The internet and social media do some pretty cool things this day in age. It's never been easier for us to be connected, for us to share our lives whether anyone cares or not. But as I've watched the way that social media, namely Instagram has affected me personally, I've noticed a new problem. What we have created, is a new way to be judged.
Instagram has become an art project for some people and honestly, sometimes they create beautiful things. But it can also be a new way to make people feel bad enough. When you see a perfectly edited, filtered, and timed picture of something as simple as a pair of shoes somehow get more likes than any selfie you'll ever post, it can create a new kind of insecurity. We feel like we need to be trendy. We feel like we need to have the best pictures, the best lives, the most unique aesthetic.
I've thought a lot about the pressure that this has created and I wonder if I should care about it at all. I think it needs to be addressed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a trendy Instagram feed. In fact, I think it's awesome. It can be a great creative outlet and at the end of the day, we all have to realize that what we see on the internet is not always real and not always the whole story. Just because someone has the perfect pictures doesn't mean that they have a perfect life. The problem comes when people are expected to maintain their online facade no matter what.
We've created a culture where it's hard to be an individual and even harder to really be yourself. Even though everyone's profile has different pictures, sometimes it can feel like they're all the same. We can't always be unique when we're all trying to portray the same trends. At the end of the day, the lesson is simple.
You don't have to be trendy you have to be yourself. You don't need to think twice about everything you post as you wonder if it's good enough. If it's good enough for you, if you're comfortable sharing it with the world then do it! It's really easy to let yourself be caught up in what people might think about you and what you post but the only way to ever get over the feelings of social media insecurity is to just not care.
The pressure to be trendy, to be modern or fashionable has existed for a long time; even before social media came to be. Just because there is a new way to make people feel insecure doesn't mean we have to let it ruin our lives. We are bigger than our profiles. And you cannot be trendy if you are not yourself first.
