Lately in the media people have been revealing that their social media lives are not what they seem. They have revealed that it takes 200 selfies to get the perfect one and sometimes in order to get the perfect body shot they can’t eat that day. The standards celebrities and “Instagram famous” people adhere to trickle down to the rules of everyone’s social media.

Our generation has grown up cultivating two selves, our real selves and our social media selves. Our social media selves must always be portraying our lives to look absolutely perfect. We must eat incredible foods while still remaining in perfect shape, travel to amazing places, always be laughing with friends. These rules, although unspoken, have been ingrained in us since we first created social media profiles. Only our true friends know what’s really going on in our lives. For those we are not as close to, live just seems perfect.

This concealing of reality has led to a lack of conversation about reality. Sometimes these social media rules trickle into reality. We end up concealing what’s really going on in order to keep the illusion going to our peers that life is perfect. People do not talk about life’s struggles. In this fake world no one has bad days, no one experiences hardships, everything is rainbows and unicorns.

If you can’t tell by now, this frustrates me. Humans have an instinctual need to connect with one another. In our world it’s hard to find people who do speak candidly about their lives. We are missing out on an integral part of humanity.

I’m really happy people have been revealing their Instagram selves are not their reality. This will hopefully help start a conversation about these ridiculous rules and encourage people to talk about the realities of life with one another.