TBH, I Didn’t See Your Selfie
“Did you see my tweet?”
“Did you look at my Instagram from last night?”
“Did you read my article this morning?”
Most people assume the biggest source of anxiety for millennials comes with the question,”Do you have student loans?” But it’s actually mostly from the aforementioned dreaded questions. At least it was for me at one point in life.
Once upon a time (roughly between 2009 and 2013), I did all I could to stay on top of everything happening in the news, pop culture, tech and social media worlds — and everything in between. Absorbing information all day, going to class, interning, working retail and all-around being a teen/early twentysomething was fun and stimulating, yet fried my brain. The pressure to be “in the know” was so great, I’d often find myself replying back to friends saying I’ve seen their posts in the same swipe as opening a tab to check out said reference.
Let’s face it, no one wants to be the last to hear about — and in turn give their opinion on — any given topic throughout the 24-hour cycle. Whether it’s the Schmoney dance or a new Slate think piece, we all want to be there first when the viral meme drops. So what do you do? You tell a little white lie to cover your tracks while checking out the latest news.
But as time goes on and the social media cycle accelerates, this becomes especially difficult to juggle when our loved ones are involved. There are only so many times you can check a best friend or boyfriend or girlfriend’s profile/handle throughout the day for updates while simultaneously getting your work done. To this day, as a young woman working in media (and a millennial existing on the Internet), I consistently find myself approximately two hours behind the viral loop. (And that’s without even being productive at work that day.)
For me, the added stress of Keeping Up With the Kontent was so great, I found myself refreshing my feeds in bed at 3 a.m. for Hot Takes. And I was tired of it. So… I stopped. Not stopped checking the Internet, of course. But I dropped the habit of little white lies interspersed throughout my daily interactions. I didn’t want to feel the guilt of telling friends that I”obvs saw that” when a Complex link pops up in my Gchat window. Not to mention, the paranoia of being caught in the white lie when someone asked why I didn’t “like” their Facebook status that I supposedly saw.
It’s okay to be left out for a minute or two.
Now when someone breathlessly texts me about a tweet or story going around that day, I reply with, “Link me!” It’s not as cool as already knowing, but it sure is less exhausting.
And now it’s your turn to reveal your white lies. Have you told a friend a dress looks good on her when it didn’t? Did you tell your mom you’re dating someone to get her to stop trying to set you up on blind dates? We wanna hear ’em all. We promise, you’ll feel better with the weight lifted off.
