It's inspired by today's society.
It's inspired by social media in general.
It's inspired by comparison.
It's inspired by a conversation I had over coffee and a gluten-free brownie with a friend the other day.
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| source: Alex Blajan; unsplash.com |
"being entirely without fault or defect; flawless; satisfying all requirements."We can never do that. We'll never get there.
But does that stop us from trying oh so hard to achieve perfection?
Apparently not.
This is my favourite of the photos I took on Friday night at 10:30pm after coming home from a movie; I uploaded them on Instagram the following morning.
After taking the photos and liking how they turned out, I actually almost stopped myself from posting them because the filter I put on them enhanced the dust on my mirror. Such a small thing, dust on a mirror.
But in the sight of today's social media, it is a big thing. And that got me thinking. Because earlier on Friday I'd had coffee with a friend, and I talked about how much it frustrates me that people think they have to look perfect on social media. We Facetune our selfies; we get someone to take 1283612947 photos of us so we can find just ONE that's "perfect" enough for Instagram; daily vloggers on YouTube of course ONLY film the highlights of their day. We're all doing everything we can to feature only our best selves online.
And that's becoming increasingly obnoxious to me. Because it's not real! We retreat to our room after having a fight with a sibling or parent, and start scrolling through social media apps, seeing "perfect" photos of people who are highlighting and featuring the most wonderful time they're having with their significant other, family, children. And we start to compare. Because 'why isn't my life as perfect as these people's? Why do they have it all together?'
Sure, in reality we know that they don't have it all together, but the more we try to post "perfect" content on social media, the more we're promoting this "best self" mentality to ourselves, others, and future generations on social media. It's the future generations part that scares me the most. Because we can fight it or play it down as much as we want, but social media is getting bigger and bigger and more prominent. And the majority of it is just so fake.
Why can't we be REAL!? So I posted my dusty mirror selfies. I'm trying not to tweet as much because who CARES if people on Twitter think I'm funny or not? I'm trying not to post on my Instagram story - part of this is because people have pointed out to me that I post on it all the time - and also because why does the world need to see that I'm hanging out with my best friend's cat, or baking cookies with my mom? Can't I just do these things without showing it to the world?
And I'm trying not to let dusty mirrors, "imperfect" pictures, or photos that don't match my Instagram "theme" or "aesthetic" keep me from sharing the things I do want to share.
As I said in my Instagram caption,
"Here's to the real stuff - it's easier to snap those photos n write those types of blog posts anyway. Here's to 10:30pm sleepy selfies, dusty mirrors, big hair, and eyes that can hardly open because they're swollen since I'm sick. And here's to grace > perfection."Grace upon grace, y'all. Let's keep being real, and remembering that there's grace for our lack of perfection. We'll never be perfect anyway, so why waste so much time trying to be?
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