How what you say will reflect not only on you, but your blog

What a fiasco. (Ha, unintentional Elizabethtown reference.)

If you don't know what I'm referring to, you must have been on vacation or unable to access the internet for a few days. Long story short: A well-known book blogger was accused of plagiarism and a massive war in the book blogging community ensued. I'm not going to go into detail on the plagiarism aspect of this situation, as it is not the focus of my post. This post is going to focus on book bloggers.

As a book blogger myself, I take pride in my blog and try my best to make my content as fun and up to date as I can. I appreciate all the authors and publishers that contact me with review requests. I love to share my love of books with all of you. I love visiting your blogs and discussing great books. It's a very awesome community of people that I am part of.

However, after everything that had happened was revealed to the community, something horrible happened. Everyone publicly chose sides and blatantly posted hateful remarks about not only the person accused but about the people who weren't on their side.

When I first learned of the original situation, I spent probably half an hour searching through links on different sites and Googling it. I just wanted to understand what happened. On one of the sites, I read that someone said something about a Twitter hashtag being started. My first thought was, "What?!" So I went to Twitter and looked.

I was appalled.

There were all sorts of hurtful things being thrown around by numerous book bloggers. People outright telling others what they should do and that they are essentially stupid if they don't. I couldn't believe it. Here we are, all of us book lovers and reviewers and friends, and THIS happens to someone pretty much all of us know (or know of), and a bunch of us decide to start a war. Yes, somebody did something that is not acceptable to people in this community. I get that. But did all these people have to go out there with torches and scream hateful things to each other? No. It was sickening.

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, or even voicing it in some way online. Here's where the problem lies:

What you choose to say online will reflect on you and your blog.

All these people choosing sides and making it known, how does it reflect on you? How will your followers feel about you? How will publishers and authors view you? If you’re not handling yourself in a professional manner in regard to this situation, people may not respect you and they may not want to follow you either. Do you want to lose followers and review requests? I'm sure the answer to that is probably no. Like I said above, I enjoy blogging and all the people I'm in association with. Why would any of us want to lose any of it?

Here's what it comes down to: We all have to make the decision ON OUR OWN without hurting others. If people want to continue to follow this person, that is their choice. If people want to unfollow this person, that is their choice. Nobody should push their choice on others. Do your own research and make your own choice.

To all of my friends in the book blogging community: Please take this to heart. Remember that what we post online will always be there. Even if you delete it--it is still there, it was still said. Let's not hurt each other with negative talk. We are all friends and we should show each other love and respect.

Much love to my followers for reading my thoughts on the recent uproar. Please feel free to comment below with your thoughts.

XOXO~Jessica