Social media and I

In the interim between ranting about unspreadable butter and my current ramblings I have sailed (not literally) down the country and planted myself in London. Now here’s the thing - I have never lived in a city and so, like Bilbo travelling to the Lonely Mountain, I find myself a bit lost. 

Bilbo, however, did not have social media and so I began my exploration of London virtually. Just the usual browsing of idyllic and yummy brunch spots, the perfect photo of an autumnal park, wine by the Thames… you get the gist. 

However, it made me think about how the majority of the images on my 'feed' portray carefully curated perfection. This constructed reality is even more apparent and a thousand times more damaging in relation to people-based posting. 

[people-based posting: anything from selfies, full body, pictures of experiences, food, house, decor… yada yada]

Which then clearly begs the question: what is perfection and how does it shape our lives? In Western society it feels as though everything is pitched towards attaining this unattainable model of perfection. Sometimes I feel like everything is screaming at me that I am not enough. Perfection involves being constantly held up for inspection: do you have a six-pack, how many wrinkles do you have, how many carbs have you eaten today, how slim are you, how curvy, do you have spots… It is constant. Social media can feed this to us 24/7 in a steady, addicting dose. 

This is not to say that all social media is bad. Far from it! Social media can be empowering, liberating, creative and a source of powerful activism. I am a firm believer, however, that this stems from your interaction, engagement and relationship with it. 

I have caught myself spending hours on Instagram scrolling through my feed on a kind of self-destructive binge of listing all the things that seemingly wrong with myself and my life. The script in my head plays on repeat: ‘I will never be this pretty’, ‘I am so fat’, ‘No one will ever find me attractive’, ‘Why can’t I look like this / be like her?’. It is constant and so very, very tiring. It is so exhausting to be so cruelly constantly self-critical - to look at yourself and see nothing of value. Some, who fortunately perhaps have never been in this position, may say ‘well why do it?’. This attitude belies not only a woeful ignorance but also a distinctly privileged position. You cannot turn a switch that will simply re-wire your brain. It’s nonsense. 

I do not have a model relationship with social media or myself and so I am not here to preach from the four corners of the earth a profound saying by the Buddha that I recently discovered and has subsequently revolutionised my life. Far from it. I have struggled for as long as I can remember with my body image and sense of self-worth and looking at social media I constantly see that which I am not. I am not as slim as her, I am not as happy, I am not as attractive. 

For me, being exposed to a steady dose of diet culture, filtered and edited images has produced a profound sense of inadequacy within myself and I am certain that I am not the only one. 

It has taken me 21 years to be able to begin to talk about this and I know women and men that never have because it is so hushed up - no one wants to know about your feelings, this is not really a problem, it’s just a part of life GET ON WITH IT! Well if feeling like this is a part of life I want a refund. This is not, and should not be, normalised. 

I believe that Project K is so important not from an inflated sense of ego but because it is about starting and being a part of discussion about things that we are conditioned not to talk about. We are not writing from the mountain top, having solved all the mysteries of life, but as two young women that are currently trying to muddle through this thing called life. 

Recommended accounts to follow: 

• @_nelly_london

• @danaemercer

• @bodyposipanda 

Songs of the week: 

• Show Yourself: Idina Menzel (if you don’t already know me it will quickly become apparent how much I love Disney) 

• I Love Me: Demi Lovato 

• The Trail We Blaze: Elton John

Ft: my cat Jessie, who to me, is perfect.