Scrapbooking Critics from Outside and Within

A couple of months ago (yeah, I’m late to this conversation), Brie Dyas at the Huffington Post wrote an article criticizing scrapbooking as something that will never be cool.

Unfortunately, some of the criticism of the criticism wasn’t much better.

The truth is that people do think scrapbooking is uncool. As someone who researches scrapbooking, I have faced criticism along the lines that it is not a worthwhile topic to consider sociologically and heard it referrred to as “crapbooking” by non-scrapbookers. Scrapbookers in my study mentioned the hobby “is kind of nerdy.” Moreover, how many of us say something along the lines of, “this isn’t your grandmother’s scrapbooking”? Why not? Was her’s uncool and your’s cool? Was her purpose different?

The criticism of Dyas then moved to pointing out how the included image in her post was “outdated” and “unrepresentative.” According to whom? The product in the image is currently for sale at JoAnns. Someone is buying it. There is clearly still a market for this “outdated” product.

The reality is that there are a range of scrapbookers from the slightly more stereotypical as portrayed in the film New in Town to the now-trendy Smashbook-style scrapbooker in Elizabethtown. Both are equally valid.

Read more: 

Huffington Post Says Scrapbooking Will “Never Be Cool”

The Comments to “8 Crafts That’ll Never Be Cool”

What is a Scrapbook? It Depends.

P.S. I recall one of my respondents surprised by my question about critics of scrapbooking. Well, now you know. There are critics of scrapbooking. At least one has an influential gig at the Huffington Post.