FFS Friday - Wow

Oh my goodness. 

I've been a member of BeautyDirectory for years. It's a resource for bloggers, journalists and people in the beauty industry. I mainly use it to get brand contacts when I need to ask them some questions for a review. 
This week I tried to log in and couldn't so I contacted them to ask why. I got the following email:

In order to ensure that the BEAUTYDIRECTORY Media Directory continues to be a valuable resource to the beauty and health industries, we’ve put in place a new set of criteria that aligns with evolving industry demands.

To be included in the Media Directory, we ask that all bloggers and influencers fulfil the following criteria.

• Be based in Australia
• Have a minimum age of 16
• Provide quarterly updated analytics to BEAUTYDIRECTORY as a screen grab (to be provided for the periods January 1–March 31, April 1–June 30, July 1–September 30, October 1–December 31)
• Must have been in operation for at least three months
• Must have posted on their chosen platform consistently two or more times each week
• Must post at least 50% beauty/health content on their chosen platform
• Content must align with a wide range of brand values
• To be listed as solely an Instagrammer (ie if you post on no other platforms), must have minimum of 5K followers

If you feel that you meet the above criteria please do let us know and send us the necessary screen shots so that we can add you to the Directory.

I provided my stats screenshot then heard nothing further so I contacted them again and got this:

Thanks for sending through the screen grab.

We did a recent cleanse for those bloggers that didn't fulfil our criteria that I sent through on August 7. 

After looking at your blog, unfortunately it doesn't align with brand values.

Wow. Just wow.

So my blog "doesn't align with brand values". What does that mean? I'm too honest? Not complimentary enough? Or not all styled and magazine like? Who knows?

This is the perfect example of my growing issues with blogging. Blogging used to be authentic and real. Now it's becoming increasingly commercial and untrustworthy. Brands expect bloggers to prostitute themselves in order to receive free products. No longer are blogs a place where you can get an honest opinion, instead a lot of blogs are just glorified adverts.

The beauty community used to be full of lovely people who all blogged for the love of it. That community is gone and it feels like the blogging world is full of people who are all out to make money. Whilst there's nothing wrong with making money, I miss the good old days where I could trust what I read.  

I've been seriously considering the future of my blog for a while now. I was considering ceasing blogging but now I'm thinking that honest, genuine opinions are sorely needed. Stay tuned.