break up or make up?: my relationship with social media
Life without the Internet…I can’t even imagine it. Maybe it’s because I’m Gen Z, and so that was never really an option for me. My existence, like many others, has been tied to the big bang of digital life. With each year that I’ve grown older, tech has gotten newer. We grew up with technology like it was the dog our parents adopted around the time we were born–it became our best friend and a familiar face in an intimidating world. Unfortunately, also like good ol’ Max, it hasn’t always been so easy to master.
I created my first Facebook account in fourth grade. On that Facebook account, I began posting “what was on my mind” along with pictures of myself without a second thought. This continued until I got on Instagram in sixth grade. It was completely normal, like any other middle schooler with Instagram, but at some point in seventh grade, I started posting pictures that were very “tumblr girl”-esque. This content got a lot of attention.
In eighth grade, I transferred to a new school and by then, had gained close to 2,000 followers. Everyone there was really impressed by my Instagram persona, assuming that I was very popular at my previous school. I loved showering in the approval of my peers, especially as someone who was desperate to fit into a new school.
However, I grew out of my “tumblr girl” image and started to post like a regular person. My follower count became stagnant, and so did my self esteem. What happened to all the people that loved my account? All of the notifications? Did no one want to follow a regular high school girl living her ordinary life?
At this point, my relationship with social media began to get really unhealthy. I was desperate for people to interact with my profile, going to extremes to get the “perfect picture.” It was ugly, and it was only getting worse. Eventually in college, I realized that I couldn’t compete anymore. It was getting harder to balance all that was going on in my life with the pristine image of myself that I portrayed online.
Then, in summer of 2021, the worst thing imaginable happened. My Instagram was hacked and permanently removed. What in the actual f*ck? I kid you not, I woke up and it was gone. I was automatically logged out and couldn’t sign back in, with no way to have a password reset email sent. My account had followed hundreds of people overnight, like I was sold as a follower. It all went by so fast. My whole world crumbled. My worth felt like it got pulled out into the current, so far out of sight that reaching for it felt laughable. And afterwards, I was so pissed off at Instagram that I refused to recreate an account for a few months, like it mattered at all to Zuckerberg.
But during this time, something so cliche happened to me–the tide was pulling my worth back to shore little by little. I started to realize that life without Instagram was so freeing. I didn’t realize how toxic it was for me to open Instagram and see everyone else’s “pristine lives.” I didn’t realize how capitalist it was to be scrolling through so many ads on the daily, and we all know I don’t do capitalism. The vibes on Instagram were and always have been so low.
Despite this, I started feeling off due to my previous years of attachment to the app and eventually redownloaded it. Shortly after, my phone got stolen. All of my pictures over the past however many years were gone, lost to the current. I had an all-consuming breakdown with bonus points for the hyperventilation and extra bonus points because it was in the middle of a WeHo bar. Anyway, my digital life had been quite literally mauled at this point. No pictures of really anything on Instagram or my camera roll, no contacts, no app history. I felt like a troglodyte except even they had hand drawn pictures in their caves to look back on. Oh, I’m so dramatic, I know.
At this point I had lost my appetite for Internet validation. Since then, when I post, I have wondered, “Who is this really for? Do I even want to be sharing this? Why do I care about any of this?” Even after getting to this apathetic state of posting, having less views and less likes than before has been mentally draining. This persistently bad feeling has told me so much about myself and that maybe social media wasn’t meant to be a part of my life, despite being raised by my side.
Losing my entire digital life and trying to start it over from scratch has really helped me to see that just like anything else that’s external, you cannot rely on it for happiness. The only true source of happiness is from within because anything else can be taken away. Preserving moments for just myself has been so much more fulfilling and I know that I can carry them with me throughout my lifetime. They can’t be deleted or ripped away, they are mine. So that brings us to right about now. My mysterious era! I have truly fallen out of love with Instagram and projecting a fake life. I post content now and feel so bad about it. It is so strange to juggle this Gen Z Internet-enthusiast identity with such an intense desire to purge all of my digital existence. I am becoming almost selfish in a way, wanting to hoard all of my good experiences for only myself to enjoy.
To be completely transparent, I don’t really know how to navigate this internal conflict moving forward, but I hope that I could share my experience with others who might be experiencing the same. You’re never alone!
Well, that’s all I have for now so thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you all soon! :)
