Social Media. I love to hate it and I hate that I love it. I love that it holds an amazing purpose, but I hate that it dictates our lives. I love that we can run our businesses online, we can reach people we never thought possible and we can connect with people on the other side of the world who share the same passions. I hate that we determine our worth based on the amount of likes we get on a post or by the amount of followers we have.
I’ve always used social media. It has opened my eyes to new music, new people and new places on numerous occasions. It has given me ideas for projects, for new blogs and tutorials to learn how to be a girl and do make up. Over time though, Social Media became a competition. A place where we could compare our lives and achievements and try and outdo one another. It has slowly become an extremely toxic place to be.
I run my own fitness journey Instagram, so I follow mainly fitness pages. I follow women who have been on the same journey I have and its awesome to see the progress of these women unfold. Then I follow the Instagrams of the Instant Models and my journey ends up feeling lack lustre… I see their chiseled bodies, their perfect hair and beautiful faces and in my head I end up thinking while I’m scrolling through for ‘Inspiration’ Wow, I mustn’t work hard enough. I eat well, with the occasional blow out (hey, I am a human who enjoys food), so why don’t I look like that?! I have fallen so deeply into that cycle of thinking and went down a path of believing that I had to train twice a day to achieve an Instagram worthy body. In doing so, I was wearing myself out and undoing a great deal of the progress I had made. All because Instagram tells me that I’m not good enough because I’m not a teeny tiny goddess with a tiny waist and an amazing booty.
I struggle to find people of social media who are even remotely authentic. I see nothing but women in tiny little booty shorts and crop tops working out, making people feel inferior because they, like most normal people, are red faced and sweating profusely from parts of their body they never knew could sweat. There are more and more online coaches than you can poke a stick at, that promise if you follow their program you can build a booty in 28 days and lose 10kgs in 5 weeks all for a small monthly fee of $500! The most heartbreaking part of this whole situation is, there are women and men out there who are desperate for change that they will fall for that fabulous marketing ploy and shell out the big bucks for poorly written programs and little to no support from the person who has their name attached to the program. Now, I am not putting all of these people in one basket, because I know there are a handful of reputable online programs out there which don’t promise unrealistic goals, but they are few and far between.
When I jump onto any social platform, I see so many posts from yet another influencer, sprouting about a product which has dramatically reduced the size of their waist, a tea that has made them shit out every last bit of their stomach contents, or a cream which has reduced the size of their thighs. Have I been sucked in by these sorts of posts? You bet your Aunt Fanny I have and boy, do I feel like a twat waffle for doing so! I’m sorry, but no amount of detoxing tea is going to undo the years of bad eating habits and booze filled nights. All its going to do it give you a stomach ache and an empty wallet. These influencers and celebrities get paid a disgusting amount of money to promote the use of these rubbish products. I’m sure we can all remember when Kim K promoted appetite suppressing lollypops… What an actual joke! The worst part is, there are women that completely trust the word of these people and will buy whatever they are selling. Why the hell would you want to suppress your appetite?? There is nothing I love more than eating!! Its the best thing ever and the idea of having a lollypop to stop myself from eating is absolute tripe!!!!!
What I think everyone needs to remember is, with the majority of what we see on our screens every day, not a great deal of it is reality. Do influencers realise the damage they do to their audience (which might I add is generally young women who are under enough pressure to be perfect) with these paid posts? You earn a commission endorsing an anti-bloating tea that young girls go out and buy thinking that drinking said tea will help them look like you! I have to pose this question to all the influencers out there, if you weren’t getting paid for promoting the product, would it be sitting in your perfectly organised pantry?? Why are you not promoting a lifestyle of balance? A lifestyle of healthy eating, an active lifestyle, a sneaky cheat meal once a week and a whole lot of self love, I think your audiences deserve that, because without them, your success would not exist.. You prey on the naiveté of people who are already feeling pretty rubbish about themselves to prop up your bank account, when we all know that if you weren’t getting a pretty pay cheque, you wouldn’t even dream of having that shit in your house. You all know that the key to having a healthy body is a healthy lifestyle, so wouldn’t it make sense to promote this instead? Oh wait, probably not, because it doesn’t pay you all as well.
To anyone who has seen a post on social media and felt inferior, please remember, you are only seeing the parts of your life that they want you to see. They aren’t showing you the ugly truth that is their reality, because that sort of thing doesn’t gain followers. You owe it to yourself to remember that you are not any less of a person because your life isn’t like that of someone who is Insta Famous because lets be real, neither is theirs. You do you, enjoy the ride that is social media, but don’t fall into the trap of their life is better than mine because honey, its not. Your reality is your story and its a rad story to tell.
