Alternate Reality
I remember being back in Florence, editing pictures after a photo shoot for my thesis project. I was sitting with my friend behind the computer while Photoshop was starting up. “Do you have any idea how this works?” I ask her – “The only thing that I know how to do on Photoshop is to give myself bigger boobs…” – she replies.
Up until that point, the only reason why I’d ever used Photoshop is for press clippings or any other internship/job-related things, so imagine my surprise when I learned that not only magazines and other companies use Photoshop to alter pictures but my friends do as well. I felt like a complete loser because, of course, I’m the nerd that only uses Photoshop for layout purposes while the rest of the world uses it to make themselves look good.
Many people came up to me after not having seen me for a while (and me uploading a picture of myself in a crop top on Instagram), telling me that they were surprised that I actually did look the same way as I did on my picture. Most of them all thought that I edited that picture to look skinnier than I actually was. I just thought to myself that I could barely bring up the energy to put on makeup in the morning. What would make people think that I would actually have the time to Photoshop myself for Instagram?
Last week I had the exact same reaction when I found out about the phone application: AirBrush. Before that point, I was aware that professional bloggers would probably use Photoshop to edit their pictures. Still, I always thought that no one would actually bother to take a picture with their phone, upload it to their computer, Photoshop it, and transfer it back to upload it on Instagram. I was already happy that I could make myself look photogenic with the Valencia filter, to be honest.
Of course, after reading multiple articles about bloggers showing their “real” pictures on the internet, I decided to download AirBrush and see what the fuss was all about. Oh boy, did I feel betrayed. I actually uploaded pictures without knowing that I could make myself look so much better. I have been using Instagram and uploading pictures feeling bad about the fact that using a filter would already make me look different but now I realize everybody does it, only nobody talks about it.
I know I’m extremely naïve to think that every person that has over something K followers on Instagram is actually that skinny, that pretty, and has perfect skin, hair, eyes, and Kylie Jenner lips but I just never really gave it a second thought. I just actually thought that…. Yeah, ok I actually did think that everyone on Instagram was that insanely pretty and that I could never achieve that amount of followers because I wasn’t that skinny or that pretty or didn’t actually have lip fillers.
Now I know that you don’t even have to have those things. You just need to know how to work an app and quite frankly it only takes you literally 10 seconds to make yourself look like America’s next top model. But it makes me wonder what all for though. If you actually look like Taylor Hill in person, I understand that you can alter the picture a little because you like the picture but your arm looks weird, or you twist your head in the wrong direction which results in you having a double chin. But if you don’t look like Taylor Hill and let’s face it, none absolutely none of us do why would you want people to think that you do? Do the number of likes you get on Instagram from strangers make you feel that much better about yourself than the number of people liking you in reality?
I’ve always been so surprised when I saw people that I knew from Instagram or Twitter in real life, and they didn’t look at all as they did in their pictures. Surprised is maybe not even the right word. I guess betrayed describes it better. If we live in a world where social media is such a big part of our lives, and we capture every moment of ourselves and upload it but end up altering the reality, how do we know in the end what is real or not? Wouldn’t it be better if you found someone on Tinder or Happn and when they saw you, they would think, “She looks so much better in person” than the alternative, “oh dear lord she definitely Airbrushed all her pictures. Maybe she hasn’t seen me yet so I can get out of here” Especially in my case, when I already have to pretend to most of the guys that I date that I’m at least a little bit sane, I can’t bother to also pretend that I look like Taylor Hill especially because they will find out about the last part within a second of seeing me.
Last week I tried posting a picture every day on Instagram because that is apparently the formula to get more followers. I succeeded but not without a ridiculously unnecessary amount of anxiety. I went to bed thinking – ok, tomorrow I have to wear this and that because I want to go to this and that place to take pictures. Not even to mention all the poor people that I needed to force to go with me and take 150 pictures patiently (I’ve mentioned before that I’m not photogenic, right) while I’m trying to look natural to the best of my ability. I lived like that for a week, and after losing hours of sleep scrolling through We Heart It looking for the new best pose and background, I have accepted this whole Instagram blogger life is not for me. Instagram is about showing people you don’t know how fabulous your life is when probably 99.9% of the time it is not, and to me, people like that are just living a lie, and the amount of pressure that comes with that is just not worth my mental health.
I won’t stop using Instagram because, from time to time, it really can be fun. I will, however, stop letting it influence my perception of reality. I know I rather spend my time writing these posts in complete honesty and being sincere about my feelings and views on the world instead of trying to prove to you that I’m a Victoria’s Secret model living the lifestyle of the rich and the famous because how much I’d like that to be true, it’s just not. The reason why I keep on writing these posts is that after reading them, people come up to me and tell me that my thoughts are relatable and that they can identify with my feelings. This benefits not only them but me as well because, at that point, it makes me realize I’m not completely and utterly mad, and I’d rather contribute that to the world than give people anxiety because they feel they are not fabulous enough to matter in this world.
