If you're a grade-A Millennial like me, you probably spend a lot of your time mindlessly scrolling through social media several times a day—my job as a social media director means I probably scroll a little more than the average person, but that's neither here nor there. I can almost say for certain that you follow some accounts as "inspiration" for your account.
You know the ones - they seem to always eat amazing foods, have a wardrobe straight out of a reality tv star's closet, and seem to have a camera that's better than any you've ever seen. These accounts also tend to have a color or filter theme, which you can't understand how they stick to for the life of you.
They seem unreal—because they are.
We try to emulate these perfect people with perfect accounts because we see them as the ideal. They get tons of likes and comments, making them seem like the goal in the race to more social media interaction. The truth is that most, if not all, of these accounts are staged very carefully to look like the amazing spectacle that they are.
If you look up these famous Instagramers online, you'll find tons of interviews that talk about how much work goes into just one post. A typical post on an account with 100k+ followers can take hours and hundreds of rejected photos and poses. Refinery 29 producer Lucie Fink made a great video interviewing some of these famous bloggers and Instagramers, giving a behind-the-scenes look at what their typical day looks like, and just how much goes into every carefully crafted post.
More often than not, the process is hidden from the public to keep the illusion that each photo posted was the only one taken and that the food they eat always looks perfect and appetizing.
This becomes dangerous when impressionable teenagers and young adults do not realize that this isn't the life of a real person, but the equivalent of a model in a photoshoot (which some people still don't realize is enhanced with tons of special lighting and effects.)
We get this idea in our heads that we should aspire to have the perfect Instagram account and that will get us all the likes and follows we desire.
I'm definitely not saying that you can't aspire to have that dream theme, I'm just saying that we all need to be more aware of what content we see is genuine and candid, and what is posed and sponsored.
