I've been a blogger for a long time. I started my first blog in the summer of 2012. It was a short-lived book blog that sucked all my joy out of reading. A few months later, I started publishing my online journal under the name Picking up the Pieces, which was replaced by the prototype of Lost in Translation in late 2015. My blog as you know it has been around since February 2017. Coincidentally, I lost my motivation to blog around the time of this blog's launch. I had other things on my mind: I dropped out of college, went to Southeast Asia, started a job, went to university... Blogging was definitely on the backburner, even though I still published a lot of posts during my gap year. I went on long, unannounced breaks, got frustrated with all things Internet.
Then 2019 started, and things changed. That little spark of motivation was back. I wanted to blog. Not just that, I wanted to be active in the blogging community as well. So I gave the whole thing another try, only to find myself lost in the big scary blogosphere.

One of the things that used to make me feel at home in the blogging community seems to be on the verge of extinction now: the Twitter chat. There used to be at least two a day in 2017, but times have changed and I'm having trouble adapting. Last year the chat was more or less replaced by the 'follow train'. Someone would start the train by tweeting their followers to retweet and follow everyone who does the same. This does not work for me at all. I hate it when my feeds feel cluttered with tweets I'm not interested in, so I always take some time to consider following someone. If I've never talked to you, know nothing about you and am not interested in you, I'm not going to follow you. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but be honest: if you're a total homebody, would you like to hear me talk about the wonderful things about traveling the world all day long? Probably not, but that's the situation you'll find yourself in after doing lots of follow trains.
Although follow trains aren't as popular anymore, returning to Twitter for blogging purposes has been weird for me. My mind still does chats from my small account, but the platform changed a lot during the follow train period. And to be honest, I am not quite sure how to be myself again in this changed blogging world.

Twitter wasn't the only thing that changed while I didn't have my head in the game though. My content, inconsistent as it was, and my attitude towards it changed too. From early 2017 onwards, I always felt like my blog wasn't good enough. I saw my posts as stories that I wanted to tell, whereas travel posts by other bloggers read more like reviews and advice. I often tried to emulate that or combine those two writing styles, but I always ended up hating whatever I'd written. Giving advice or writing a review on the places I'd stayed at just isn't me, and I've accepted that. I'm a storyteller and that's cool too. Whenever I post now, I hit that publish button because I want to share a story with the world. It feels much better that way. I started out doing this on Instagram in late 2018, which actually led to something I'd never experienced before: becoming a brand ambassador.

Apparently following my heart in terms of content creation led to something I'd always known was a possibility: brand deals and ambassadorships. To be honest, I thought that just wouldn't be for me, as my blog never fit in. So right when I'd accepted my blog and aim for it, a brand ambassadorship hit me like a sudden dizzy spell and I was confused about the whole blogging thing once again. Was I even ready for that? I was afraid I'd look like I was selling my soul. I'd seen plenty of bloggers jump on opportunities that didn't fit their brand or personality and I didn't want to make that mistake. For hours, I researched the brand and discussed with friends and families if it'd be a good fit for my blog and Instagram. Although the product did fit my "brand", I still had some moral and ethical demands. Since I didn't think this deal would work out at the time, I saw it as a learning experience and used the opportunity to jot down what I'm looking for in a brand before I partner up with them. Of course their product has to be of great quality, but I'd also like to see that they donate to charity (preferably something in the field of environmental protection). I researched some more. Checked some things. And somehow became a brand ambassador despite still being completely lost in the world of blogging!

In December I sealed the deal and became a brand ambassador for Capitola Watches. You see, back when I was still a teacher, I realized I needed a watch because the clock in my classroom never worked. This was in late 2016. I never got around to buying a watch. Talk about procrastinating. Then I got a message from Capitola and saw exactly the kind of watch I was looking for, of which a percentage of the price would be donated to the WWF. So I got on board and became so overwhelmed that I made a mistake with the promo code. You can use the code ENVY10 for a discount of 15% on your purchase (the logic is very Envy-worthy here).


Of course I'm still a bit nervous about presenting myself as an ambassador. Not everyone with an internet connection is in favor of people like me teaming up with brands. It's another thing that I have to figure out this year, just like the Twitter thing, just like my own attitude towards the things I write. But I think I will be fine. I've taken it step by step up until this point and think it's worked out okay. I'll worry about the next blogging challenge when I'm faced with it.

I think blogging has never been truly easy. It wasn't easy in 2012 and it isn't easy now. But at least I now know what I stand for and how I want my blog to be run. Holding on to my old social media tactics might not get me far, sticking to storytelling might not make me popular, but it makes me happy. If the time comes for a brand deal or something like it, I know when to say 'no thanks'. I've been doing everything with only half of my heart for a long time, but not anymore. I've figured the basics out. Now I'm ready for more.

Ever since I've gone to Cuba, I haven't been as active in the blogging community as I used to be. No Twitter chats (barely any tweets for all that matter), very few Instagram posts and a grand total of two posts on the blog - which I didn't promote on any platform until five to seven days after posting. I wish I could say it's just some kind of small slump, but no. My lack of online presence is the direct result of something that's been bothering me for the last six months: I feel like I don't belong in the blogging community anymore.

Like everything in life, the blogging community is constantly changing. I've been around since late 2012 and have seen a lot of change. YouTube became the key to internet success, being on every single social media platform became necessary, pictures became more important than writing to a lot of people, you name it and I've been through it. Yet I never felt like there wasn't a place for me anymore. Things changed and I dealt with it. Until one trend completely got me down: cookie cutter blogs.

Admit it, we all know at least one blogger with a cookie cutter blog: a blog with the same content as 90% of all blogs in its particular niche, written in the same way and with as much originality and character as a blank piece of paper. These cookie cutters have always been around, but lately they seem to have become more prominent and present in my newsfeeds and timelines. What's more: these are exactly the kind of blogs that somehow blow up within a month. In the meantime, I'm working hard to tell compelling stories about places and things that would otherwise get overlooked. I try to make people who read my blog feel like they were there with me when I was traveling through Southeast Asia. I try to make my excitement and love for comics and books tangible. I hope to open people's eyes to the amazing street art they otherwise would have walked past without even noticing. And for what? To see a product review of mascara, a product review that gives the exact same information in the exact same tone of voice as hundreds of other blogs, get at least three times the number of views and comments as the post I wrote with all my heart. Not the best thing for your self-esteem and motivation, let me tell you that.


I became very pessimistic and bitter over the course of this winter, when I saw more and more cookie cutter blogs blow up or grow to a thousand followers in no time. I had no idea how they did it, while I was working my ass off to see zero progress. And I wasn't the only one. I saw the same thing happen with some of my talented friends. I was glad to get away from all that for nine days when I went on vacation last month: the internet is a luxury in Cuba, one I didn't care for during my stay. Those nine days were spent in ignorant bliss. No blogger drama, no overhyped bloggers who were basically all repeating each other, no cookie cutters making me feel inadequate. That ignorant bliss ended the minute I set foot on Dutch soil again. As soon as I opened Twitter, it all came back. Had I been able to turn a blind eye to certain cookie cutter behavior before, I now couldn't ignore it any longer. I was almost crying tears of frustration when I saw some of the things people tweet about blogging and being a blogger these days. It made me want to go back to internetless Cuba right away.

Over the course of the next few days, I tried to get back into the whole blogging thing, but failed. As you might know, I've been in therapy for an inferiority complex, so insecurity will always be my Achilles heel. That's exactly where cookie cutter blogs unknowingly hit me with posts and tweets. Wherever I looked I saw statements like: "You have to go self-hosted and build your DA up or brands will never work with you", "WordPress is the only place to become successful as a blogger" or "Are you even a blogger if you don't take OOTD pics in front of colorful doors in London?".
I guess brands will never work with me then, I prefer Blogger so apparently I'm going to be unsuccessful by default and hello? I don't live in London. I don't even live in the UK. And I hate taking pictures of the clothes I'm wearing. Does that make me any less of a blogger? My rational mind would say 'no', but that insecure part of me started to doubt. Because these things were all said by bloggers who were so much more successful than I am, so maybe they were right after all. Maybe I was just a failure of a blogger. I kept thinking, overthinking and doubting. I did this so much that I wanted to give up on blogging. More and more statements like these popped up on my timeline. This coincided with follow train after follow train and a tsunami of blogging cliche's being shared ("Every blogger is amazing, you are so amazing, followers don't matter as long as you're having fun"). Now I have nothing against motivational tweets, but seeing the same motivational tweet over and over again with only slight changes in wording makes people on Twitter look like faulty copy machines. You can figure out why I dislike follow trains for yourself. What frustrated me most, however, was that these tactics of follow trains and cliche tweets worked for people. Cookie cutters imitating copy machines were growing like crazy and I... I was about to throw in the towel.

For about two weeks I was relatively quiet online and lived offline. I went to Black Panther, started recycling cans and plastic bottles to raise money for a charity that cleans up the plastic soup, I went ice skating and booked a trip to Israel and Jordan. I thought about pulling the plug on Lost in Translation. Then my mom helped me realize me and my blog aren't my problem. Twitter is.

Cookie cutters will always be around. Their presence on Twitter and the know-it-all-attitudes that some people on that platform have tend to get me down though. Whenever I scroll through Twitter, all I do is compare myself and feel awful about not fitting into the idea of what a good blogger is. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm sometimes jealous of the success recycled content gets. I'm not saying you're not allowed to write about things someone else likes to write about. Neither am I saying you can't be inspired by someone else's posts or just be similar to another blogger. But with plagiarism being a real issue lately and some people pumping out passionless posts, I do feel awful when I pour my heart and soul into a post about how Cuba is nothing like you'd ever expect gets seen by about 10 to 20 people.


I can't wrap my mind around plagiarism and cliches getting so much time of day, but I don't want to waste any more time thinking about cookie cutter blogs. I allowed cookie cutter blogs to get me down, but not anymore. From now on I'm going to focus on writing the best blog posts I can, even if that means they'll never be read by more than 20 people. Because my mom was right when she said: "You write for you and your followers. It doesn't matter how many followers you write for. What matters is that you tell stories that are true to who you are." And telling those stories is exactly what I'm going to do, now and always.

Some mornings I wake up with tons of ideas for new blog posts, new followers and never-ending excitement. Blogging is something I'm truly passionate about, I write my posts with my heart and pick my images with care (well, most of the time). Waking up on mornings like these is amazing.
Yet some mornings I wake up to comments from people asking for follow-for-follows, Twitter and Instagram follows from people who will unfollow if I don't follow them back within five minutes and generic sponsored posts. On those days I'm not excited to start working on my blog. On those days I suffer from Blogger Blues.

There are many awesome things about blogging, but lately I've got to known the ugly side of blogging much better. If you have time, read this post here - just promise you come back to my blog after reading.
If you don't have that much time I'll tell you about the post: a former mommy blogger just shared all the nasty secrets about how big blogs became big. Just reading about it made me feel sick to my stomach. All the things I hate were featured: following people only to unfollow if they don't return the favour (apparently that's a highly recommended strategy), or just writing what the brands want you to write, even though you don't like their products. How can anyone do that?
My case of Blogger Blues just became so much worse while reading this post. I never understood how boring blogs with tons of spelling mistakes and cliche posts could be so popular. Now I do: follow-for-follows, letting people follow so they can enter a giveaway and if necessary, buy followers.
When I was done reading I looked at my follower count and felt cheated. Just that. Cheated.

I see bloggers who post the same generic, badly written posts that a thousand others have already posted and these people make it big, while my blog buddies and I go almost unnoticed. The reason behind that? My buddies don't use cheap methods to quickly grow a huge (but largely uninterested) audience. It's frustrating to see genuine and awesome posts receive not even a fraction of the attention that an extremely obviously sponsored post about diapers gets. It's frustrating to scrape together pageviews on a post you've written with all your heart, it's frustrating to see your friend's amazing blog not get the amount of followers it deserves.

Now at this point I can do two things: let my Blogger Blues get the best of me and grow bitter, or try to make it big in the blogging world by remaining true to myself. I will always choose the latter of those two options.
Yes, a lot of bloggers 'cheat' their way to the top. A lot of them do not and will never produce the high quality posts some completely unknown bloggers write. A lot of them are only in it for the money and the goodies. That's not me. I started blogging because I love writing. I rather receive two sincere comments on my posts than a thousand generic ones. I only follow people on Twitter if I had a nice chat with them or if they're just simply awesome. That might not be the quickest way to the top, but I do believe it's a good way. In the end, awesomeness always wins.

Hey there!

It's Envy here. Remember me? I was that Dutch girl who had no idea what to do with her blog during her first two years in the blogosphere. My posts weren't that great, yet I hope you still remember me. 'Cause once upon a time, I considered you my blog buddy.


Starting a blog isn't easy. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of blogs that were all so much better than mine, I felt so alone...
Then you were there. It started with a follow and a nice comment. Soon we commented on almost all of each other's posts. We collabed, found new blogs together, helped each other out. But then, one day, you were gone.

I can't remember when I realized you were gone. Your posts came less frequent, you tweeted less and you weren't the first to comment on my posts anymore. Eventually there was a goodbye post, if I'm not mistaken... It broke my heart a little. Seeing that you deactivated your blog altogether made it even worse. The blogosphere isn't the same without you...

Now I guess you're quite surprised to see me write this. I can't blame you. Who in their right mind values an online friendship so much that they're still thinking about it months, years later even? Apparently, I do. Because people online can affect our lives just as much as the people we see at work, in college or in school every day. They can make you feel appreciated. They can make you feel part of something bigger than you. That's exactly what you did for me. I've learned a lot from our friendship and I'm very grateful for that.

Quite frankly, I don't think I'll forget about you anytime soon. Sometimes I find myself looking at flowers, thinking about how much you like those. Or I hear music that I know you'd like. It still reminds me of you. It's weird to think that I'm planning to travel the world, so one day I'll visit the place where you live, yet I won't ever meet you. Maybe if you'd stayed around... Now I'll visit your country, wondering if I just walked straight past you - if you're still living in the same place. Fact is that I don't know where you are now, or what you do. But when I see or hear or smell something I know you would have liked, I hope you're in a good place. I hope you're still chasing your dreams. I hope you're never giving up on them. Most of all, I hope you're happy. You might not be part of the blogosphere anymore, but you're still part of this awesome world. So I hope you make the most out of your life, wherever you might be today.

Stay Awesome!