Okay, I'm just going to be blunt. Just gonna say whatever comes to mind and see what comes out of that.
There's been a theme in my life where I'm not content with myself, so I strive to be someone else. I see it as becoming something bigger, greater and grander than what I feel I am. This has been a theme throughout my whole life, and lately it's become more and more prominent.
I get on social media and see all these "popular" people and it makes me think, "Gosh, I'm seventeen and I have like 300 followers. That sucks. I hate myself. Why doesn't anyone like me?" Then I go about, looking at my other social media accounts just to see I'm not (what I would call) popular there either.
It messes with my head.
Social media is supposed to be where you communicate. You express yourself and reach out to people. But (maybe this is just me) I think more and more it's not communication, it's seeing who can get the largest number of followers, likes, notes and so on.
I get this mindset - the number mindset - all the time and end up stretching and twisting myself, trying to be like the cool kids. As I do that, as I continue to lose myself and realize over and over that nothing good ever comes of it, I end up feeling worse.
Basically, I end up being fake. No one likes fake me, and I get upset about that. Which is completely ridiculous.
I think there are a lot of us who have to come to this realization that we're alive right now, and we may care what people think of us right now. We may think "people have to like me. I have to have a lot of followers and likes and blah blah blah blah blah" when in reality, I am going to die one day, so what will all those petty numbers mean? Are you still going to be liking my posts? Are you still going to be reading my stuff? NO. The answer is no.
Someone is going to come into this world and replace me. Someone is going to come in and replace Niall Horan, Katy Perry, Barack Obama, and people will look back and remember but eventually they stop caring because some new trend, new person, new WOW comes in to steal their attention.
Life goes on. It always has.
I dig myself into social media and my mind overworks until I'm convinced it's become me. That I've become it. I am my social media. I am what I project. I am my fake self that I project out into the world and nobody cares because I'm not good enough.
That's wrong.
Why? Well, in the end, there isn't going to be anyone left to remember. (Hence, oblivion. [Hence, John Green.]) There is not going to be anyone left to remember anything. No one is going to remember what happened today. No one's going to remember how many followers I had when I died.
Like, how many people coming to my funeral will say, "Oh, she only had like, 300 followers on Instagram. Nobody liked her. Why am I even here?"
NO. That's wrong. That is so flipping wrong. The people who come to my funeral won't care about my social media following, they'll care about what I said to them and what impression I made on them. Perhaps through social media, yes, but mostly through conversation and contact. Through being who I am and touching people through what I do. Through what I say and express.
I tend to express myself through social media and lately it's just been this thing where we don't line up. That's why I've decided that until I can get over this, I'll be avoiding social media as much as I can. (I would encourage you to do the same, but this is a personal preference type thing. If you don't feel like you're follower obsessed then good for you. You rock, powerful humanoid.) I won't stop blogging, but my posts will become much more relaxed and probably less common.
I've already spent the last week or so social media free and my life has become a lot less stressed. Now that I've removed the numbers from my life, I can focus on figuring out who I am. ;)
Thank you for reading and taking the time to understand another piece of me.
There's been a theme in my life where I'm not content with myself, so I strive to be someone else. I see it as becoming something bigger, greater and grander than what I feel I am. This has been a theme throughout my whole life, and lately it's become more and more prominent.
I get on social media and see all these "popular" people and it makes me think, "Gosh, I'm seventeen and I have like 300 followers. That sucks. I hate myself. Why doesn't anyone like me?" Then I go about, looking at my other social media accounts just to see I'm not (what I would call) popular there either.
It messes with my head.
Social media is supposed to be where you communicate. You express yourself and reach out to people. But (maybe this is just me) I think more and more it's not communication, it's seeing who can get the largest number of followers, likes, notes and so on.
I get this mindset - the number mindset - all the time and end up stretching and twisting myself, trying to be like the cool kids. As I do that, as I continue to lose myself and realize over and over that nothing good ever comes of it, I end up feeling worse.
Basically, I end up being fake. No one likes fake me, and I get upset about that. Which is completely ridiculous.
I think there are a lot of us who have to come to this realization that we're alive right now, and we may care what people think of us right now. We may think "people have to like me. I have to have a lot of followers and likes and blah blah blah blah blah" when in reality, I am going to die one day, so what will all those petty numbers mean? Are you still going to be liking my posts? Are you still going to be reading my stuff? NO. The answer is no.
Someone is going to come into this world and replace me. Someone is going to come in and replace Niall Horan, Katy Perry, Barack Obama, and people will look back and remember but eventually they stop caring because some new trend, new person, new WOW comes in to steal their attention.
Life goes on. It always has.
So really, what do the numbers mean?
I will tell you I get obsessed about this. (As you can probably tell, I'm rather passionate about this topic.) I will tell you I've cried over lost followers, cursed because of I feel like I need a bigger following, and have had full on days where I felt so dang down about the stupid numbers all I did was stay in bed.I dig myself into social media and my mind overworks until I'm convinced it's become me. That I've become it. I am my social media. I am what I project. I am my fake self that I project out into the world and nobody cares because I'm not good enough.
That's wrong.
Why? Well, in the end, there isn't going to be anyone left to remember. (Hence, oblivion. [Hence, John Green.]) There is not going to be anyone left to remember anything. No one is going to remember what happened today. No one's going to remember how many followers I had when I died.
Like, how many people coming to my funeral will say, "Oh, she only had like, 300 followers on Instagram. Nobody liked her. Why am I even here?"
NO. That's wrong. That is so flipping wrong. The people who come to my funeral won't care about my social media following, they'll care about what I said to them and what impression I made on them. Perhaps through social media, yes, but mostly through conversation and contact. Through being who I am and touching people through what I do. Through what I say and express.
I tend to express myself through social media and lately it's just been this thing where we don't line up. That's why I've decided that until I can get over this, I'll be avoiding social media as much as I can. (I would encourage you to do the same, but this is a personal preference type thing. If you don't feel like you're follower obsessed then good for you. You rock, powerful humanoid.) I won't stop blogging, but my posts will become much more relaxed and probably less common.
I've already spent the last week or so social media free and my life has become a lot less stressed. Now that I've removed the numbers from my life, I can focus on figuring out who I am. ;)
Thank you for reading and taking the time to understand another piece of me.
xx Nicole Rose
PS: If you made it to the bottom of this post, congratulations!
I hope I made sense! Thank you for being awesome. <3
this. babe, i'm here. i'm right here. and i've struggled with this so much. the problem is that with bigger numbers comes bigger responsibility, and i get more nervous about what i put out there haha. but yes. sometimes it's just so, so good to stop. to shut down. to stay away. social media is awesome, but only in small doses.
ReplyDeleteThis is gold. It's so easy to get caught up in social media and how "popular" we are or aren't. Love this post!!
ReplyDeleteWow this is such a great blog post! I hate how much people are caught up in social media.
ReplyDeleteYeah, last year I struggled hard with followers and numbers. I finally had to stop, regroup, and pray, and now I'm doing things because I want to, not for the followers. Hopefully you'll get to that point to <3
ReplyDeleteThis post. <3
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nicole.