As I sit burning to a crisp in my white metal lifeguard chair, instead of hearing the children screaming in the nursery school next door or the loud engine of a lawn mower that has been long overdue to be put out of commission, I hear, "Take a candid of me laughing naturally" or "let's take a video to post on the gram" (Short for Instagram if your social media slang challenged like me).

While listening to the conversation of the patrons close to my age about what angle is their best and how many likes they should get, I become aware of what I call (and probably others do too) socially self obsessed people. This is when one becomes consumed with social media appearance. This isn't something new to me, I went to high school in the twenty-first century and trust me, some of the people at my high school were some of the most self obsessed. But I have come to wonder why the need for this brand of vanity.

I wasn't allowed to get any kind of social media account until I was in high school. So the first day of summer vacation after 8th grade, I got a Twitter, later I got Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. These are the perks of having a high school teacher as a mother. In all honesty, I never felt the need to change myself for likes or favorites or the classical thumbs up. Sometimes it annoys me when people don't follow back, but I don't read into it.

While guarding at the pool and listening in to the poolside conversations, I begin to wonder. Why do such ordinary people like the ones in front of me try to create a fake image of themselves? Why do they try to make their lives look good to others? People put effort in taking hundreds of photos to find the perfect one. They try to edit their photos to mask all their flaws, and they filter their photos to match their perfect theme. When did life become of series of publicly posted photos and aesthetics?

I just don't get it. I am the person who likes to take the photo. I love to be behind the camera. I have an eye for it. I feel bad for the people who painstakingly look for the one that looks the best, and worry if anyone has liked their photos yet. Although, I understand the need to retake photos (if you have seen some of my school photos you would see why), but the need to edit them to mask your true self or create an image of who you want to be instead of who you are might not be healthy. The photos I enjoy most are the ones that aren't staged. The ones where people are genuinely enjoying themselves and not sucking in their stomachs and tilting their heads and pouting their lips.

What is the most puzzling are selfies, the constant posting, liking, sharing, etc. of someone's face. Is it the constant need to get validation from others or comments like "UR so pretty *insert three heart emojis*" or "Literally GOALZ". Selfies included more than just pictures of faces, it's a new haircut or a new shirt. But why the need to fish for compliments? Are we Generation Insecurity? Who started this trend? Do we thank the Kardashians for this?

Maybe I am hypocrite, because I've posted selfies, but I don't really put an effort into. I break streaks, I have no theme, my accounts are all private, and I post very rarely. I suppose someday I could try the social media obsessed life and put effort into my online life to see what it is like, but to be frank, I prefer to be obsessed with my real life for now.