An Open Letter

I wanted to write this post for a bit more transparency on what this is – I know this is an incredibly unconventional thing especially since I have this attached to some of my social media platforms. This is aimed mostly at people who don’t know what this is.

For the last few years, I’ve stopped using social media like Instagram, snapchat, etc. because I noticed how it was simply just making me feel worse. Back in early high school, these platforms were mostly used to just show what you’re doing with life and stay in touch with friends. Slowly I think people realized how they could portray themselves as a different person than they are, by only posting the best parts of life. From there, it became a slippery slope to doing things just for the purpose of showing it in pictures, or short videos to the the people around you. I believe people would go out and do things just to show them off, and eventually, this became a race where everyone had to compete to appear normal. This becomes something incredibly synthetic, as it is no longer a representation of real life, but rather some picture-perfect persona everyone seems to put up.

If you go ahead and open up Instagram, take a bit to look through your feed of the people you know. When I look at this, I just feel sad – all I feel is a comparison between my life and theirs; I also know that this may not be a universal experience hence why I don’t tell other people to quit social media: if you find it good for you who am I to disagree. But for me I just find myself feeling upset that I am not constantly having amazing experiences. This is an incredibly skewed view of the world since you see only the best parts of a ton of people’s lives, and so it becomes a comparison of the amount of experiences hundreds of people are having compared to what one person (you) are doing. I think this is an incredibly human trap to fall for, but still painful nevertheless.

I hold the belief that if I wanted to, I could be this person on social media. I do more than enough stuff to be able to post pictures and paint a happy picture of a life – but I don’t think that would be genuine or healthy. I like the concept of Be Real, as means more of a neutral view of life – but I still feel like it’s corrupted by people constantly smiling and posing with groups of people around them, which isn’t how people normally live. I decided I wanted this blog to be my form of protest against that.

On this blog, I don’t usually post the good parts of my life as much. I end up posting my vulnerable, shameful views when I’m struggling. I think this is both something incredibly normal, as everyone struggles, but also drastically socially taboo as it is weird to be this open about things. I’m surprised I haven’t been ridiculed for it yet or mocked, but I do expect that to happen at some point in the future, and I am fine with that.

If social media is meant to portray the best parts of your life, this is meant to be skewed the opposite way – I want to publicly show how much I struggle. I’d like for people who don’t know me well and who see me succeed in various different things in life to recognize how often I struggle, and to normalize that a bit more.

To anyone who knows me and reads this blog – I am the same person whether or not you read my thoughts. This may have been a cry for help at some point in the past, but I’ve long moved past that – I keep this on public display for various reasons, and the above is one of them. This blog has changed its purpose over time, so I do request please don’t feel obligated to keep up with it or anything like that.