Does browsing through Instagram leave you feeling like your life took a terrible, terrible turn at some point?
Mine doesn't. I mean look at me. My life is FANTASTIC.
You thought you were doing alright but as it turns out, your husband is a loser, your kids the spawn of South Park and your house looks like a centrefold for the latest issue of You're such a loser and you have such bad taste. The shame you must carry around.
You, your life, and your family are all an embarrassing failure. You know this for a fact because ...
Instagram and all other social media platforms tell you so. Case in point.
At Christmas you did not, even ONCE, get the whole family in matching footie pajamas to gather on your bed to play board games and eat popcorn while laughing maniacally and tickling each other. Didn't. Happen. Once.
In the fall you didn't walk through an apple orchard with perfectly tousled hair while holding your bearded husband's hand. And even if you did who the hell was going to be behind you and happen to take a picture of the event as it unfolded at sunrise?
And your vegetable garden actually has weeds. Loser.
None of this would have bothered you one bit in your life before S&M (social media) but now it eats at you. You wanna know why it eats at you?
IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING TRICKED.
Here's why what we see on Instagram and other social media platforms can send us into a tailspin.
When you flip through a magazine you know that you're looking at ads that have been produced. When you watch a tampon commercial with some woman dancing through a field of lavender while holding a puppy high over her head you know it's fake. It's an advertisement. You know there was a photographer, a lighting specialist, hair, makeup - it was a whole production.
This woman doesn't routinely dance in puppy-filled lavender fields. She's working. She's an actress or a model or if the ad is particularly low budget, maybe the wife of the producer's loan shark.
Her job is to create whatever tampon fantasy the advertiser wants her to. We don't believe this is her real life.
But with Instagram we do.
Bloggers, influencers, even average people are "just being themselves" on Instagram. So it's easy to get roped into the belief that this is them.
In turn, it's easy to become depressed over your life and anxious that you're not living up to the potential you could. YOU could be vacationing in a fantastically appointed castle atop a palm tree covered mountain on a remote island no one's ever heard of. With an INFINITY POOL!
But you're not. You're at home planning your next big trip to the dentist.
Are they real people these bikini wearing, hand holding, pumpkin spice latte drinking apparitions of Instagram? Yes. Are they being themselves? No, not entirely. They're portraying themselves, - their brand - which is very different.
We perceive the matching pajama wearing Instagram life as real life because it's real people. They're just better people than we are. Right?
Wrong. Obviously. Even when we smartly and astutely understand that these social media photos and videos by bloggers and influencers are staged and fake and not even close to being a representation of how they actually live, we sometimes can't help ourselves from wondering where it all went wrong for us.
When I still posted to Instagram, I tried to be realistic about what I showed.
It's really my house. It's really my garden. It's really me. But a tiny bit better sometimes. I made an attempt to brush my hair or clear the half eaten bowl of dried oatmeal off the coffee table.
Also I'm kind of lackadaisical about having my bras hanging off of doorknobs so they often pop up in the background of my photos.
The picture of me with the apples up at the top of the post? That's not me. Why the hell would I be picking apples in a vintage floral dress. Even if I was, why would I plop myself down on the grass with an artfully arranged basket of apples and grin like a simpleton up at a camera that just magically appeared over my head?
But did I share that photo on Instagram? YOU BET I DID. LOOK HOW CUTE I LOOK! Like Cameron Diaz only cuter.
It got 511 likes.
Then I shared these pictures of that time I watched a YouTube hair curling tutorial and thought I'd end up looking like Charlize Theron ...
... but ended up looking like Barbara Bush on crack at a hoe down.
Guess what? This photo? It got twice as many likes. Over a thousand.
I really don't go on Instagram much anymore. If it was still a photo sharing app, I might, but now it's reels of people making cakes in 30 seconds or changing into 15 different outfits by jumping up and down.
So yes, Instagram Reels are also not real.
Instagram photos inspire me, motivate me and sometimes yes ... irritate and anger me. You too? K.
That's when you have to stop and remember the tampon lady. She's not real. And neither is a lot of what's on social media. As long as you remember that you can enjoy it instead of getting angry at it. Or your life. Or your throw pillows that don't match.
So while you're scrolling thorough your favourite social media feeds this week wondering why your living room doesn't have pom poms or your husband doesn't want to heft you over his head in the middle of a pumpkin patch like all the other Instagram husbands do, remember ... behind every Cameron Diaz there's a Hoe Down Barbara Bush.
With her bra hanging off of a doorknob somewhere out of sight.
Love. This. So. Much. Thank you! And thank you for being so R.E.A.L. and making me laugh out loud. Pee in my pants laugh. Soooo pee worthy
Thank you so much for writing and sharing your thoughts on this. We KNOW we live in this kind of world and yet those feelings still slip in somehow. So I greatly appreciate your brilliantly written reminder. Also I feel vindicated by the mention of bras hanging off of doorknobs. I honestly don't know why else doorknobs were invented if not for bras!
You have a great wit. I laughed, and laughed and laughed, while I read this post. And, many other posts :)
I think your followers all follow you because you bring some laughter into our days.
Keep up the great work.
Yes, Karen! Let us appreciate it for what it is - a highlights reel. You are wonderful.
This is why I stay off social media and have for about 5 years now! And I am quite happy not knowing what someone had for dinner while having a fabulous
night out while I stay home with my husband and make soup (home-made though)
100% this! Thanks for the reminder.
Amen, Sister! I refuse to follow Instagram or Tiktok, and I'm very selective when it comes to YouTube (only gardening and cooking advice...). Faceache only for the really funny posts, well-tested sites of interest, and to keep track of friends.
This is why I do follow you on IG. Also, why I'm thankful for you putting out your content! Your experiments help me with my problems, so thank you thank you so very much for being real, (and most importantly being super funny while doing it!)
Also, if you ever thought about how not to grow paperwhites- this is my current problem. Mine bud blast without fail every year. Don't know if I'm growing them too hot or too much or too little water, I'm just not doing something right. Any tips/ suggestions/ rituals, you do to get yours to actually bloom would be much appreciated!
Hey! Thank you very much. With the paperwhites, the only time I have that happen is if it happens to send up some smaller shoots. To grow them I always grow them in rocks deep enough so they don't move around. Then I fill the container, usually a glass jar, with water until it comes just below the basal plate of the bulb. ~ karen!
Love this article, so true. We are not longer being ourselves it’s all a show for likes.
THANK YOU! I went off social media right before the pandemic, and I've never missed it. I haven't become a better housekeeper and my yard still has weeds. But I have lots more time to read, knit, and ACTUALLY SOCIALIZE. Who knew?
Every year I try to get one Christmas pic of the fam that’s “post worthy”. It’s the candid shots that we all spend our time looking at and enjoying. You are spot on!
It really is. Whenever I take a photo of someone I try to get it in secret. ~ karen!
Thanks--we needed that!!!
🤣🤣🤣Ohmygod you make me laugh and that’s all I want!
Thank you
I don't do Instagram or Reddit or Twitter for the reasons you talk about and, oh yeah, I have a life. I have cut Facebook time way down to just posting my "perfect" quilt photos and my attempts at humor. (Cherry pitters are the liars of the universe, tax time whining, etc). I read your blog exactly because of posts like this and all the incredible how to's, the recipes, and, especially the humor. You always make me laugh. Thank you.
This reality, and the fact that I read The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World*, caused me to leave all social media. Now I can pick and choose my influencers. And I choose Hoe Down Barbara Bush and her doorknob bras.
*Journalist-written book that I highly recommend.
Hi GinaG, I'll look into the book! I really just read fiction but it does sound like it would spark my interest. ~ karen!
And did you ever notice that those Instagram photos never have clouds of dog hair from the elderly golden retriever that spends her time going from room to room shedding like she gets paid to do it? Sigh. Time to go give the dog a treat and start the robovac. Love your blog.
Every word is true and thank you. This is why we’re a generation with anxiety and depression, unless we stay off social media and stick to the garden or pumpkin carving or hair tying and accept our imperfect yet real selves. You hit the mail in the head. 👍
Truth. Love you.
All Hail the knob holders for bras! Mine hang there in case I need to grab it and put it on for the VERY occasional visitor that shows up unplanned. I HATE BRAS! Had to wear one at work but not at home. Can get by with a T-shirt at Walmart IF I have a big enough purse to hold up against my chest as I run in quickly. I don't like Walmart either. What I love is reading your blog, playing with crafts, working the garden, preserving food, watching others do same on my laptop. Nothing listed requires a bra. Which by the way a man had to have invented - clasp in back for his convenience not the woman wearing the harness - it would have been in front! Now that I have that off my chest - LOL - I don't do Tick Tock nor Instagram and don't want to learn how to do it - too much time spent not producing food or pleasure.
511 likes of you with apples in your lap?? It was the Taylor Swift red lipstick.
Does she have her own make up line??? She will and for sure there will be a Taylor Swift red lipstick which will make the real life Barbara Bushs of us look like we're trying to capture the Taylor Swift life only with yellow teeth.
I've always wondered if part of her contracts stipulate that she cannot....EVA
(that's Bostonian for EVER).....leave the house even to take out the trash.....do WHAT?....unless she's wearing her mouth trademark. I do wonder.