A sass a day keeps the basic away. Or at least that’s the motto of our campus celebrity for the week, Sarah Dotson.
Hailing from Atlanta, GA, Sarah is a second year student at the University of Georgia, majoring in English. When she’s not spending her time reading classic English literature or cheering on the Mens Basketball Team with the UGA Dance Dawgs, Sarah can be found trying to “outrun anything and everything basic.” (No, seriously.) A fashionista who also has a passion for writing, Sarah created, along with a close friend of hers, a blog which she cleverly titled Barely Basic as a fun and creative way of expressing herself, her lifestyle, and her love of fashion.
“I started Barely Basic after falling in love with a fashion blog called The Man Repeller,” she tells us. “Their content doesn’t focus exclusively on fashion, and that was something that I found really appealing and accessible. Basically, I realized that there is a realm of fashion blogging that isn’t as one-dimensional as I had believed. The fashion blog formula I knew of- pretty girl puts together an aesthetically pleasing look and writes an underwhelming sentence about their bag- now felt archaic and dull, and this new, smart, territory of fashion blogging was something I craved to inhabit.”
In order to keep the site from becoming swept up in what seems like an endless amount of fashion blogs that can be found on the Internet, Sarah makes an effort to put most of her focus on the writing and content of her blog as opposed to the pretty clothing.
“I think what makes my blog different than other fashion blogs is that I definitely try to model it after the latter type of blog I described earlier- one that doesn’t focus exclusively on clothes, and prides itself on writing and content as much, if not more so, than the fashion,” she says. “I work really hard to engage readers with my writing- I think I have a pretty unique and relatable voice, and I want people who wouldn’t typically think to read a fashion blog to read mine and come back for more.”
Sarah has pretty high hopes for Barely Basic, as the blog is a pretty big hit with a growing fan base. Despite the countless amount of fashion blogs out there, Sarah hopes that, if anything, someone somewhere will take note of her blog and its uniqueness.
“This is why I really strive to make my blog unique in ways that others don’t,” she tells us. “That being said, best-case scenario, I keep working hard on my blog, and get lucky. Worst case scenario, I have a huge online portfolio of some of my favorite writings and creative works, and a really fun blog to play with on the side. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
If you’re interested in getting a daily dose of fashion (that isn’t basic) you can read more of Sarah’s blog posts here.