I Logged Out to Remember I Exist

 Dear world, 

After deleting most of my social media platforms with the exception of my blog, you start to feel a sense of detachment. In both relieving and anxiety-inducing ways I suppose.  

What led me to this decision was an interesting metamorphosis of perspective. When something becomes easy to let go off, then you let it go. Until then, there is a lesson to be learnt, and once you have learnt it, you will trust yourself to leave. I know you will, you can internalise the advice and pop me a message when it works. 

Social media is an increasingly toxic environment. We both know this, and there are some that filter through the noise and some that absorb it, such as myself.  There was an impossible expectation for me to post pictures where I felt beautiful, for people to tell me that I looked beautiful and to look at the photo again to make sure both my followers and I were analysing the same photo with the appropriate song choice of course, but it can’t be a song that you like, not at all, it has to be one that is streamed across everyone’s algorithms. We can’t forget taking the same photo 50 times until there’s an angle where your teeth are straight, and your lips are parted just right but your bangs are sweeping mysteriously above your eyebrow ridge for some flair. 

I began to watch videos and consume photos of people I know with near perfect tan lines on expensive vacations with outfits that are curated from the latest magazine and Pinterest feed. 

Let me be clear, it is not the posts themselves that triggered me, but the fear of not being able to match up to their prowess. The fear of being mistaken for somebody who I clearly cannot be. 

In the last day I have watched somebody in one of my classes scroll on their Instagram feed. They scrolled through pictures of a flawless Mauritius holiday with golden beaches and watched somebody pose in colourful swimsuits on a deck of a cruise ship. They spent five minutes zooming in and out of the picture, clicking on the people mentioned in the post, showed their friend and scrolled down, without liking the picture. Yikes, that was a harsh inspection for that reaction. 

It made me contemplate about why we give others so much thought who do not have a bearing on our current lives. We give people parts of ourselves unknowingly, just by absorbing the expectations, and by that metric we become resentful. I doubt you’re a “clean girl’ nor are you an “indie kid” and a “city girl” who is “deer pretty” with a “beach girl aesthetic.” I encourage you to look beyond the labels we are assigned and instead look at yourself for who you are, and preferably in the mirror than a rectangular brick. 

From Juhi