I’ve always been obsessed with maintaining the perfect image. I thought that to be well liked you needed to have it all; the perfect hair, the dream closet, and a really great manicure. While most of these things are great, I soon realized how my constant striving for perfection was actually one of my biggest downfalls. As a fashion blogger, social media is my artistic platform. You can shape yourself to be whoever you desire to be, and people will see the best of your life in one space. In other words, my social media highlight reel killed me.
I’ve been considerably technologically savvy since around the first grade, when I was first introduced to a Mac computer. I loved design, and Photoshop was one of my favorite things to play around with for a long time. My sister and I bonded over the newest tech toys and gadgets, as well as new design programs and social media websites. I had also developed a strong penchant for the world of fashion at an early age, yearning to be as poised and elegant as the famous women I had named as my muses and style icons. Between the women that I looked up to, especially Jackie Kennedy, whom I claim to be my inspiration to life, and the magazines and books that I read, it became drilled in my head. I wanted to be like Massie Block of The Clique and Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. The idea that the perfect image equaled the perfect life began to consume me.
I joined Facebook in 2008 during the end of my 7th grade year. My parents forbade this, as cyber stalking had been a prevalent topic at the time. Only a handful of my friends even considered joining but the few that had joined with me were as addicted as I was. We tried to add as many friends as possible, like as many pages as we could, and get the maximum number of likes possible on pictures and statuses, including the infamous “truth is” posts that spammed the time. Looking back on my Timehop now, it’s embarrassing how frequently I updated my everyday life or my thoughts about any subject. I wanted to be the girl with 100 likes on her profile picture, or posts on my wall after liking my acquaintances’ truth is statuses depicting how cool they thought I was.
Twitter followed suit shortly after, although it took a lot longer for people to catch on and join. Seemingly overnight, our peers flooded the website, and everyone started tweeting about everything. I tried so hard to make my life look so much more interesting than it was.
When I decided to start a blog during my sophomore year of college, I was so excited to be sharing my love of fashion with the world, and to be honest the idea is still really fun for me. What started out as writing for my peers and my mom (and her friends, Hi Aunt Janet!) started to grow into something that I really never imagined during the beginning of my junior year. I started getting invited to amazing events, and asked to review new products. But for some reason, I became unhappy. I lost all inspiration and became extremely overwhelmed. To make matters worse, I began obsessing over the idea that I didn’t fit the image of the typical fashion blogger. I had gained a little weight over the summer, which made me want to run and hide rather than post my outfits of the day to my Instagram or blog. I didn’t realize what was going haywire; my life seemed so perfect. I was getting a lot of likes and had a pretty decent amount of followers. I had also rebranded my Instagram (thanks to some help from a wise mentor from a company that I had worked with) and began working to rebrand my website. But what was the issue?
I took a step back and realized something much bigger than myself: I was trying to maintain this perfect online persona. Half of my followers and readers don’t know me personally, so to them, I am who I present myself to be. Even to my peers, I wanted them to believe I was the girl who had it all together. To be honest, I struggle with everything that most every girl deals with; negative body image, bad relationships, fights with my friends. Disassociating yourself from all of those issues and posting a picture of brand new shoes isn’t the answer to all of your problems. Believe me, I’ve tried. After going through an incredibly hard transitional point in my life last spring, I decided to try and post a #100HappyDays post every day for 100 consecutive days. I thought that it would be the perfect way to count my blessings and to show everyone that I know how great life can be. After about 3 weeks, the idea started stressing me out. I didn’t want my life to seem as average and boring as it sometimes can be and I lost the inspiration to post. Sometimes you need to take that extra step back to figure out who you are under the filters and the Photoshop or your aesthetic.
I’ve realized something incredibly important lately: you owe it to yourself to be yourself. It is extremely important in today’s culture, especially when it comes to social media and interviewing for jobs and internships. And you should always present yourself well. If I ever have to second-guess myself about posting something, more often than not, I won’t post it. But please, take it from me, do not let your obsession over the number of likes or the amount of followers you have destroy your confidence. Maintaining an image isn’t everything great in the world. Don’t try to be someone else for your Instagram page. If you would rather wear sweatpants than a dress, go for it. If wearing heels to your 8:30 makes you feel like a rock star, do it. Don’t dress to impress your peers, you’re all here to gain an education and I bet your friends really don’t care what you wear 99% of the time.
A little birdie once told me, “you don’t have to curl your hair, spend an hour on your makeup or wear heels for me to feel any different about you.” And I think that most girls nowadays should understand the exact same thing. The people closest to you probably don’t care about the number of likes on your selfie, or how many views you got on your Snapchat. If you feel like posting something that makes you happy on Instagram, do it! Just make sure you know exactly who you are, don’t give up your identity for more followers and likes. Although it might be hard to hear, at the end of the day, you aren’t Kylie Jenner.