Instagram? Me?

I’ve been putting this off for years.

Every few weeks someone says “You know what? You should start a blog.” I’m not entirely sure what gives them that impression. Flippant Facebook status updates I can do. Actually commit myself to full-fledged blog posts on a regular basis? Daunting.

There’s also the matter of everyone and their mother having a blog. This has been my massive hangup for ages now. The excuses write themselves. I can’t, I missed the boat, I should have started one years ago before all the ideas got taken … bullshit. As someone I met at a TechCrunch party recently said, “Saying that blogs are over is like saying that music is over.” (Admittedly, there’s a lot to be said about the changing landscape of the music industry, but I digress. I do that sometimes.) I eventually found inspiration in — of all places — a Jenna Marbles video called Why Girls Hate Each Other. After the bulk of her argument has been discussed, Miss Marbles begins to wrap things up with, “You got something in there that no one else has! And if you just do that instead of what society is telling you to do then we can all just be like hey girl how’s it goin’ […]?”

You’re right, Jenna, I do got something in here that no one else has. And if I wait to figure out what exactly that is, or try to reverse engineer my trajectory to fame and fortune via the unpredictable and often luck-based blog starmaking machine, I’ll never get around to doing it.

I know I want this blog to be about beauty in some fashion (Ha! Fashion! I … I’m sorry.), but I haven’t quite figured out its objective yet. No matter, here are a few thing I want to write about and some things I don’t:

The internet has enough how-tos. If you want to learn to do anything, go look it up on YouTube. You don’t need to see my dumb face telling you how to “Create the Perfect Cat-Eye” or “How to Find the Perfect Red Lipstick!” I mean, fuck, the entire magazine industry is built on these recycled premises. Go sit in a waiting room. You might even pick up some tips on “How to Please Your Man!” (hint: it starts with blow and ends with job).

This is going to be beauty for smart girls (or dudes, we don’t discriminate here). You’re not thirteen years old playing with your mother’s rouge anymore. You’re a grown person (or, y’know, mature), and you can handle the word fuck once in a while (sorry, Grandma). You can also understand multisyllabic words (like multisyllabic!). So let’s stop dumbing down the beauty industry, because that’s the last thing it needs. Which brings me to:

Cosmetics are not just for dumb girls. They are not just for shallow girls. They are not just for girls who have nothing else to offer. They are for anyone who wants to use them. Cosmetics should be egalitarian. I suppose I consider myself a feminist in that I believe that everyone has rights, and one of those rights happens to be that anyone should be able to put whatever silly girly things they want on their face and still be taken seriously. More on this in the future.

I’ve written a novel at this point (hey Mom, I wrote a novel!), so I’ll sign off.

You know what? I do feel more accomplished. Baby steps.