“Don’t compare your insides to another person’s outsides” and 9 other 21st Century truisms by Juliette Adams.
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Everyone who can be found on some form of social media has a “virtual” life. That is the life you portray to the world via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of the other various social media platforms. You can set that stage any way you want. You don’t know what anyone is really thinking, doing, or going through, even though they are posting idyllic pictures of themselves in love, skiing in Switzerland, clinking champagne glasses in Rome, or any other ridiculous front for their unhappiness. Not everything you see is real. I have a friend who posts photos of herself white water rafting with her boyfriend smiling from ear to ear, and I know she’s suffering because he dreads the thought of even going into a hot tub. Facebook is basically your personal PR machine and most of us know that PR is just a perception and not necessarily a reality.
A picture is a visual representation of a person, object, or scene; a two second visual representation. In the two seconds it takes for someone to press “click” on his or her phone, he can portray just about any image he wants you to believe. And just because someone is smiling with her “best friends” at a birthday dinner doesn’t mean they’re having fun. Smiling doesn’t take much effort, even if you’re severely depressed. And no matter how bad of an actor you are you can look happy for two or three seconds. Even me, #DHG.
Years ago, before the existence of Facebook, I had a very handsome boyfriend. We were having dinner on a yacht on the Fourth of July with a group of friends and we took a bunch of pictures. One of my friends looked at the pictures after and said, “You guys look so happy” and I said, “We’re not.” I then proceeded to give her a litany of issues that were wrong in our relationship, including the fact that he wasn’t affectionate, even though he looked like he was in the picture. And he didn’t want to have sex enough. And he judged me in countless ways. Yes, it’s very difficult to decipher those things from a picture of two good-looking people smiling on a yacht. We also stayed together for longer than we should have. Our false advertising had people telling us we made “such a good couple,” which only further fueled our denial, which led to a series more fake pictures.
Fake moments are captured all the time. Then that moment gets posted on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, and you have sold a false bill of goods to your circle of friends. Tons of people are envious and jealous of an image that is a complete lie. Mission accomplished.
So don’t be fooled. Here are 10 things you should keep in mind when looking at photos on social media:
1) Don’t compare your insides to another person’s outsides.
2) Just because someone is wearing an engagement ring doesn’t mean they’re happy or in love. It means someone bought them an engagement ring. Or they bought it themselves. Or it’s fake. Or both.
3) It is possible to be entirely miserable in beautiful surroundings. Even in Bali.
4) Good looks don’t equal happiness. Good looks aren’t even real anymore. There are tons of apps that people use to touch up/filter/enhance their images, which is why 40 year olds look like 28 year olds today.
5) Posing in front of a private plane screams that you’re a guest.
6) Facebook allows you tag yourself anywhere in the world. I posted a picture of myself with a girlfriend eating dinner in Soho, and tagged us in Reykjavik (where I’ve never been) Because why not?
7) Any fool can be married.
8) A baby does not a happy family make. Also, I believe any fool can have a baby. It’s actually easier than getting married because you don’t need a license.
9) Everyone wears hair extensions, fake eyelashes, and has access to spray tanning.
10) Photoshop.
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Photo courtesy of author.
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