Success Breeds Jealousy

I'm skipping out on my usual #WIAW post today as I feel compelled to write this post instead.  So if  you've arrived here expecting to see my eats I apologise and you've have to hop on over to Jenn to get your fix of What I Ate Wednesday.

Whilst lying in bed this morning checking my Twitter feed and reading some articles I came across, what I consider, to be an awful article on the beautiful Zoella, AKA Zoe Sugg.  I'm not going to post a link because, well, it just annoys me.  If you want to read it you'll have to google it but in summary the writer slates Zoe for her Disney-fied-ness and hypocrisy uploading beauty videos and then advising young people not to fret about appearance.

I am 32 years old and not what I consider to be the average demographic for most fashion and beauty vlogs.  However, one girl who has had my attention for a long time is Zoella.  I have nothing in common with her - I'm quite a bit older and a single mum and yet I found myself reading her blog posts and watching her tutorials and vlogs.  There's one reason and one reason alone why I do this: I like her, and by her social media followers and huge success I am definitely not alone in this.  She's a positive, bubbly person that I genuinely enjoy watching.
 

It seems that suddenly Zoe's success has skyrocketed.  She's everywhere in the UK at the moment.  She's recently released her own beauty line, she's releasing a book next month, Girl Online , she's become a spokesperson for Mind, a mental health charity (you may have seen her sporting a red button in her vlogs recently), she's won 2 Teen Choice Awards, her face seems to be on the advert of every YouTube video I watch at the moment.  She's hugely successful and fully deserves every bit of her success. Is she squeaky clean and slightly Disney-fied? Possibly, but hey is that not a good thing for our kids to look up to?  She doesn't drink or smoke or do drugs.  She works hard and seems to be a genuinely nice, positive person.
 

As a mum of a 9 year old it scares me to think of the people our kids look up to today.  it's a crazy, scary world out there and honestly, if Zoe is being considered as not a good role model who on earth is? 
 

I was so disappointed with the article in the press this morning and as is so often the case in the Great British Press - they build them up to knock them down.  Zoe is nothing more than a 'normal' girl who started a beauty blog as a little hobby and it has expanded in to something that I'm sure was beyond her wildest dreams.  This article served no purpose other than to belittle and criticise a young woman who has made a success of herself.

If this journalist took time out of her busy schedule and actually watch Zoe's videos she would see that Zoe does not tell young girls and teenagers to plaster themselves in make-up - in fact she vlogs regularly with a bare face, spots and all, for the millions of young impressionable girls to see.  She teaches them that everyone should feel comfortable in their own skin.  Indeed it was only the other day that #barefaceandwhat was trending on Twitter after Zoe encouraged young girls and woman to be comfortable and confident with their fresh, bare faces. 

Zoe is undeniably beautiful, as are a lot of her vlogging friends, but surely these people are better role models than many in the public eye.  Glossy magazines are crammed full of pictures of airbrushed models and celebs.  I doubt very much that Zoe has ever airbrushed her videos or put together a script or tried to tell girls and woman what they should look like.  

Zoe shows us her life, albeit an edited version of it, but her life none the less.

She shows us that it's ok to be sad, happy, anxious, scared, excited and emotional. 

She encourages people to look to their inner beauty and not worry about what people think of them.

It's sad that, for this, she get's criticised. We should celebrate successful women, not knock them down.

Have you read the article? What do you think it?

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