Recently, as I’ve scrolled through Instagram or stared down the endless void of TikTok, I can’t help but realize how much social media has changed in recent years. Thinking back to what used to be idealized on the internet made me realize there has been a major shift in what we value on the internet, and I want to know why.
I think the biggest shift is the new obsession with being real, raw and genuine on social media platforms. There has been a rejection of the over-filtered perfect photos and a new trend that tries to create a perfectly imperfect perception of your reality. Photo dumps and quirky photos create this effortless portrait of life that, let’s be honest, actually takes a great deal of effort to execute. This obsession with realness and being genuine has become so sought after on social media that it has almost become more fake than where we started from. People have coined this phenomenon as “the art of being real.”
I think to fully understand what the art of being real means, it’s necessary to look back on how we got here. In the past decade, as social media began to be something people have been able to create a successful career out of, we have seen many “phases” of the internet. What we deemed as popular and valued constantly changed. As people began to take the internet more seriously, it was popular to create the perception of the “perfect” life in the beauty world.
Some of the most influential and popular creators of their time included Bethany Mota, with her most popular video getting around 16 million views, Alisha Marie, gaining 44 million views on her most popular video and MyLifeAsEva, receiving over 50 million views on hers. Popular videos of the time consisted of morning routines, hauls and room tours. People wanted to see an idealized version of reality. What they wanted in their own life and saw YouTube and Instagram as platforms that would essentially “teach” them how to obtain that. But as time went on, this trend began to become oversaturated, this perfected form of reality became more and more unattainable. People craved a more relatable and real approach.
Enter the queen of “real” beauty influencers: Emma Chamberlain. In my opinion, this girl is what started the entire relatable and genuine movement. She was the right person at the right time on the internet. People got tired of the unattainable portrayal of beauty and were in search of something new and different. Emma Chamberlain was doing just that. She documented her life as is, with minimal editing, no makeup and no pretending to be something she wasn’t. Quickly, her channel gained popularity and soon she became the blueprint for the new “era” of social media.
Now, a few years later, this relatable and genuine perception of our lives has transformed into what it is today. As this shift in what was deemed trendy in media became more and more popular, the push for a more honest and raw portrayal has created pressure to present effortlessly beautiful and perfectly imperfect depictions of our lives. It’s almost as if we have made the perfectly curated “casual.”
So the question is, compared to the oversaturated, over-perfected and over-produced social media in the past and the new filterless yet effortlessly perfect social media we see now, is this new trend in any way better and maybe less harmful? I think there can be an argument made for both sides, but the simple fact is no matter how much effort is put into making social media authentic, social media will always be what people want to present themselves as.
Because of this, social media will always be a performance in a way. So as you are scrolling through TikTok, Instagram or whatever social media platform you find yourself on, remember to take even the most “realistic” depictions of people with a grain of salt.
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