When was the last time you compared your life to those on social media?
I was scrolling through Instagram recently and I found myself looking at the profile of a friend from college. This girl had an awesome Instagram account (see: life-n.). Her profiled was littered with images of her trendy co-workers in a New York office building or brunching on a Sunday afternoon. Below those, where photographs of her wearing the perfect maxi skirt/crop top combo on a boat, and even farther below that were images of this girl rocking the best selfie with immaculately on-point eyebrows. Gosh, she was perfect.
I found myself wondering what her life must be like on the reg. She probably always goes to these trendy NYC boat parties where she drinks with all her posh friends and then wakes up the next day without a hangover to go to brunch.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I was envious of a life that didn’t exist. I was comparing myself to this beautiful, trendy, and probably flirtatious girl who I haven’t talked to in years. Her life is probably nothing like what she portrays on Instagram, though it does look pretty fantastic.
I next found myself looking at Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner’s Instagrams (note to self: find better way to fill free time), two women with perfect lives (guaranteed or your money back), and found that I too idolized their lives.
Their accounts, however, were filled to the brim with shows, concerts, red carpets, celebrities, parties, and pictures of them looking really effin’ hot. I realized I was comparing my own life the lives these women were living.
What lifestyle do these women live and how can I be more like them?
While I didn’t overtly ask myself his question, it was the underlying theme of this social media splurge I had allowed myself to go on.
When I survey the lives of people I follow, I notice I am very intrigued by their life. I allow myself to unconsciously try to shape my life like that of the people I see online. I look to them for fashion trends and for weekend activities (see: brunch-n.). While I don’t consciously notice how they shape my life, my subconscious is aware. These celebrities, peers, and foodie accounts all paint an online picture of “how life should be.”
However, I also notice when I look at how these ideal lives should look, they are continuously filled with images of hot girls doing hot girl things (like drinking). The social media “role models” that I follow don’t show me women doing engaging activities and conquering mountains. Instead, they show me women partying and looking hot.
If we’re going to live online (and it appears we certainly are), we need to recognize not just the difference between real life and social media. We also need to recognize the influence these platforms have on us. If we idolize hot celebrities, we will unconsciously shape our live to follow the footsteps of those celebs. We’ll seek purses, dresses, and perfect eyebrows while we desire to be the socialite that they have become.
Likewise, if we accept that there’s more to life than bars and bags, we’ll idolize those who idolize life. There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by marketing, social media, and that popular girl from high school. But being unaware of their influence will lead us into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses. We don’t need to shun the all-encompassing social media that is taking over the world, we simply need to recognize its influence and allow ourselves to be influenced for the better, rather than the worse.
[Featured Image Credit: Kylie Jenner via Instagram]