast array of blogging topics, I noticed that the word “lifestyle” gets thrown around a lot. This observation has more or less led to this week’s focus. Personally, I consider lifestyle blogging to be the most bloggy type of blog out there. In other words, whenever I hear the word “blog” the first topic that enters my thoughts is lifestyle. However, lifestyle is very broad and general term, and I’ve eventually noticed an interesting division in the sub-genre of lifestyle blogging.
After writing about Simple Living Over 50 and The Shriveling Sisters this week, I was starting to realize that most of what bloggers thought of as lifestyle was a general improvement in one’s health/life. I draw a connection between these two blogs, because their content is very focused around health improvement, diet change, and fitness. Simple Living Over 50 provides periodic updates about his weight and blood sugar, as well as detailed content about his weight loss goals and diet plan. The Shriveling Sisters post in much the same way, by providing updates about their weight loss, exercise, diet plan, etc. These factors are certainly considered lifestyle blogging – these individuals are writing about the ways in which they’re changing how they live their lives. This approach to lifestyle is rather specific, and it has very clear goals in mind. The defining aspect of these type of blogs, I believe, is that they’re self-oriented – meaning they’re not too concerned about rhetoric, audience, or popularity.
Lifestyle as Morality, Beauty, Fashion, and Pretty Much Everything Else
MC Morgan pointed out in a comment on my The Shriveling Sisters post, that lifestyle encompasses morality in addition to physical health factors. He cites Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtue experiment. I think this observation strikes at the heart of lifestyle blogging, because it illustrates just exactly how broad this topic can be. In fact, I’m inclined to believe that many bloggers fail to realize that lifestyle includes more factors than just diet and health.
A great example of lifestyle blogging that is concerned with morality and ethics, is of course, Inside Ethical. This blog’s content is not concerned with an improvement in lifestyle, but tends to advocate and give details about a particular lifestyle. Inside Ethical’s content is defined by two major factors: A vegan diet, and the ethical treatment of animals. Both of these elements are interconnected, and express the larger overarching theme of the blog – Ethics. Inside Ethical approaches the moral questions of lifestyle, and thus reaches beyond the question of physical health. Again, all of this serves to show that lifestyle blogging has an endless amount of topics and approaches in of itself.
Lastly, KellyHeart’s blog gives a particularly interesting insight into lifestyle blogging due to it’s wide variety of content. To be honest, Kelly’s blog was difficult to define at first. Her initial presentation gives a reader the impression that her blog is just a blog -that it has no focus. However, I feel confident in defining Kelly’s blog as a lifestyle blog, because most of her content is centered around the general question of how people live their lives. I image that Kelly will approach practically any topic that interests her, making her blog the epitome of lifestyle blogging by showing readers just how vast lifestyle can be (especially in a globalized culture). Diet, skin care, makeup, beauty, dress, travel, exercise – these topics define but don’t limit Kelly’s broad content.
Importance of Diet
Now, aside from the glaring variety of content in lifestyle blogging, it’s clear that the subject of diet seems to unite all of these blogs to some degree. The interesting thing about this observation, is that when I was searching for blogs to write about this week, I found myself coming into contact with many vegan blogs. I was beginning to think I could write for a whole week about vegan blogging alone. I’m guessing the popularity of a vegan diet is just another wave of health/ethical popularity that seems to be sweeping through our Western culture.
In the case of the two health improvement blogs I’ve written about, their diet changes are more drastic and typically include a large portion (maybe 1/3 or half) of the blogging content. These bloggers go as far as to read books about diet and weight loss strategies, and implement these strategies in their daily life. Simple Living Over 50 has blogged about a “window fasting” strategy, and The Shriveling Sisters have recently been keeping up with a juice fasting diet. With these blogs, diet occupies an experimental position within their content.
A vegan diet is at the center of Inside Ethical, and serves as a primary identifying characteristic of blogger and content. In this blog, the diet of blogger becomes a character trait. It is a static element that is consistently referred to as the blogger writes about their personal experiences. Katie (Inside Ethical) writes a great deal about new vegan foods and restaurants, as well as other challenges she faces because of this diet (i.e people questioning her diet choice). In this way, a reader receives a particularly detailed insight into a vegan lifestyle. Katie’s main point is that in today’s society, finding food options as a vegan is not very difficult.
The last approach to diet is KellyHeart’s conspicuous fascination with food. It is not apparent whether or not Kelly adheres to a specific diet. Kelly writes food recipes and and writes about her daily eats. In this way, diet finds a quiet place on Kelly’s blog.
Lifestyle blogging certainly has unifying characteristics – precisely in the way that I’ve shown with diet. However the diversity in diet alone shows just exactly how hard it is to define lifestyle blogging. Even in terms of life topics – fashion, health, diet, exercise, beauty – lifestyle content varies wildly. However even within these separate life topics that define lifestyle blogging, there’s an incredible (practically infinite) amount of diversity. The approaches are quite honestly endless.
The Spindle Of Necessity 
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