You do not have to share everything in order to be “authentic”

There is no such thing as an authentic self on social media anyway

Is your life as happy, fun and grand as it looks on your social media? No, of course not (don’t lie). Neither is mine. My instagram profile is the highlight reel of my life. A gallery of happy moments. And frankly, I do not want it any other way.

So when someone texted me the other day, saying, “I hope you’re doing as well as it looks on insta”, I didn’t quite know what to say. I realized that this comment was supposed to make me feel embarrassed, so at first I just wanted to ignore it — but my mind was already halfway down the analytical rabbit hole and here we are. Is instagram turning me into a phony? And if so, is that a problem?

I could fast forward to “It kind of is, but it’s not a problem” and we can all get on with our lives, but where’s the fun in that? Let’s follow the rabbit for a bit.

I just scrolled through my instagram profile and can report back that I have not found anything “fake”. I mostly post memories from my travels, and moments which made me genuinely happy. Every half year or so I’ll throw in a picture of myself, which I don’t hate, for a little ego boost. It is all real (except for the filter on my selfies) — but it is also not my day to day.

Alright, now one could argue that my profile is deceiving, because at first glance you can’t tell that those happy moments are often far and few between. That there is no trace of the mundane, the lowlights, the shit days, the days I wake up with puffy eyes because I cried myself to sleep the night before. But why would there be?

I do not owe anyone an unfiltered broadcast of the messiness of my everyday. This is not the Circle.

British journalist Pandora Sykes explains this best in a piece she wrote for Manrepeller, in which she discussed the pressure of having to “bare your soul” in order for strangers on the internet to deem you “authentic”.

“But I also don’t want to write long, broken narratives about various issues I face because I do not want to invite conversation into what I am still figuring out. It’s delicate. It’s fragile. It’s mine.”

I use my instagram profile to preserve fun and joyful memories, and to share them with friends. It serves as my private, incomplete, archive of joy, which I scroll through whenever I feel sad or lost or crippled with self doubt. It gently reminds me that I’m loved, that I have plenty to be grateful for.

My instagram profile is not a depiction of my authentic self — because authenticity can and will never translate from offline to online. Instead Instagram allows me to tell the story of the life I’d like to lead and the person I’d like to be full time and thus to communicate values which are important to me.

I do recognize the pitfalls of editing our own lives for social media, but l also love how everyone has the power to tell their own story now. As a writer, newsletter editor and podcast creator, being creative is not only my job, but my passion. I love playing with different ways of creating a compelling narrative and I appreciate it when others do, too.

I want to see you tell your story when I open the app. I want to know what makes you happy, what inspires you, who you have chosen to be today.

It has taken me a while, but instagram has become a mostly positive experience for me. I unfollowed all accounts that made me feel unworthy (hello, #fitgirls!) and have managed to curate a feed of images that bring me joy and inspire me (which is mostly pictures of ragged coastlines and content from badass women. Plus a few memes, some food and horses). That’s all I want to see.

I do not want #morereality on instagram. Not only do I have plenty of reality in real life — and on Twitter, thank you very much — whatever is labelled as “real” on instagram has had to be selected, edited and uploaded and therefore is by definition not “real”.

To answer the initial question: Yes, I’m doing as well as it looks on insta. Sometimes.

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