Showing up online: How real are we?

When curating everything takes its toll

Like many millennials, I have shared my life online for almost two decades. I remember when Facebook came out in high school by invitation only. I dabbled in Facebook my senior year of high school and developed a mild obsession my first year of college before quickly realizing the dark sides of social media. I saw every event that I was not invited to or was not a part of. Instead of a tool for connection, it became an effective exactor of hurt feelings. I would so much rather not know what I missed, but Facebook thrust it right in my face.

Right after college, I discovered the world of blogs (I even started one of my own) and Instagram took off. I followed blogs of people I did not know, diving deep into worlds I knew little about, like vegan cooking and parenting, and I loved reading about bloggers’ lives. Blogging gave way to influencing, and many of the original bloggers shifted their focus to short-form social media content. I still miss reading long form blogs, which is part of why I enjoy Substack—it recaptures some of those old blogging days.

Instagram became less about showing photos from that instant—the original intention—and more about developing a beautifully curated feed. Influencers emerged, and their aim—and Instagram’s—was to sell stuff. “Regular people” like me stopped posting as much, and when we did, most of our photos were professional shots of our family that doubled as Christmas card covers. When we would write captions, it would be to exclaim about how lucky we were to be mothers of these amazing children, or to commend our spouses for their tireless support, or to rave about a vacation. The few less-than-marvelous moments we posted were over-the-top bad, where we would laugh about how much of a hot mess we were.

Now, I’ve noticed, many of my in-real-life friends do not post to social media often. I don’t either really.

I am exhausted by the perfection and tireless optimism of other people’s lives. I know that it’s not real.

No one wants to post about the terrible day they just had, when ants invaded their pantry, and they locked their keys in the car, and they screamed at their children at bedtime, and I am not sure that others really want to know that either. And yet. The shininess of social media can become too much. I know that influencers are showing up on social media the way that they are to make a living; I know they are only showing a tiny fraction of their lives. People that I know on the other hand? It feels strange to know about their most recent promotion before I talk to them in real life. Should I be spending more time on social media so that I know more about what is going on in people’s lives? Or should I spend more time with those actual people? It is probably obvious that I would prefer the letter.

I do not think social media is evil. I am, however, wrestling with the place I want it to have in my life. I show up in this space and share (maybe more than I ought to), and I wonder if down the road, I will question how much of myself I put online.