It's crazy to think that the word Instagram didn't exist a mere 8 years ago. With social media influencers, bloggers and YouTubers dominating today's internet, it seems unfathomable that not all that long ago having an internet based career - in which you get paid copious amounts of money for showing followers what makeup products you buy, and where your favorite brunch spot is (because you know they have the best avocado toast) - wasn't even an option. Hardly anyone today would buy a new beauty product or wear a daring fashion trend unless they saw their favorite internet person do it first. Everyone is an advocate for self-acceptance and individuality, yet somehow we're all trying to look the same way and live the same grand lifestyle in some way or another. Yes, I'm being overtly facetious about the topic and yes, I am sitting here blogging about how shockingly lame the internet industry can be. But hey, I can become equally as caught up in the strange, gigantic world of Instagram sometimes too, and that's why I deleted it.
I'll start with an explanation of sorts, to all of you who I'm sure enjoy the thrill of reaching a certain amount of likes on your photos, or watches on your story just as much as I do. Social media can bring so much joy, inspiration, creativity and confidence into our lives, but sometimes it's difficult to overlook the negative side of things. Like quite a lot of the revelations in my life, this one started because of a heartbreak. Don't feel too badly for me, I use that word only to stay true to societal writing clichés. It was more of a heart scrape or heart paper cute, if that. Still, I found myself experiencing extremely unnecessary pain when the subject of my heart paper cut watched my story, or didn't like my most recent photo. I couldn't decide if I wanted this person to be torn up over the life I was living without them or whether they didn't have any right to be looking at my life at all. Whatever the answer was, it's difficult to get anything done when you're checking your notifications every two minutes. Was I allowing my Scorpio tendencies to take over, or is this how everyone feels? Maybe I was feeding off the energy of my Instagram obsessed friends. Or maybe I was simply riding the millennial/gen Z Instagram wave, feeling inevitably on edge, as I will for the rest of my days due to dissatisfaction with something I was clearly becoming addicted to.
It wasn't just how I felt about the reactions to my own content, but how I was reacting to everyone else's. Judgement and comparison will never go away in a world that has social media (or any world for that matter). It isn't possible for us as human beings not to compare ourselves to others, but it is possible to avoid purposely looking at things that make us feel badly about ourselves. It sounds positively ridiculous when you say it plainly, but take a second to think about it. When was the last time you looked at a picture of a sun-kissed supermodel, leaning back into a perfectly unnatural arched position while lying on a private beach in The Maldives, and didn't have the following thoughts; why don't I look like that?, I wish I could travel and get paid to be pretty and wear designer clothes, why aren't my photos this high quality?, I wonder if her bathing suit is Stella McCartney (this could just be me who thinks this, but you get my point). Perhaps it's a different type of photo in your feed that makes you feel that twinge of jealousy. The point is that this feeling is inevitable among all of us, so it would be unrealistic to say, "hey everybody, let's all delete our Instagram accounts and come together to sing Kumbaya". Right now, awareness of the problem may just be enough to have us leaning towards a more love orientated usage of social media.
I am not an inherently negative person. Lately, however, I’m starting to see the things I’ve always seen under a different filter (yes, that was an Instagram joke). I genuinely think that social media has altered our society in a crazy, magical, equally positive and negative way that can never be reversed and that’s really cool! Sometimes I look at it simply, and think nothing but “you go girl” when I see photos on my feed and other times I feel something very different. That’s why I’ve found my distance from the online world so interesting. I’ve realized it’s not only social media where I have back and forth reactions to things, it’s everything in life! Scrolling through Instagram is just a fancy form of curated people watching and when I make my return I’m going to treat it as such by giving people all the respect and admiration and love that I would give a person standing right in front of me. That’s the only way I think I’ll survive in this wonderfully weird, ever-changing online world, and I hope you all feel the same.
I'm sure I could have written this in a different way (possibly in a way worthier of the Kumbaya background music I mentioned). But that could only happen if I was in one of those annoyingly optimistic and positive moods. I'm glad I didn't, because I got to flush out exactly how I feel about social media and how I want to live my life among it. Plus, I got to share it with you, the people who read this blog and who I could not be more grateful for. If you try taking a break from your accounts, let me know how it goes in the comments below, or on my Instagram DM's (after your return to the app of course).
Thanks for reading.
- Emily
p.s.
If you love the watch in this post, be sure to check out this post I've linked right here for all the details on how you can get it discounted!
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