Lifestyle Blogging and Everyday Life
LIFESTYLE is an acronym for Lasting Interval Leisure. Lifestyle is an umbrella term that encompasses several definitions; however, it is primarily a reflection of a person’s’ cultural and social patterns and tendencies. Lifestyle is the general attitudes, behaviors, and interests of an individual, family, group, or society. The word was first introduced by Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler in his acclaimed 1929 book, The Case of Miss R. His concept of lasting leisure was motivated by his study of how human beings interact with leisure time. According to Adler, human beings have four general kinds of “lifestyle”, namely: Material Lifestyle, Leisure Lifestyle, Religious Lifestyle, and Technological Lifestyle.
Adler believed that the causes of the increasing wealth gap between rich and poor were rooted in the changing values and attitudes of mainstream society, especially in Western Europe. This could not be reduced to the role of free markets, as he also noted that the shift to a more materialistic lifestyle was also affected by changing attitudes towards sex, which had been shaped by the rise of the Christian religion during the period of the Renaissance. Adler further noted that this shift in mainstream culture during the period of the Industrial Revolution and the coming of the mass culture could not be attributed to the economic development of countries, but instead to the sociological changes that took place during those times. These changes in mainstream culture also led to changes in LIFESTYLE, with the increasing separation of leisure time from work time, the extension of leisure time into the evening, and the commercialization of everyday life.
In recent years, many authors have used the LIFESTYLE word in their works. One of the most common exponents of the idea of LIFESTYLE is Canadian author Michael Flood. Flood maintains that LIFESTYLE is a powerful force for individual psychology and the promotion of social media at the social level. According to Flood, LIFESTYLE is a word originally used by the Village People of Great Britain, who sought to define an ideal form of community existence that would outlive the term of their existence. The Village People saw themselves as living the “Lifetime of permanence”, a concept that has since become a core component of many current social trends.
According to Flood, LIFESTYLE is an ideal form of community because it gives people the freedom to pursue unique social behaviors. For example, one could pursue artistic hobbies or pursue any number of vices. Flood also maintains that because LIFESTYLE is a relatively new concept, there is currently no clear path for how to use it to promote contemporary social policies. However, according to Flood the LIFESTYLE concept can encourage the expansion of alternative social policies such as universal health care or greater responsibility towards the environment. In the end, Flood hopes that LIFESTYLE will allow individuals to experience “the best of both worlds” by having the freedom to pursue a unique lifestyle that exists only within the limits of the LIFESTYLE program.
The LIFESTYLE program was developed as a tool to help mass culture to identify with the Village People and, by extension, to help mainstream society come to terms with LIFESTYLE. As such, the program offers a unique opportunity to explore the potential benefits of a lifestyle built on values derived from the Village People, while simultaneously challenging mass culture to expand and embrace these same values in their own communities. However, while the Village People may have been a significant influence on Flood’s personal and public life, the life-styles promoted by the lifestyle are not necessarily based on the Village People. Although there are similarities between the lifestyle and the work of the Village People, there are also obvious differences – in terms of purpose, in terms of methodology, and in terms of methodology and goals.
Furthermore, many observers have suggested that although LIFESTYLE may represent a significant departure from traditional lifestyle blogging, it is still very much in keeping with a broader trend towards lifestyle blogging. Blogs increasingly tend towards presenting everyday life as it occurs rather than reifying the reader and providing an academic account of that everyday life. This is especially important when it comes to issues such as environmentalism or sustainability, which are often considered taboo topics in conventional blog writing. In addition, the overall tone of most lifestyle blogs is more optimistic and less detached than more traditional blogs, particularly because most lifestyle bloggers are generally young people who are seeking to express themselves in a language that is free of the strictures of academic language and the subject matter of literary studies. Finally, however, the convergence of LIFESTYLE and the broader trend towards lifestyle blogging indicates that this style of writing has the potential to grow into a truly global phenomena.