Recently over dinner with some friends, a mutual acquaintance came up in conversation as we enquired as to whether anyone had made recent contact with them. None of us had, but it quickly became apparent that our only awareness of said acquaintance’s life was through Facebook. We also realised that their posts assumed a very obvious trend of constant and crass humblebrags - casually made statements with the sole intention of really saying 'look how awesome and better than you I am; I'm so awesome that I'm practically nonchalant in telling you about it'. Indeed, most of their posts would be a blatant attempt to suggest that they’re living the most glamourous of lifestyles that are void of the mundane or regularity that most of us experience in our day-to-day lives.
Celebratory posts are an appropriate part of the social media experience and rightly so. After all, those who choose to should be able to upload photos from a great holiday or share news and achievements without it generating unwarranted resentment or disdain. However, this individual would periodically upload selective photos of holiday destinations captioned with a humblebrag that pleads for a comment of envy. Similarly, their attendance at an event or function that might support their purported ‘fabulous life’, would be captured by photos accompanied with cringeworthy captions with the same aim.
Given what I do know of said individual, they aren’t a member of the cast of Made in Chelsea or living a Kardashian-esque life. So one has to assume that their life isn’t the perfection they would have their online audience believe. But that’s just what they’re doing – creating a deliberate and highly selective portrayal of their life, void of any monotonies let alone negativity. And it’s all in the name of creating a character and a life that suggests they’re someone they’re not. What’s more, in an age of social media such depictions often can’t be refuted which is exactly what said individual is banking on. Conversely, those who know differently based on reality, are more likely to think they're just an attention seeking, pretentious braggart.
Such posts certainly aren’t limited to said individual; they’re actually widespread on social networks. They serve only to depict an individual in the way that they feel affords them laudable credibility, drip feeding us nuggets of their alleged lives in the hope that we'll use them to create a picture that they deem desirable. It's akin to an identity makeover that social media permits with the distance it facilitates us from reality and further into the realm of a digital world.
Social media allows users to project an image of themselves that doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. Sometimes that can be to selectively omit facts that we may not want to share with the wider world and there isn’t anything wrong with that. If anything, having some filter on what we project of ourselves online, where once it’s uploaded or posted is eternally in the ether as part of our digital footprint, is advice many social media users could learn from before sharing intimate details with all and sundry. Though that’s very different from creating a persona that’s merely a big lie. Yet the internet allows us to do this and successfully so. The internet has enabled us to negate reality to an extent that hasn’t been possible or with such ease in previous generations. Consequently, the term living a lie (in the online sense) is something that is reality (no pun intended) for many.
Take cyber bullies or trolls hide who behind the internet in the knowledge that their identity is safe and so are they (although as Curtis Woodhouse showed his troll, that isn’t always the case). Or those who choose to catfish others with the opportunity for deceit that the internet affords them. For all the advances that the internet has brought modern society, it’s also brought further opportunity for deception, disingenuousness and reinvention that isn’t mirrored by reality. On the latter, there’s the also the ever-present risk of the portrayals and lifestyles we see online creating a gauge of success that, unbeknownst to us, is a lie - and in most cases untenable.
Considering the human condition and the propensity for individuals to compare themselves to others in society, this also presents concerns within a mental health context. With the constant access and exposure so many of us have to social media, never before have we been faced with images of so-called success with such regularity. And for those who are unable to take what they see on online with a pinch of salt, it can be unsettling for one to feel that their life is below par or inferior in comparison. For the millennials who spend more time on social media than in their interaction with the real world, this surely has a damaging effect on a generation’s self-esteem and self-perception when considered in the context of wider society.
For millennials, the notion of creating their online persona as something they aren’t is an experience that wasn’t shared with generations before. Previously, reinvention for someone in their teens usually came with leaving school or college when they’d have a new and unwitting audience who couldn’t refute the credibility of a personality or backstory due to an ignorance of one’s past. Now, it only takes a new profile, selectively uploaded photos and the creation of an online presence that meets one’s desire for their reinvented self.
The ease and frequency of internet users claiming they’re someone they’re not is a casualty of the progress the internet has provided us. It’s also essentially given rise to a denial culture of who we are with the ability to dismiss any reminders of our identity on a whim, simply because we might not deem it credible to our online audience.
The advent of social media has brought with it a great and welcome opportunity to effortlessly share moments and appropriate aspects of our lives with those we chose to connect with. Births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, holiday photos, new jobs and other experiences and life milestones can all be shared using social media with ease. Although that needn't be with a pretentious and ostentatious post with the underlying message of 'I'm better than you or at least that's what I want you to think'. Nor does it need to be with the denial of one’s identity. Otherwise, we risk a society that blurs the lines between reality and the online world more than it already has. Not to mention, it merely promotes the steady erosion of self-worth as reality is eschewed for online reinventions and greatly embellished depictions of life.
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Given what I do know of said individual, they aren’t a member of the cast of Made in Chelsea or living a Kardashian-esque life. So one has to assume that their life isn’t the perfection they would have their online audience believe. But that’s just what they’re doing – creating a deliberate and highly selective portrayal of their life, void of any monotonies let alone negativity. And it’s all in the name of creating a character and a life that suggests they’re someone they’re not. What’s more, in an age of social media such depictions often can’t be refuted which is exactly what said individual is banking on. Conversely, those who know differently based on reality, are more likely to think they're just an attention seeking, pretentious braggart.
Such posts certainly aren’t limited to said individual; they’re actually widespread on social networks. They serve only to depict an individual in the way that they feel affords them laudable credibility, drip feeding us nuggets of their alleged lives in the hope that we'll use them to create a picture that they deem desirable. It's akin to an identity makeover that social media permits with the distance it facilitates us from reality and further into the realm of a digital world.
Social media allows users to project an image of themselves that doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. Sometimes that can be to selectively omit facts that we may not want to share with the wider world and there isn’t anything wrong with that. If anything, having some filter on what we project of ourselves online, where once it’s uploaded or posted is eternally in the ether as part of our digital footprint, is advice many social media users could learn from before sharing intimate details with all and sundry. Though that’s very different from creating a persona that’s merely a big lie. Yet the internet allows us to do this and successfully so. The internet has enabled us to negate reality to an extent that hasn’t been possible or with such ease in previous generations. Consequently, the term living a lie (in the online sense) is something that is reality (no pun intended) for many.
Take cyber bullies or trolls hide who behind the internet in the knowledge that their identity is safe and so are they (although as Curtis Woodhouse showed his troll, that isn’t always the case). Or those who choose to catfish others with the opportunity for deceit that the internet affords them. For all the advances that the internet has brought modern society, it’s also brought further opportunity for deception, disingenuousness and reinvention that isn’t mirrored by reality. On the latter, there’s the also the ever-present risk of the portrayals and lifestyles we see online creating a gauge of success that, unbeknownst to us, is a lie - and in most cases untenable.
Considering the human condition and the propensity for individuals to compare themselves to others in society, this also presents concerns within a mental health context. With the constant access and exposure so many of us have to social media, never before have we been faced with images of so-called success with such regularity. And for those who are unable to take what they see on online with a pinch of salt, it can be unsettling for one to feel that their life is below par or inferior in comparison. For the millennials who spend more time on social media than in their interaction with the real world, this surely has a damaging effect on a generation’s self-esteem and self-perception when considered in the context of wider society.
For millennials, the notion of creating their online persona as something they aren’t is an experience that wasn’t shared with generations before. Previously, reinvention for someone in their teens usually came with leaving school or college when they’d have a new and unwitting audience who couldn’t refute the credibility of a personality or backstory due to an ignorance of one’s past. Now, it only takes a new profile, selectively uploaded photos and the creation of an online presence that meets one’s desire for their reinvented self.
The ease and frequency of internet users claiming they’re someone they’re not is a casualty of the progress the internet has provided us. It’s also essentially given rise to a denial culture of who we are with the ability to dismiss any reminders of our identity on a whim, simply because we might not deem it credible to our online audience.
The advent of social media has brought with it a great and welcome opportunity to effortlessly share moments and appropriate aspects of our lives with those we chose to connect with. Births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, holiday photos, new jobs and other experiences and life milestones can all be shared using social media with ease. Although that needn't be with a pretentious and ostentatious post with the underlying message of 'I'm better than you or at least that's what I want you to think'. Nor does it need to be with the denial of one’s identity. Otherwise, we risk a society that blurs the lines between reality and the online world more than it already has. Not to mention, it merely promotes the steady erosion of self-worth as reality is eschewed for online reinventions and greatly embellished depictions of life.
