Ahhh, skinny jeans… we wanted to buy into you.  We wanted the promise of “skinny”.  We saw you everywhere, so clearly you must’ve been awesome, popular, and oh so worth it.  But why oh why were the majority of us just left feeling… uncomfortable.

If you’re active in the social media scene, I’m sure at some point lately you’ve read a post, or a tweet, or facebook status by a blogger asking you to vote for them for… something.  All you have to do as a loyal friend or reader is visit whatever website has nominated them, and click the “vote” or “thumbs up” next to their name.  And you can even vote once every single day.

These “contests” are different than Top Fifty lists that are put together by actual editors of an online website.  Those are opinions of the editors or committee and those bloggers are chosen by a number of factors.  I’m talking about the contests that ask the public to decide.

I did one of these once, and I can’t blame bloggers for getting caught up in it.  Who doesn’t want to be recognized for their writing, and opinions, and time and effort?  Only about 5 percent (completely made up statistic) of bloggers are actually going to make a living at it, so why not get a little pat on the back every now and then? Who wouldn’t want to make it on the list of  Ten Funniest Bloggers?

Top Twenty Daddy Blogs?

Hot Housewife Bloggers?

Most Fashionable?

Top Ten Bloggers Who Have Shoulder Length Hair?

Most Popular Female Satirical Bloggers Who Own Chickens?

It’s getting out of control.  I’m starting to get the skinny jean feeling about it. You know, lots of hype, made to look good, wear it with anything, everyone then wants in on it… and only very few benefit.  These websites that nominate bloggers (or let bloggers nominate themselves), are just using bloggers to pull in traffic. A majority of these contests are held on websites with no real significant cache or exposure, and if everyone on a list of 100 bloggers gets fifty people to visit every day and vote, that’s huge traffic.  The website gets lots of clicks – the blogger gets nothing.

Bloggers end up hounding their friends and family for votes.  It often escalates into a barrage of tweets and updates begging for everyone to go vote EVERY DAY.  But unfortunately, the prize for making it to the top of one of these lists is most often nothing – not even a little spike in website traffic.  If it were a contest where the winner wins a good amount of cash, a contract, a job, or a large donation to a charity – that would be a different story.

Plus, a blogger that watches their name rise and fall in one of these “popularity” contests often starts to feel less and less, well… popular.  Just like squeezing into those skinny jeans can make one feel much less skinny.  The top three bloggers on that list look awesome – everyone else looks like a loser.  The supermodel population looks great in skinny jeans – the rest look like sausage.

And let’s face it, begging every single day for people to vote for you can make you feel icky.  Much in the same way that sitting or crouching in skinny jeans does for your gut and crotch.

If you’re not already popular, these contests do nothing for you.  The A list blogger can mention briefly ONCE that they were nominated for this or that list and soar to the top.  There’s also that small percentage of people that can slip into skinny jeans, pair it with a relaxed but flattering top, the right pair of calf high boots and look stunning.  The rest of the population is left trying to be trendy while hiding their muffin tops, tugging at their camel toe, and staring at their mary jane flats wondering why their ankles look so small while their feet look so big.

A lot of bloggers are starting to catch on.

So let’s hope that these popularity contests, just like skinny jeans…

are already going out of style.