How did the click of a button become one of our generation’s most powerful weapons? Validation is a funny thing. We live in a century that’s built from it; “The Validation Generation” as some call it. You see it everywhere you look, lurking in the dark corners of the room, creeping its way through crowds, and finally finding it seeping into your soul.
If you really think about it, that’s all social media is. One big plea for approval. It’s built off likes and followers, quantity over quality. Numbers are everything in the kingdom of Instagram. You are considered a more valued human based off how many likes you can get from your selfies. I feel like it’s turned into one big popularity contest. It can even affect the way people look at themselves in the mirror. How did the click of a button become one of our generation’s most powerful weapons? However, before social media became this big bad wolf ready to blow everyone’s confidence away, it was used to help build relationships. Yes, it does have good traits, it allows us to connect with loved ones and friends that we can no longer see face to face, and it also adds entertainment value and worldly knowledge. Personally, I love Instagram, twitter Facebook etc., I use them all the time and I would be lying if I said I never posted anything without looking for others approval. How could you not?! That’s the thing about validation, it’s extremely satisfying. With each click you can instantly boost yours or someone else’s self-esteem. Let’s admit we do use this to our advantage. Everyone has been in that situation where they’re mad at their friend, so they purposefully don’t give them the gratification of their like on their most current post. It’s a strategic game of war over likes. That’s our way of showing we don’t approve, they don’t get our like = they don’t get our blessing. Why do the number of likes have the power to change the way someone looks at themselves? Everyone wants to be liked no matter how much they deny it. Everyone likes being told they look good in that dress or their new hairstyle looks good on them. Everyone likes the affirmation that they’re doing something right with their life. We go to social media to get this affirmation. The more likes you receive means the more together your life is. However, when we rely on social media to feel these ways, we are placing our self-validation in the viral hands of the internet. Before we know it, we are spun into an never-ending game of imitating perfection. We begin to compare ourselves to our peers, taking note of the amount of likes she got from slurping a margarita in a bikini on Panama City Beach versus your most recent selfie with your dog. We begin to feel this pressure to be socially acceptable. Going out no longer means a night on the town with your friends but rather going out to take the perfect picture that will get us just as many likes as the girl drinking her pretty little margarita. We then lose ourselves in pretending to be someone we’re not. The focus strays from our own individuality to becoming someone were not. We post what we think people want to see. Our profiles become a display of how perfect can we pretend our life is. However, we never realize that no matter how perfect our picture is we will never win this game because there will always be someone skinnier, someone prettier, or someone with more likes than you. As long as we continue to compare ourselves to other’s bikini pictures, we will always lose. Another thing that we often forget about social media is, it’s not real life. Her perfect bikini picture is not an accurate depiction of the reality of the rest of her life. That picture and every other picture she posts is strategically posed to flaunt her best features. There is a mathematical algorithm to every girl’s profile. If paid attention to it’s easy to point out. For every one selfie, there are at least fifty other nearly identical pictures to go along with it, that didn’t fit the quota, and she purposefully chose not share with the rest of the world. Let’s face it, no matter how pretty you think a girl is, to her she has one “bad side” and “one good side”; and it’s usually easy to figure out which one it is because she will post a variety of different poses from that same angle, staging her perfect shot. Obviously no one is going to post an ugly picture of themselves unless you have balls….then respect; but usually all you ever see are the ones that go under extreme examination before being broadcast to the world. So yes, that person you see has 50 other sides that they are choosing not to show. I know this girl I used to be close with. She was always a big social media user but recently her accounts have really blown up. To maintain her perfect image, she erased a majority of her past pictures that received less than 250 likes or that no longer fit her standard of how she wants her life to be portrayed. Now it is clear that she only posts pictures of what she thinks her followers will like. It is clear that she is just another victim of social media’s validation ploy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want this article to seem like I’m a jealous b**** because I can’t get as many likes as another girl. That is not at all what I meant by this. Personally, I do get frustrated with myself when I catch myself wondering why I didn’t get as many likes on my nearly identical picture as someone else. It’s frustrating and aggravating when someone can literally post a picture of a fork and get 20 retweets 50 likes and 10 comments when you can barely get a retweet your dog selfie. It’s hard not to feel a little less appreciated when you get nearly a hundred less likes on your bikini picture. It’s hard not feeling like that’s a hundred-less people giving their approval on your body. How could you not get caught up in the game of validation?! Why is that person any more special than yourself? I give mad respect to the people who post whatever the f*** they want. Not every picture is perfect and not every picture has to get 500 likes for them to feel like a valuable human being. They post things that are true to themselves and I think that is what social media should be about. Posting pictures for you, pictures that make you happy and show your personality, rather than posting for others and likes. As Selena Gomez said in her VMA speech, “I don’t want to see your bodies, I want to see what’s in here,” as she pointed to her heart. I wish people would feel more free to post what is true to them instead of what they think others might like. So let’s see more selfies with your dog, or silly pictures of your friends, things that are special to you, and know that not every picture has to be perfect for you to be a perfectly valuable human. You don’t need social media to tell you just how beautiful of a human being you are.
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Body Image is a bitch.
It’s so hard not to look back on old pictures of myself and not think, “I THOUGHT I WAS FAT?!” and then shortly after, “If I was fat then, what am I now?” It’s crazy to me how much a mental illness can have the power to distort my point of view. I go back to old pictures and try to look to where all my “problem areas” used to be but everywhere I used to see a little extra skin, just wasn’t there anymore. And then it’s hard looking at myself today and not noticing the clear differences in the two. It’s even harder telling myself that I’m happy with the skin that I’m in. It feels like a downright lie. I have been told, that in eating disorder recovery, your body image is the last of your obstacles to go. Well, everyone was right. Although, I’ve come a long way from where I started this is the last battle that I am still fighting. It’s hard for anyone to be completely comfortable in their skin, so I know it’s never going to be easy, and I may never fully succeed; however, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. I guess I can say, I already have the upper hand because I can see just how sick I was. Looking at pictures of my old self, I have a clear vision and can now see myself for what I really was; a beautiful girl who hated herself. Although, my body may have been more aesthetically pleasing, I was not happy. I put on a front to make people believe that I was when I actually felt the opposite. I had so much self-hate and loathing toward myself, it makes me sick to think of the words I used to describe myself. I was my own bully, I stabbed myself in the back, and mentally cut myself down every day. I hated myself so much, it consumed my every thought. It got to a point where I postponed taking showers because I hated the sight of myself naked. I would close my eyes and rush out immediately because I hated my body so much. I wouldn’t look in mirrors. I hated taking pictures, I would edit the shit out of them to transform my body something or someone who I thought I was supposed to be. I would starve myself in anticipation of a big event where I knew I’d have to reveal skin. I convinced myself that I was only worthy of love if I looked a certain way. It took a lot to change this way of thinking. Recovery wasn’t a night and day switch, just like my sickness didn’t begin over night. I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide I would have an eating disorder. It was something that took its time to settle in. Disguising itself in different forms, making it almost impossible to identify. So you can imagine, recovery took its time to settle in as well. I struggled a lot, I’m still struggling. I feel as if my sanity is hanging from a thread ready to snap at any moment. Some days I feel stronger than others. Some days, I’m able to see that love is so much more than an image. Love is laughter and hugs in the airport after time apart. Love is three-hour phone calls, breakfast in bed, it’s home. Love is showing up and being there for someone when they need you. The only size that matters in love, is the size of your heart, and how much you are willing to give it up for someone else. I decided that in order to recover, I have to mourn my old body and celebrate the current one. I have to recognize how unhappy I was with the past body that I now wish I had. It’s like an oxymoron. It’s a bit confusing changing the sole focus of my life. My weight obsessively controlled my thoughts. Now, it feels as if I’m left stranded with no source of identity; but that’s the beautiful part of recovery I guess, rediscovering how you fit into this life. My sole purpose on this earth isn’t actually to be as skinny and aesthetically pleasing as possible, I actually have a bigger responsibility in this world. Amazing. This battle isn’t near over, but I am stronger now. I’m getting there. I found that surrounding myself with the people that love me can help me learn to love myself. For they are the ones that see me beyond how I see myself, they see me for more than what my eating disorder is. I don’t know where I would be without them. I’m learning to love myself for who I am as a person. I know I’m not perfect on the inside either, I still make a crap ton of mistakes. I’m still working on forgiving myself for some of them. It’s all a process, I’m learning and growing, taking my victories where I can. I’ve learned that, we are so much more than what a mirror has the capability to show. Fuck the mirror. Our body doesn’t define us. Loving ourselves and others is the real testament to beauty. Dear My Body, I want to apologize for not loving you the way you loved me. When you kept me alive and allowed me to experience Life, I shamed you and told you that you didn’t deserve happiness. When you showed me joy, I showed you loathing. When all you wanted was freedom and to feel the air on your skin and the wind in your hair, I showed you darkness and kept you isolated from others. I put you through so much pain and misery, pushing you to your breaking point. It wasn’t right of me. So now, I want to thank you for not giving up on me when I was at my worst. Thank you for showing me love and laughter when I didn’t think it was possible. Thank you for letting me feel sand beneath my toes and salt water in my hair. Thank you for carrying me over mountains in the rain and snow; for allowing me to experience life in its truest and most sincere forms; and thank you for staying strong even when I felt I wasn’t. Sincerely, Caitlin Glynn |
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