Your Facebook Life Isn't Fooling Anyone — Not Even Yourself
You can't curate a life, bro.
Aleksey Boyko/Shutter Stock The modern world we live in is a visual one. Photos, videos and live streams provide a constant insight into our lives that’s so invasive it often blurs the lines of reality.
As the controller of this content, we have an idea in mind of what we’d like it to look like. We draw inspiration from our favorite bloggers and Pinterest pages who’s lives are so perfect it doesn’t seem real.
Well here’s a hint: it’s not.
*mic drop*
What looks best in the photo/video/gif/whatever and what’s really happening are hardly ever the same. As a frequent subject of “candid” photos, I can attest that they are never candid. My “caught off guard” look is just much better than my “stare directly into the camera and try to remember how to smile,” look.
And while I’m all for putting in an effort to capture a moment in a beautiful, creative, quirky way, I do think there’s a danger if takes over your focus.
When you start living your life for the Instagram and Facebook, something’s gotta change.
There was a sad point in my life where I literally planned my Instagrams every morning. If I knew I didn’t have anything that cool going on that day, I’d look for little ways to make working from home in my pjs post-worthy.
One time I tried to take one of those photos of my bare legs in curled up in my messy (but somehow still cute) bed while clutching a cup of coffee next to some cool magazine I was totally going to read (lol psych). Rather than capture the perfect fake moment, I spilled hot coffee all over my legs and simultaneously reminded myself that I’m too much of a butterfingers to ever be one of those girls.
And I don't really want to be.
I love lifestyle blogs and some of the stuff they teach us is incredibly useful.
But if we use them as standard for living a normal life, things can feel a bit overwhelming.
No one human being can have a capsule wardrobe, drink green juices out of a glass mason jar every morning and follow the same insanely complicated beauty routine every night.
It’s just not possible. We’re not meant to live on our lives within such strict guidelines — no matter how chic and hip they may be.
This culture we’ve created keeps us bottled up inside these safe houses of virtual likes and followers that carry so much weight, but in reality, don’t mean shit.
I mean, what are really afraid of here? We’re all humans. We all feel the same emotions. We all have flaws, imperfections and acne scars.
We’re all chasing the same unattainable lifestyle, and thinking it will make us happy.
If you find yourself lost in a sense that you don’t know who you are anymore, try slacking on your social media game.
Deactivate some accounts for awhile.
Give up the constant chase of your online persona. Stop fucking tweeting.
It’s hard to get real and honest when you're constantly putting yourself in the presence of others; online or not. You have to get alone to get back in touch. Only then is a more authentic feed of your actual life possible.
Oh, and you’ll be way happier too.