Six Miramonte juniors have created a fashion and lifestyle blog that aims to promote a positive outlook on high school life. Hannah Li, Caie Kelley and Margot O’Dell run The Soft Optimist. The blog also features various guest posters who appear periodically: Caroline Colwell, Amrita Newton, Jane Fessenden and Alyssa Henderson.
“The blog is essentially a collaborative online journal,” said Li.
“Being in high school can be filled with drama…there tends to be a lot of negativity that circulates around campus and in our own lives,” said Li. “I know personally, my goal is to take a few minutes each day, or each week, and remember the good in my life, and I express this through my writing in the blog. So yes, in a sense, our goal is to promote optimism.”
“With junior year being so unnecessarily stressful, the blog provides an outlet for us to voice our opinions on things we care about,” said Kelley. “We thought it would be cool to document our unique viewpoints in a collaborative effort for other people to enjoy too. We have a chance to address more relatable issues – things we can’t necessarily voice in a classroom setting.”
The blog primarily focuses on fashion, though the authors do add additional content regularly on topics such as do-it-yourself projects, food, culture, traveling, and other snippets from their lives. The Soft Optimist updates 5-7 times a week, according to Li.
Li credits the blog’s success to the accessibility of Internet media. The group has interacted and collaborated with other fashion bloggers, and has even garnered views from far off places like Croatia, Japan, and India.
Teenagers spend an immense amount of time online, and up to 29% connect with their peers through social media and blogging platforms. Up to 70% of young people own laptops for their own personal use, which adds to this growth of online connectivity, according to the 2011 Erial Project, which studied the amount of internet exposure that young adults experience.
Li said, “I encourage anyone with a voice and passion to start a blog. I think it’s a great way to express your opinions, and it has so much more resonance than just mumbling something at a lunch table.”
