We’re so happy it’s been Ten bloody years. Monday was a weird day for me. I woke up and realised I’d be blogging for ten years.

I’ve blogged twice a day right now, between ads and sponsored content and of course exclusive content for fashionablymale.net. ‘Cause right now we can say that we can pay bills from blogging. But we didn’t start this way. God knows we suffered in a good way.

It was December 22, 2010 when I hit publish on my first blog post. I had a pretty boring job at that time and if I slammed through my work quickly enough I often had an hour or two per day that I would just spend dicking around on the internet. I had no ideas of blogs were even a things. But when I found Fuckingyoung.es and Tumblr things changed.

I was obsessed with Tumblr, the way that you found ever picture or set of images of things you liked. Music, designing, house, furnitures, memes. But also juxtaposing with fashion, art, culture, museums, modeling and of course porn.

When I was 13 years old to 16yo I started to do collages with newspaper, old magazines, and whatever picture I like I just cut it, grabbed glue and started it to glued in big cardboards or notebooks. First, I started to collect pictures of Madonna. It was 1997 and my hobbies was drawing and doing collages of old pics from Madonna.

After college, I started to dig on the internet. When in my first jobs I had access to internet the first thing is how to find images of Madonna. Then one thin took me to other. One day I found the way of having a PhotoBlog and MySpace.

Around 2007. When I had several followers on both websites. FaceBook wasn’t a thing. But I found it anyways. In fact, I had to beg my friends to open Facebook to add them. So I first had social media accounts before blogging.

When I was studying on how to build your own website, coding and most of all copy and paste I never had my intention of having my own website and post male models. Until one day, in the latest quarter of 2010 I had a boyfriend–which I was in love with or think that I was in love with him. And then he decided to broke up with me and of course I was devastated.

It took me awhile to recover it. And when I was digging in Tumblr I saw a big ad of WordPress. I clicked on the ad. And then I started to build the page. One thing took me to other. I just knew that I din’t want to use my own name. I wanted to build a name, easy to remember, but that nobody will have it. Completely flopped in the first trying. The first thing on my mind was several words between fashion, male models and photography came to my mind: malefashionstylish.

I know it sucks! But I couldn’t help it. When I press enter there was not way back. Of course in 2011 I changed the name to fashionablymale.net Why? because I always was fashionably late for everything, even in my job, social events and dates.

To celebrate this (frankly mind blowing) occasion, I’ve put together a list of 10 Things We’ve Learned In 10 Years of Blogging…

1 – Love your passions

If I didn’t love blogging, I would have stopped blogging after that very first month. When you boil down exactly why I love blogging and why I’ve done it for so long, it’s because I love how people react. WordPress has the magnetic of attract people. People loves visit good websites. And people loves commenting, it brings joy to our lives and it makes us learn important things.

In 2011 I only re-post every site I like, which it took me like a year to find my niche. Even though I was thinking that I want it to post models, fashion, culture, photography, music and all. I wanted a Tumblr on my website. And it worked for me the first 4 years of blogging.

2 – Not everyone will like you… in fact some people will hate you 

For every person who’s told me that they save posts to read with their morning tea, there’s ten other people who think I’m scum and aren’t afraid to tell me that. If I’ve crossed the line in some way, I will always apologise. Blogs like Homotography, Male Model Scene, were in the beginning a huge inspiration and I re-posted so many content from them. I didn’t know about copyrights.

3 – Content is everything and people is amazing

This kind of blog is about exposing a material or content. With no intentions of selling any frame. If you post a picture with copyrights you can’t sell it online.

In the first years I posted a lot of random pictures from Tumblr, or any site, I didn’t like to google and search for pictures, because my intention was to credit the picture itself. When I used to re-post from sites I used to credit them. But not all the time (sorry!)

The people that show up here, every day to read my posts are the most brilliant people in the world. My readers are smart, funny and into all the same things as me. It’s rad. You guys rock. For real. Every time someone emails me something lovely, stops me in the street to say hello or tells a friend about my blog it actually makes my heart beat faster. I have crushes on all of you. You all get roses! No crying in limousines for my readers.

4 – You must find your strengths and play to them 

Most bloggers position themselves as leaders, which is how blogging works, really. The most successful bloggers have mad fans. That’s never really been my shtick. I’m more of a conversation facilitator than a leader. I’m a work in progress and so is everyone and we’re all desperate to talk about it. To find out what other people are doing, how that’s working and to get some new ideas about what to try. When I’m writing my intention was always to know who’s behind the lens and who’s in front. I’ve always wondered about where the pictures were taken, where’s the model coming from and details details details.

We started the same year that Instagram

In 2014 Instagram was not that popular like it is today, that year was my first travel abroad was to Los Angeles. I was so excited to know everything about Hollywood and L.A. models agencies. A lot of content I was exposing was taken from there. Agencies like TWO Management, Next Models, Front and others was in Los Angeles and photographers were contacted me to post their material. I was so happy.

5 – Adapt

Back in the day I used to just hit publish on a blog post and heaps of people would read it without me even trying. For real, people would just be like ‘Oh I think I’ll read your blog today!’and just type my blog into their search bar. How bizarre is that? With every new social media platform launch, Google algorithm change and shadow ban I’ve had to figure out how to reach and re-reach my audience. You need to skill up, otherwise you get left behind.

One way to be more appealing to all our readers, was having interviews with random people. We wanted to know for details and wanted to know more. Not like be a gossip site, not. Just to know and meet people behind the lens or in front, like our interview with model: Simonas Pham and among so many models, photographers and celebrities.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: SUPERMODEL TUEN SIMONAS PHAM

6 – Be consistent

Consistency is the key to everything but it’s such a boring and unsexy solution, people tend to ignore it. This is happening so many times.

Saving money, losing weight, succeeding in your career, mastering a new skill. It’s all about consistency. I’m very lucky that blogging is my job but I’m not funnier, more talented or better looking than people who don’t get to do this for a living, the difference is that I’m consistent and have been for a decade. Consistency is so achievable, it’s almost a disappointing catalyst for success but that’s it.

Like when someone loses a lot of weight and you go ‘Wow! HOW did you do it?’ and they say ‘Diet and exercise… forever and ever’ and you’re super disappointed because you wanted there to be a magical solution that didn’t require stopping eating and drinking wine. Consistency. It’s boring but it works.

7 – Realise that your blog will never be perfect

Ever. It will never be done, it will never look the way you want it to look, your photos will never be perfect and there will never be a time when everything is in ultimate running order. You also never ‘finish’ blogging, it just keeps on happening. If you want to blog or you currently blog just be warned that blogging is like doing an assignment that never ends. Ever. Are you terrified yet?

8 – Focus your intentions

My intentions with fashionablymale.net were ambitious in some point. When our alliance with PnV Network began in 2016. I was so happy, Tom Peaks chose the site to post their work, Tom knows thousands of people from America. He always did great work networking with models, photographers and agencies.

KEEP THE STREETS FASHION FOR ME | ARTWORK BY FASHIONABLY MALE

Even though the alliance was difficult in many ways, I felt like somebody took off my baby away, and I just let my ego aside to understand that PnV was providing us exclusive material and besides it was going to be shared by thousands and thousands of users. Our readers loved this.

9 – Focus on your readers 

When my blog was a pure style blog, it was very centred around me, which I didn’t love. That’s why I changed it to be a lifestyle blog and it’s best thing I ever did for Smaggle. I can share recipes, exercise tips, cool organisation stuff I’ve discovered and my readers do the same thing. In each post, I always make sure theres’s something in it for my readers. A laugh, a dinner idea, a tip to help them sleep better or a reminder that they really are doing okay.

10 – Remember why you started 

I started blogging because I wanted to be a part of something but I also wanted to start my own conversations. When I get a mean comment, or I’m having a bad day with a client I remember how much I love my little internet crew and it makes everything better again.

When PnV and fashionablymale launched the Magazine in May 2019. Was a huge hit for us. But it was a lot of hard work for everybody, for all the people involved I would never get tired of saying: thank you.

On that note, I’d love to know a little bit more about you…

Also, tell me… how long have you been reading fashionablymale?

Thank you for being part of this community, thank you for taking your time and read us. Thank you for appreciate every picture, every word, every image and frame.

Fashionablymale.net will flow with the blow, but as long as I’m alive will be here in the internet world.