There was a time, many moons a go, when most writers were
gray haired men in ratty tweed jackets pecking away on a typewriter. Sorry
girls but most women were at home being wives and mothers, nothing wrong with
stay at home moms but that was how it was.
Now days, it seems that everyone is writing: teenagers,
grandmas and office workers bored with their duties. Everyone has something to
say and want people to read it.
There is so much competition that many have resorted to
methods a bit unconventional and even unethical to get their work noticed.
So who gets the most notice these days? Women with sexy
avatars. That’s right, doesn’t matter if they are good writers or know what
they are even talking about, they get the most attention.
I have read some really bad stuff that is misspelled,
grammar errors abound and no common sense to the article but they have a huge
audience.
In the old days most people that read were intellectuals
with money to buy books. The poor didn’t have enough funds and many couldn’t
even read. Move forward several decades and now most people in America are
literate, at least at a third grade level and books, newspapers and the
Internet are all free with the help of our local libraries.
The majority of people aren’t interested in intelligent
conversation and they don’t even care if the facts are accurate. I’m going to
give you American statistics because that’s where I live. These will vary in
other countries.
Most Internet users, about 70% depending on whose findings
you read, are male and around the age of 36 give or take.
Some of the statistics I’ve read say most have had some
college and are upper income but I think that is inaccurate. From the people I talk
to, I think less people have gone to college and most fall into the lower income
bracket, here’s why. All you have to have these days is a smart phone to access
the Internet. Some of these websites are assuming people have a computer and
pay for service, I don’t think that is true but I digress.
Back to my point, young men are easily influenced by pretty
women, especially if they give them half a minutes worth of attention, some women have figured this out using it to their advantage.
Are you ready for this? The people making the most money
from online blogging and article writing are (or at least want you to think
they are) young attractive women. Some market savvy women use it to their advantage.
I know women who have an avatar of a girl in a bikini or
sexy clothing, their writing is atrocious and yet they get many comments,
views and their income is much higher then many of their peers simply due to
their picture and a bit of flirting in the comments. It works, they know it and
they are cashing in at the bank.
Here’s the kicker, most of those avatars are not the writer’s
own picture. They borrow them from stock photos or some other source knowing
they’ll get more readers then if they use their own image because many of them
are middle age women who look nothing like the pin ups they are portraying.
I even know a couple men (Don’t worry guys, I won’t blow
your cover) who use a female pseudonym and avatar so they can make it in the
writing world.
Sure there are still intelligent people out there that want
to read articles written by people who know what they are talking about and can
give them good information but for the mediocre journalist it’s not so easy to
get noticed.
So, should we all use cleavage shots as our profile pictures
and flirt to get attention? Of course not. I know a couple young women writers
who didn’t even use revealing photos but were stalked and traumatized by
strange men who became enamored with them. We can’t be too careful these days.
Write well written, informative articles and you’ll get an
audience, it might not be huge and you probably won’t get rich but at least you
know you did it on your own merits and not by false means.
