A raw, honest dive into the effects of growing up online.
The 24-year-old singer, songwriter, and producer can now add “author” to her already impressive resume. Madison Beer’s first book, The Half of It: A Memoir, was published on April 25, 2023. The autobiographical novel centers around Beer’s exponential explosion to stardom at twelve years old after an online video of her singing went viral. Beer details getting signed, moving to LA, getting dropped, and the creation of her first EP and album.
Most significantly, The Half of It centers around Beer’s mental health journey — a journey still in progress, as she reminds us. Beer strips away the glittery Hollywood facade and lays all of her vulnerabilities, struggles, and deepest fears bare for the reader. The resulting product is a raw, honest dive into the effects of growing up online.
self-worth
If you’re my age, you were probably introduced to social media for the first time around middle school. Or sooner, maybe. Looking back, I’m glad I got thirteen-ish years of normalcy before my online life intersected, irrevocably, with my everyday life. We live in a world where most young people have followed each other’s online lives for years before ever speaking in person. A world where privacy is taken for granted and so many of us started posting photos and videos while we were still kids — before we understood the terrifying permanency of content put online during such a confusing, impressionable age. I think it’s difficult for older generations to comprehend the severe mental damage that social media can inflict on teenagers.
As Beer details, we’re living in a time where your follower count equates with your popularity, likes are indicative of how good you look in the picture, and comments are an affirmation of all your friends — even if you’ve never spoken to half the people before in real life. Social media is particularly brutal during middle school and high school, where most kids are deeply insecure. My relationship with social media is radically different now as a college student, but I’ll never forget obsessively checking my likes after posting a photo or trying to mimic social media influencers (including Madison Beer herself). I don’t think I ever truly felt insecure, or like I had something to prove until I started posting my life online. Beer validates all the things I’ve felt for years, saying that she built herself (and her image) around what everyone else expected of her instead of figuring out who she was.
“We are teaching ourselves that our self-worth is inherently based on who else agrees.”
—Madison Beer
Bodies
Another intricate facet of social media is the dangerous idea that our personal memories, images, and creative content become public property. Our bodies are available for anyone to critique, obsess over, or manipulate. And once we hit “post,” we lose every ounce of control. Social media is especially dangerous for girls, women, and any feminine-presenting people. They face hyper-sexualization (often underage), stalking, harassment, and more.
Beer details feeling detached from (and even hating) her own body as a result of social media. When everyone has access to your image, it can feel like you constantly need to perform and adopt a persona to receive the instant, addicting gratification of likes and comments. Especially when you start comparing yourself to influencers, social media stars, and celebrities. It’s fascinating that someone I compared myself to for many years was turning in on herself with the same toxic rhetoric of self-hate and shame. Beer reminds her readers that you can’t “hate your body into looking a different way,” and details some of the ways she’s begun to reconnect with her body.
“We live in a world that tries to detach us from our bodies.”
—Madison Beer
The idea of being seen
While Beer explores countless more topics, the final one I’m going to talk about ties the entire novel together. Beer expands upon a concept I’ve struggled to explain to others, even in therapy, that feels unique to Gen Z: the need to be seen. Beer begins by discussing how most kids today aspire to be social media influencers or YouTubers, seeking internet fame instead of developing clear passions or goals. Becoming an online celebrity is a viable career — and fame is increasingly accessible and fleeting — with new personalities going viral overnight.
Beer’s phrasing of “the need to be seen” resonates with how everyone online can seem larger than life. More than a regular person. Better than a regular person. As a result, you can start to turn in on yourself and feel inadequate in comparison. It’s not enough to be pretty — not when other people are the artificial/edited/perfect lighting/staged/plastic surgery kind of pretty. It’s not enough to like fashion — not when other people have brand deals, professional photoshoots, and get packages in the mail every day. With social media, you’re constantly chasing more, and you’ll never feel complete. It’s exhausting, and it’s easy to get caught up in that mentality.
Only when I stopped using social media for weeks — when I became “invisible,” according to my own standards — did I realize that I was enough for myself. You don’t need to be “seen” online to be happy. You don’t need to be the prettiest, the smartest, or the most fashionable. You don’t need to leave a legacy of perfect Instagram photos behind. And you certainly don’t need validation from others. In a celebrity-obsessed, instant-gratification culture, we’ve moved so far away from the true purposes of life: to be present, to learn, and to create joy and peace.
“But I experience firsthand how the emphasis on celebrities in this generation is teaching kids that in order to be valid, they have to be seen.”
—Madison Beer
Conclusion
The Half of It is a quick read, but its brevity doesn’t make the messages conveyed any less impactful. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I’m much happier when I’m living in the moment. Not everyone deserves access to my life. And not every moment needs to be recorded or posted online. Beer’s insightful investigation into social media and mental health was the answer I’ve been seeking for years, and I’m certain I’ll read the memoir again. Whether you’re part of Gen Z or not, Beer’s novel is crucial to modern conversations about the impact of growing up with social media.