If you’re anything like me, you grew up posting shameless MySpace selfies and a few regretful Facebook statuses. As a child of the mid-1990’s, I was part of the generation of the first wave of social media trends. After MySpace and Facebook, I quickly made Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts in order to keep up with my friends on all the latest platforms. I posted daily on each of these sites, hoping to gain more followers and tally up dozens of likes, favorites and retweets. And I’d be willing to bet you did the exact same thing.
But it hasn’t been until recently that I realized how incredibly confusing it has been growing up in the age of social media.
It’s confusing, especially for young girls and boys who are trying to figure out who they are, who they love and where they are hoping their life takes them. It’s confusing why someone would post a Snapchat story and delete it because even though it had 150 views, the one person they wanted to see it didn’t. It’s confusing because young people get caught in a never-ending paradox of trying to appear humble to their followers but at the same time are desperately seeking approval and affirmation from those same people in the form of a double-tap. It’s confusing.
The desire to seem like the vision of humility while still getting a “respectable” number of likes makes no sense in any other part of life aside from social media. Instead of saying, “I’m proud of myself for getting good grades this quarter”, people often deflect in order to not seem to full of themselves, yet they still want others to notice their accomplishments and validate them. #HumbleBrag. Shouldn’t we be allowed to celebrate our accomplishments for what they are and shouldn’t our friends be happy for us?
Although this we may not offer any conclusion to the ever changing social media movements, I hope it makes you realize that your social media profiles are meant to be reflection of you—not what you want others to think you are like. And that means it’s okay to post 3 selfies if you feel good about how you look, and it’s okay to delete the app from your phone for a while if you find yourself feeling unhappy because of what others are posting. Likes and followers do not equal worth, so keep on posting what you want to post and supporting your followers when they do the same.