7 Things I Have Learned About Instagram So Far

So I got an instagram account recently when I turned 13 and I have been really enjoying it so far! I was super excited because my parents said I couldn't get an account until I turned 13. Also no this whole post is not just me trying to get you to follow me. That is what most of this post is about but not like the whole thing. I'm like so funny. So anyway I thought I would do a fun little post where I shared 7 things I have learned about instagram. :) Some of these are tips for other newbies and some are just general life things. Let's get started!

1. Hashtags Are Super Important

Before I started Instagram I realized hashtags were of course a thing but I don't think I realized how much. I know some people who use like 30 hashtags per post which is super impressive first of all because hashtags are actually harder to think of then some people think. For people who have like an amazing feed that is basically all the same you can use the same hashtags but for most people there pictures are different.

2. Looks Are Everything 

Instagram is how things look. That is the basis of what the platform is about. It is looks and perfection and pretty colors and how things fit together. On instagram I've realized that it's how pretty and how pleasing to the eye the picture is that makes them popular not really how cool they are.

3. It's Harder Than You Think

Like seriously. Before I got an account I'm pretty sure I had it in my head that I would post like ten times a day or something. I love photography and am always taking pictures but I've realized that most of the time those pictures aren't that great. Even posting everyday is pretty hard.

4. Captions Should be Interesting 

Although as I said above Instagram is all about looks but the captions should also be good. I think one of the best example would have to be paperfury who is an amazing book blogger. Her feed of course looks amazing and like a magical rainbow unicorn library (I'm not kidding) but her captions are also super funny and snarky and interesting. Also I've noticed that shorter captions just about blogging things to better then longer captions about life things. Like are you guys not interested in my wonderful life???? Am I not cool enough for you???? I'm kidding but still that interested me.

5. Filters Are Addicting

I've never had snapchat or anything and Instagram is pretty much my first social media and seriously the filters are so addicting. A couple weeks ago one of my little baby cousins came over (she's one of the cutest beings on the entire earth) and I was just playing with all of the filters and we got a couple adorable pictures. When I'm bored I literally find myself just taking random pictures of me with maybe the dog filter. I have an actual problem.

A wild bored Nabila. 

6. You Have To Actually Interact With People

Sadly like most of the rest of social media internet things you have to actually interact with people to get interaction. This means liking posts, commenting, and a bunch more stuff like that. I knew this from my blog but I'm realizing it more now is that I'm actually bad at commenting on people's things which sounds weird but let me explain. A lot of times I want to say something nice but genuine and cool and funny but then I think too much about it and just end up putting something like "awesome picture" for instagram or "awesome post" for blogs. This is an actual problem of mine. We all know those people who are genuinely funny and amazing and always make people smile online because that's their personality and I guess that's just not me? I'm not sure. Anyway... We've gotten off topic.

7. Themes Aren't Essential

I've been debating over this a lot lately and I have to admit I can't really decide but I would say in general this is true. Before I got an instagram I heard a lot about themes and being consistent and all of that general stuff. I've realized that first of all themes are freaking hard to keep up with. It's hard to even find good photos to post and it's even harder to make them actually look good together. Second it's not necessarily essential to have a theme. 

And that's it for today! Make sure to go check out my account  and comment down below your own! I'm not like a stalker but all of you guys are awesome so I want to get to know you! 

Do you have an instagram account? If so what were your first impressions of the app? Have you followed me yet (this answer should of course me yes)? What are some of your tips for instagram? What is your favorite social media app? 

99 Things I Am Thankful For | Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving is IN 3 DAYS and if you haven't already guessed I'm pretty excited! Just the food and the family and the time off and everything just makes me happy. I did a post last year with 29 things I was grateful for and I liked writing that so I thought why not do it again this year? Plus I think for most people writing down what you are grateful for just makes you happy and helps you realize how truly lucky you are. Here are 99 things I am thankful for right now. :)

1. Life

2. Happiness

3. My blog

4. My followers

5. Social media

6. Family in general

8. Friends

9. My besties

10. Isabel

11. Lydia

12. Emma 

13. Alyssa

14. Layla

15. Lexie

16. All of my other friends

17. Mom

18. Dad

19. Naomi 

18. And my little sis eden 

19. School

20. Everyone who beleives in me

21. Anyone who has ever told me I'm awesome

22. All of the strangers who have waved to me and made me smile

23. The art in my house

24. My house and my bed 

25. My ability to sleep

26. Instagram which you should totally follow me on

27. My phone

28. Photography

29. Theatre 

30. Journalism 

31. Dodie for being the cutest little bean ever and for making amazing music

32. Jessie Paege for having the coolest hair in the known universe and also just being a generally cool human being

33. The rest of my favorite youtubers 

34. Grace Vanderwall who I am hopefully going to see perform in february :)

35. Sabrina Carpender 

36. The Internet

37. My computer

38. Color story for being a cool photo editing app

39. My country aka the US vb

40. Houston

41. Earth

42. Time

43. My voice

44. Songs

45. Music 

46. My brain

47. All of my favroite bloggers!

48. All of the wonderful blog posts that I have read that have made me smile or just think

49. Books

50. Reading

51. My eyes

52. Salad

53. Fridays

54. Saturdays 

55. When I feel productive 

56. The feeling when I finish a book

57. All of the authors in the world

58. The people who inspire me to be me by being truly to them

59. The cheesy inspo quotes that keep me going

60. Pen and paper

61. Writing 

62. Completing goals

63. My health

64. Tea

65. Water and how it has no taste but this amazing beautiful taste at the same time 

66. My theatre teacher

67. My amazing blogging friends (yes you!)

68. My hair (I like my hair ok don't judge)

69. Netflix

70. My favroite tv shows 

71. Kitty cats 

72. All of the other adorable animals in the world 

73. Fall adorableness 

74. Spring flowers

75. Purple 

76. Rainbow

77. Colors

78. The 8th graders who have for some reason been nice to me especially in my theatre class 

79. Sunrise and sunsets 

80. Flowers 

81. The astros for you know, winning the world series for houston 

82. Technology

83. When I was born

84. My egyptian heritage 

85. Anyone who has ever given me a present

85. People who are fighting for what they believe in and actually fighting the injustice 

86. Emojies 

87. My teachers who I try to remeber don't actually hate me 

88. The english language 

89. The future 

90. Ice cream

91. Brownies 

92. Socks 

93. Rainbow bookstagram photos 

94. Christmas 

95. Thanksgiving 

96. Holidays in general

97. The people who keep me safe

98. Chocolate 

99. Everything sweet

That is a pretty big list. :) If you liked this post make sure to follow me on both bloglovin and also instagram! As I said earlier listing what you're grateful for really makes you realize just how lucky you are. I challenge all of you guys to list at least 3 things you're really thankful for in the comments down below or maybe in a blog post of your own! 

What are you thankful for this year? What are you doing for thanksgiving? Do you celebrate thanksgiving? What is your favorite thing about thanksgiving? What is your favorite holiday? 

My Blog Is 4 Years Old!! // Q&A + Freaking Out + Thank You!

Saturday was my blogiversary and seriously you guys I LIKE DIED AND THEN CAME BACK TO LIFE AND THEN REPEATED THAT PROCESS LIKE TEN MORE TIMES. My blog is officially 4 years old! You might be confused if you go back into the archives on my blog because currently I only have public posts to 3 years back. The reason is because when I started blogging I was 9 and probably the cringiest person ever (anyone who has followed me since my 9/10 year old days will know) so about a year ago I kind of deleted a lot of my posts. I do regret it now but they were terrible so I kind of get it. In honor of my blogiversary I decided to do a fun little q&a which you can either find here or down below!

Interestingly if I remember right my first post was a post about halloween published on (of course) November 11, 2013. I didn't even have like an intro post. I literally just put pictures of me from halloween and then told what I did in even worse grammar then I use now.

At the beginning I had a private blog called Nabila Eve. My content was literally just what I did that day in hard to read sentences because I had like zero idea how to type.

Then I got my parents to let me have a public blog and we redid my site. I decided to change my blog name to Hot Town Cool Girl which is what is it now.

I had the default blogger design and I absolutely cringe at how it looked back then. I also had like ten million gadgets because I was that person. Then I actually got someone to design my blog and that was the first time my blog actually looked ok.

In 2015 I started posting more and thinking about it more but I definitely wasn't invested. I posted mostly really short reviews, interviews, and lots and lots of tags.

For the people who actually liked me at this point or at least commented on my blog you are amazing. This would include Noor, one of the people who really inspired me to seriously start blogging!), Dani, a newbie at the time but someone who was always willing to to talk to me, and Rukiya, an incredibly awesome human being who also hosted the blogger choice awards that year!

All throughout that year I did really grow and I posted quite a bit and I was involved but my posts were not at all the best. My the end of that year I had grown a lot blog and non blog wise and had 27 followers.

2016 was when I really got serious and I think sometime in december of 2015 it really switched for me.

Blog wise the beginning of 2016 was neither good nor bad. I posted a lot (maybe too much at times) and some of my posts were pretty good if I do say so myself. I started to really read other people's blog and started learning a lot about blog design and how to get more followers.

I would say by march I would have started calling myself a true and true blogger. My graphics were actually terrible now that I look back on it (I thought picmonkey was the greatest thing in the world)  but at that point I thought of myself and my blog as pretty cool.

May 2016 might have been one of the best months for my blog at least content wise. I am proud of every single post that I published that month and that's something I can't even say now about some of my posts.

One cool thing I remember in July/August is helping out the awesome Bubbles with her blog. She is one of the sweetest people I know ever and everyone should go check out her blog and tell her she's cool.

At the end of 2016 I officially hit 60 followers which means double then I had the year before. When you look at that in a statistical way that is actually kind of impressive but then you look at my post quality in 2013, 2014, and 2015 and you're like oh yeah that makes sense.

And then begins 2017 which has been an AMAZING YEAR (except for the whole flooding thing but that doesn't count!). I turned 13, I went to a blogging conference, I got instagram (where everyone should go follow me, I started getting real about collabs and working with other bloggers and brands, 108,073 page views, and  last but not least I hit 80 followers on the blog and 100 on bloglovin (where everyone should also go follow me).

It's still so so crazy to think that my blog is actually 4 years old! My blog gives me so much joy and I've met so many amazing people on here so before I end this post I just want to say thank you! Thank you to everyone who stuck with me in the beginning when I was kind of horrible. Thank you to everyone who actually talk to me. Thank you to everyone who reads my blog and comments on my posts. Thank you to everyone who cares. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.  If you liked this post make sure to follow my blog  and maybe possibly share this post and just my blog in general! Think of it as a present to me and my blog on it's birthday. :)

Are you as excited as I am about this? Do you blog? If so link it down below! What's something you're super passionate about? When did you find my blog? 

A Halloween Themed Interview With The Wonderful Edie + Special Announcement That Might Just Include My Blogiversary!

You guys are probably all confused which is ok because YES I KNOW HALLOWEEN HAS ALREADY PASSED. So one of my awesome online friends Edie just started a new blog  (which you should definitely check out)! We started talking again and she asked if we could maybe do a halloween themed post swap type thing and I suggested we do a fun little halloween themed interview. The whole timing thing was mostly my fault BECAUSE I AM HUMAN AND FORGET THINGS. Anyway, so today I'm going to be asking edie some halloween themed questions and she will be asking me some questions over on her blog which you can check out here. 

What’s your favorite costume you’ve ever worn for Halloween? 

My favourite costume I've ever worn has to be when I was a pumpkin for my first ever Halloween when I was only a month old.

That sounds so cute! When babies dress up it's always adorable. Favorite thing about Halloween? 

My favourite thing about Halloween is probably the spooky feels and this year specifically, Stranger Things 2.

I was annoyingly outlawed from watching stranger things because of super annoying parents. Like they say it's "too scary" even though I DON'T REALLY GET SCARED FROM TV! What do you think is the background of Halloween (you can’t look it up)? 

I'm not entirely certain on background of Halloween (which is terrible as it's my favourite holiday) but I know it originates back to Celtic traditions.

4. Yeah it has something to do with monsters and the day of the dead and stuff like that. I actually totally recommend everyone looking up the history cause it's pretty interesting. :) Do you like horror movies? Why or why not?

I love horror movies a lot of the time, but they sometimes annoy me as they don't really scare me, if that makes sense. 

5. Yeah that makes sense! Like it's supposed to be scary but it's not scary so it's really just annoying. What’s the scariest story you’ve ever heard?

Probably one where a hitchhiker ends up being a ghost, it's more spooky than that but it would take up a lot of space to write it all down.

That sounds super spooky! Thanks for being here Edie!

Speaking of halloween I had a pretty awesome one! Halloween was on a tuesday this year and having halloween on a weekday is always interesting. This year I was going to be a cat but then I couldn't find my cat ears so we ran to the store and I found this witch hat so I ended being this cat witch hybrid. I personally thought I looked pretty cute. After school I went to my friends house and them my parents picked me up and we went to one of my sisters friends houses. From there we went to this thing that they do every year but that I have never been to. It was like a cool halloween block trick or treating parade thing. So pretty much the rode is blocked off and the parents just set up on the side off the road with candy and then all of the kids can just go and trick or treat. Pretty much it's just an easier version of trick or treating especially for the parents. I personally like actual trick or treating better but I got a lot of candy so I'm not really complaining. 

Look it's me!

Again make sure to go check out my interview with Edie!  She has some pretty awesome questions that I loved answering and while you're there make sure to follow her blog as she is a super cool human being. Also my blogiversary is in 5 days which is so crazy! My blog is going to be 4 years old which is weird to even think about. Because it's a pretty big occasion I'm going to be doing a fun little Q&A video. Comment down below all of your questions you have for me. They can be funny or serious or whatever.   

What are some questions you have for me? What did you do for halloween? Did you dress up? If so as what? Do you like my costume? What is your favorite thing you have ever been for halloween? What are your halloween traditions? Did you like my costume? Do you like halloween? Do you celebrate halloween?