There is a war raging--and it's not rape in the Congo, it's not air strikes in Tripoli and it's not political violence in Yemen. It's a bunch of self-involved, good-for-nothing, (excuse me) fucking idiots bashing each other on Twitter, myself included. If you're not involved in the war, here's the bones of it - several anonymous Twitter accounts have popped up (4inchheels, theblogcritic, fashionfailey) and launched a full frontal internet attack on Australian fashion bloggers who have responded in a characteristically immature fashion.

With accounts like @theblogcritic making accusations including statements like, "Bloggers who hound PRs for products or ''samples'' with the clear intention of selling them on Ebay. Can you guess how many there are?" the situation has become decidedly tense. And it's become downright dirty since some of these anonymous blogs have not only made personal attacks at bloggers in their updates, but have cropped up as hate feeds targeting selected bloggers.

In a workplace or educational environment, this sort of behaviour would constitute bullying and would result in termination from the workplace or expulsion - or even a law suit in the event quantifiable damage caused by the bullying could be proved. In this situation we're lucky that the people being targeted are obviously mature and secure enough not to be overly rattled - but elements of immaturity and insecurity have surfaced as bloggers themselves have launched into the fray, Twitter fingers blazing.

Now I want to preface the rest of what I'm about to say with two statements. The first is that I have been accused of being, but AM NOT behind any of these troll accounts. The second thing is that I don't assume to be above this--I have engaged in calling out bloggers on what I FEEL are their short comings in the past. On these occasions, I received so much support email and private messages saying thing  like 'I love that you say what everyone is thinking, LOL!' that I felt justified. Because that's my job right? Saying what no one else will?

But I do feel ashamed of myself. Not because I'm sorry about my opinions or because I suddenly feel my previous opinions to be untrue--I don't. I think the majority of Australian fashion blogs are shit, poorly written and poorly researched. That's not to say there is no good content coming out of Australia--there is, and I will continue to support the people who are committed to producing quality content no matter where I live in the world. But when I hear industry people abroad laughing out certain Australian blogs, I do get angry, and I feel embarrassed that our cohort isn't doing more to promote our fantastic industry. As an outsider who is also an insider, it's very frustrating.

So shame on you, Twitter trolls. Shame on you for debasing the discourse that should really be happening. If we want the quality of Australian blogs to rival that of international counterparts we should work together, not against each other. We're all fighting for the same cause, we all want our wonderful industry and all its amazing talents to thrive. Shame on you for your school yard antics. Shame on you for implementing criticism in a destructive way as opposed to a constructive way. Shame on you for being anonymous. Shame on you for BEING BITCHY INSTEAD OF CHANNELLING YOUR ENEGRY INTO MAKING SOMETHING WORTHWHILE.

And shame on you bloggers. Shame on you for engaging with the trolls. Why do you care what a stupid anonymous account says about you on Twitter? Why aren't you more confident in your own work? Moreover, you're a blogger and first and foremost you're doing what you do because you love it, not because it's a popularity contest. Shame on whoever started the AnonymousCoward account, can't you see it's a mirror image of that which you're trying to fight? Shame on you for lowering yourself into this debacle. Shame on you FOR BEING BITCHY INSTEAD OF CHANNELLING YOUR ENGERY INTO MAKING SOMETHING WORTHWHILE.

There is a fine line between what constitutes constructive criticism and what is downright bitchiness. I've worked in many environments, across many mediums. I have been through three tiers of the educational system. I have seen constructive criticism across all facets of my life--I have heard people telling me I'm wrong, or that I can improve, in ways that inspire me to try harder, be better. What's happening here is negating any impetus for online content to reach fuller potentials (because isn't the blogosphere our workplace? The internet our educator?), instead reducing what already exists to a common shit storm that quite frankly, is embarrassing.

With that, I politely withdraw from the debate. Shame on me for engaging with it in the first place. And shame on all of you who continue with it. Grow up. We're all on the same team. Now go stand in the corner and face the wall for 15 minutes young blogger, I'm putting you in time out.