Social Media Isn't Real

At the start of this year I signed up to one of those 12 week challenges at the gym to get in shape for my wedding. During the challenge I met a girl who was also trying to lose weight for her wedding. She was pretty nice and we bonded over wedding stuff.

During the challenge we often messaged each other and it became clear to me pretty early on that she was struggling a lot with body image issues. She was seeking professional help for bulimia and binge eating. She hated her body and as a result went on crash diets and then binged and threw up because she was so hungry, it was pretty full on. She was also considering getting liposuction for her wedding and had breast implants and botox. I'm not sure if the lipo ever went ahead.

I found this to be pretty sad and felt quite sorry for her. Anyway after the challenge I didn't really see her much and we stopped messaging.

A few days ago I signed up for Instagram for the first time so I could follow some family members and her account came up in my suggestions. I was shocked to discover she is like a low key famous Instagram influencer, her account has over 100k followers and is all about body positivity. She sells a "love yourself guide" eBook along with her own t-shirts and leggings. All her posts are about how she loves and accepts her body and never diets, has a healthy relationship with food and doesn't believe in surgery, her followers love her.

Of course everyone knows that a lot of stuff on social media is complete BS but I find it extremely disturbing how dishonest some people are, like I find it borderline psychopathic. It makes me so uncomfortable...

 

Very true Holly. I feel really sorry for teenagers growing up today, girls in particular, there is such pressure on them to be perfect and live up to images of perfect lives posted online.

 

Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes...........

 

I think you can extend your observations to other variants of the Internet, like... forums – incl. tinnitus forums! Certainly, TinnitusTalk has a few regulars – who – are fairly eager to let everyone know that they have habituated – thereby triggering their much-needed attention from other less fortunate members who are equally eager to understand how that habituation came to be. Of course, those self-proclaimed habituation experts roaming around TinnitusTalk 24/7 are very likely not habituated, but just here to collect their daily dose of social capital.

 

Lmao true.

 

Oh gosh I'm so naive, I believe everyone in here.

 

Nothing is "real", everything is a consensual dream.

Smile, relax, and enjoy the insanity of it all.

 

I think some people present themselves on the internet as the person they want to be rather than the person they are.

(Not me of course. I'm a bespectacled bunny in real life too.)

 

Could it be that she has changed and that Now she is into accepting her body?

 

Brad Paisley - Online (Official Video)

Kind of reminds me of the Brad Paisley song "Online."

 

I'm a mid 2000's nicktoon character irl as well.

 

The thing is when you are suffering from a problem it's tempting to treat the problem by externalizing or projecting.

For instance, it's easier to tell other people to accept their imperfect bodies than it is to look in the mirror and accept your own. Maybe you think you can fake it till you make it but it doesn't happen.

It becomes a bigger problem when you build a career around being a self-help guru who does the "do as I say, not as I do" shuffle.

As job opportunities shrink it's tempting to parley any sort of internet attention into a career like this, but it's the equivalent of psychological snake-oil.