BLOGGERS INTERVIEW: WITH SANDRA ANS

Eiyo Fadneiras,

I'm back with another Bloggers Interview episode. For today's episode, I will be interviewing a British mental health blogger named Unwanted Life. Now let's not waste time and carry on with the interview. We shall begin with Unwanted Life's profile...

ABOUT UNWANTED LIFE

NAME: Unwanted Life

ZODIAC: Scorpio, although I don’t believe in star signs.

COUNTRY ORIGIN: United Kingdom

HOBBIES: Blogging, gaming, watching films and TV, and procrastinating.

FAVORITE FOOD & DRINK: My favorite food is probably Cadbury’s caramel chocolate and for my drink, it is probably Amaretto and Dr. Pepper Zero.

FAVORITE COLOR: Black closely followed by pink.

FAVORITE MUSIC:

If you’re referring to the genre, then it’s metal in all its forms. If you’re talking about artists, I don’t really have one as it frequently changes. However, at the moment I’m loving Alestorm.

FAVORITE MOVIE:

Hotel Rwanda is probably my favorite simply because of how much it affects my emotions to watch. It’s a really powerful film, but it’ll make your blood boil. 

ROLE MODEL:

I don’t have one, I never have. I think that’s a product of my childhood of racist abuse which caused me to have attachment issues and borderline personality disorder.

BLOG NAME & LINK:

Unwanted Life

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS:

Facebook: Unwanted.Life.me 

Instagram:  @Unwanted_Life.me 

Pinterest: unwantedlife.me

Twitter: @UnwantedLife_Me 

Ko-fi: UnwantedLife

MySpace: Unwanted.Life

Reddit: Unwanted-Life

THE INTERVIEW

1. Eiyo Unwanted Life, please tell me about yourself and your blog.

I’m of mixed ethnicity (black and white) and I, unfortunately, grow up in a town that was 99.9% white, as were the schools, so that sucked, a lot.

I decided to blog about mental health because I had to take a gap year during my postgraduate degree, I wanted to do something that would make me feel like I was helping someone. When the idea to do a mental health blog popped into my head I decided to act on it before I talked myself out of it. For once, I acted upon one of my many ideas and I became a blogger.

My blog's name comes from when I was younger and I thought about writing an autobiography about my childhood experience of racist abuse, mental health issues, drugs, and a general reckless death wish. The name of that book was going to be “Life of an Unwanted Youth” and because society still makes people with mental health conditions to feel unwanted, plus wanting to embrace my own aesthetic, I took my book title and turned it into the name of my blog and Unwanted Life was born.

2. How long have you been blogging?

My blog went live two years and four months ago, but I guess I’ve technically been blogging slightly longer than that if you include setting up my blog as well.

3. What makes you want to become a blogger?

I reached a point in my life that I wanted to help others to avoid ending up in the situation I found myself in. This first led to me going to university and then volunteering for substance abuse and mental health charities. However, I wanted to do more and ideally something that also allowed me to use my personal experience to help others and it was that need that led to me blogging.

4. What makes your blog unique compare to other blogs?

I think my blog is unusual in its imagery and appearance because most mental health blogs use light colors and positive imagery. However, that’s exactly the kind of stuff that puts me off of such content. I’m not a light blue and a sea of flowers kind of person. Unwanted Life is different from those other mental health blogs because it embraces a darker image that better reflects true mental health struggles, at least in my opinion. 

I also try to balance my lived experience with researched advice and information to give people a blend of the two to better inform my readers.

5. Does your blog have a corporate color, logo, mascot, or banner? If yes, please describe?

The logo for Unwanted Life is basically a red skull with ‘Unwanted’ spray-painted in red and ‘Life’ in either white or black (depending on the background colors) in a more plain formal font.

6. How often do you publish a new post? And how do you keep yourself motivated?

I started off blogging about twice a week, which was fine when I was mainly talking about my personal experiences. However, when I wanted to add more in-depth research into my articles I switched to once a week because I couldn’t keep up with researching and creating an article while also sorting out promoting my content at the same time. Plus, I needed time for myself as well because I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation since I was in primary school.

7. Do you have any strategy to boost your blog traffic? Please share some tips.

My advice would be to get a good SEO plugin so all your content can be written to get the best SEO score each time. Other than that, it’s just a matter of engaging with the communities you want to write your content for. Also, establish a presence on key social media sites so the people from your target communities can find your content and you can get backlinks to form high DA sites when you share your content there.

8. What are your top 3 most successful posts? What makes you think these top 3 posts are appealing? 

My top three articles according to Jetpack’s statistics are: 

Alternative Subcultures: Goths And Mental Health 

I’m not sure why my Goths and Mental Health article is my best performing because according to SEO headlines scores it’s not a good headline, but it appears to do really well, nonetheless. I’m glad my alternatives subcultures article does so well though as it’s a topic close to my heart. 

Which Winnie The Pooh Character Are You?

I think my Winnie the Pooh article does so well because so many people grew up reading and watching Winnie the Pooh. Thus, many people will have a Winnie the Pooh character they like or feel connected to, which sparks curiosity to find out more.

Love And Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder comes with issues around romantic relationships. As a result, people with the condition or dating someone with the condition are likely interested in finding out more.

9. Besides writing on your blog, do also write and contribute articles to other blogs and websites? If yes, please mention it.

I’ve occasionally interviewed other bloggers like Undercover Superhero, Rebecca Lombardo, and now you. I’ve also written articles for Sick Not Weak and My Musings and Me, with the latter being turned into two posts on the topic of children and mental health due to the length of the article I’d originally written for them.

10. Where do you wish your blog to be in 5 years?

I’d like to still be blogging in five years and I’d like to reach a stage where I can sustain the costs of keeping my blog going. It’d also be great to be turning a profit then too. 

THIS OR THAT

1. VIDEO GAMES OR BOARD GAMES

Video games.

2. ROCK OR POP MUSIC

Rock.

3. PIZZA OR PASTA

Pasta.

4. STEAK OR BURGER

Burger, I hate steak.

5. PINK OR BLACK

Black, but they’re both my top two favorite colors.

6. SAILING OR SURFING

Can I say neither? No, ok, surfing, I guess? 

Ok, that's all the questions I have for this interview. Thank you for participating in this interview, Unwanted Life. All the best for your blogging career and future. Keep up the good work.

For those of you who are interested to participate in this interview, please feel free to email me at garnet.earthtiger@gmail.com. I will email you the questions and instructions. FYI, I'm looking for Asian and Malaysian bloggers to interview.

Ok, that's all for now. Thank you for reading.

XoXo,

Fadima Mooneira ^_^

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