“Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.” – Albert Camus
Social media is toxic. There, I said it. It’s time for me to get real. The thing is, I felt like I’ve always presented myself as real online, but the truth is that I was losing my real self the more I posted. When I started my blog almost three years ago, it began as a passion project where I could write and post pictures about the things I love or are interested in. My blog had a very humble beginning, where I used free WordPress templates. I thought it looked good, and I enjoyed sharing the pictures my husband took of me and my outfits. After a few months I started to notice that there were other local bloggers, but their blogs were so professional. They had their own website domain, professionally taken photographs, and affiliate links. It was at this time I felt a need to step up my game. I purchased my own domain, and even paid someone to design a template and convert my old website into a new one. I did this because I felt that no one would look at my blog if it wasn’t as polished as the other ones I had seen. I also felt the need to post more photos on Instagram. I read somewhere that if you post more consistently, more people would be engaged with your blog. I would also try to include every hashtag possible to lead people to my blog via Instagram. I was really naive to think this is all it took; I had a professional website, my husband took good photos, and I posted consistently. This is when I discovered how fake Instagram and the whole blogging world is.
I suspect most of my followers are bots. This was something I was honestly oblivious to when I started blogging. Canned comments and fake accounts – this is what people are competing against. I strongly suspect that many bloggers/influencers even purchase followers. Apparently you are more likely to get followers if you already have thousands. This perpetuates the fact that Instagram is rifled with inauthenticity.
I also strived to keep the content real, but it wasn’t always. My husband and I would take photos, but I wouldn’t post them until a week or two later. I would save up pictures and posts in order to keep the content consistent. Though that may not be a major issue, it is intensified by other influencers. Outfits are only worn for a staged photoshoot, or the captions are flat-out lies. This ultimately creates a false reality, one that leads to feelings of inadequacy. I am guilty of having feelings of envy and jealously, when in reality these people are just trying to look real when being incredibly fake. This brought out the competitive nature in me, as it would with others, to feel that likes and follows are testaments of how good or valuable one’s content is.
Relationships in my life have also been negatively affected. The people closest to me, like my immediate family or childhood friends, know me very well and have never thought anything different about me since I started blogging. I did notice, however, that I was being negatively judged by acquaintances or people who I thought knew me better. I became viewed as a self-obsessed egocentric snob. This of course is far from the truth. What started as something to connect with people ended up creating more divisions. This is hurtful.
This will not be the end of my blog, but a new beginning. I am abandoning the fashion posts, but I will continue to share my random philosophical musings. I’m getting tired of having to meet unrealistic standards. My self esteem has gone down since I started the blog, when my hope was that it would go up. Yes, social media has been positive for reconnecting with old friends or past students, but overall, it has made a negative impact on my life. I don’t think everyone engaged in social media is a phoney, but it is a system that encourages it. I’ll still post on Instagram, but I’d like to think of this as a fresh start. Cheers to that!
