WHERE ARE THE LATINO BLOGGERS?
I live on the Internet, so, sometimes my perspective on things can be a bit warped. How some people have managed to avoid Facebook and Twitter escapes me, for example, but then again not everyone works in the media industry. But, being that I do occupy the digital space so often, there’s a very stark and obvious problem that I frequently encounter: just like real life, Latinos are not as populous online.
Let me define what I mean a bit more. Latinos tend to overindex on social media sites, which is to say, the ratio of Latino users is higher on social networks (oftentimes) than it is in the U.S. But when it comes to producing content for the Internet, such as blogs or YouTube channels or popular Twitter feeds, Latinos are just as sparse online as they are in real life.
So where are all the Latino bloggers and vloggers?
I suppose the answer has a lot to do with the reason there are smaller numbers of Latinos in higher education and professional jobs. If you want to push content, you need to have good and relevant content, and that requires — to a certain degree — education. At the same time, though, one of the cool things about the Internet is that anyone can use the tools available there to create knowledge and content for free.
So why aren’t Latinos doing so?
I wish I had the answer. As someone who has started, run, marketed, shared, written, vlogged and generally grown up online, I don’t understand why I don’t see more folks of my own persuasion on Twitter and running blogs.
There does seem to be a boom of blogs around family-type blogs, mommy and daddy blogs, but for a twentysomething who enjoys fashion, art, news and politics, I find myself searching for art, fashion, news and political blogs that offer a wide array of content and often finding just the handful I already knew about.
Which is to say, if you’re interested in starting a blog, please let me know — I’d love to help out! Find me on Twitter: @SaraChicaD
Copyright 2013 by Sara Inés Calderón.