TASTEMAKER MAGAZINE

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

By Marie-Claire Mills

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure to interlink the online and offline world, which you will be able to explore amongst Tastemaker’s pages.

Tastemaker is an influencer’s guide to Instagram and a platform through which they can be seen as professionals. Tastemaker aims to give an influencer a chance to expose themselves across print where they can be seen more skilfully and taken more seriously by their peers of journalists. These two worlds of “influencers” and traditional media shouldn’t be separated anymore, they need to work together to grow together.

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When interviewing the contributors for the first issue of Tastemaker, negative effects of social media often came up in conversation. All five of the contributions to Tastemaker had a story to tell about their experiences online. As an advocate for social media and the blogosphere, I feel it is my responsibility to remind the readers of Tastemaker that social media is not always a presentation of real life. People will only post the highlights of their day-to-day lives. Our mental health is as important as our physical health, so if it ever gets too much, take a break and log off for a day. And most importantly, remember to talk to your real friends and family. Today, everyone has two personas, one online and one in the real world. It seems only fit to title the first issue of Tastemaker as The Real Issue.

It was only the other week that, I read an article about the selfie-esteem epidemic of Generation-Z. One of the unfortunate issues with social media is that it is being tarnished with a negative brush. People have spoken out about how social media has helped their mental health and, in some cases, it has helped them on the road to recovery. If we look past the ‘paint stripper’ tea that Kim Kardashian uses to get “skinny" and help ourselves and each other by following real people who are authentic and true on social media, then we can only grow wiser and teach the future generations how to use these instantaneous platforms in a way to benefit our mental health.

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This project initially started as my Final Major Project for my degree, however, I feel there is a need to share our message. All profits made from The Real Issue will be donated to two charities close to myself in memory of those friends and family members who are no longer with us. You can find out more about the charities on the 'Our Charities' page.

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I’m excited for the future of Tastemaker magazine and to see whether we can create a friendship and equality between the online and offline worlds. In this industry, perseverance is key, and I hope that we can support many more Tastemaker’s along their journey. Just remember, not everything you see online is real life, stay true to yourself and always come back to reality.