Recently I had a bit of an Instagram cull.
I do it periodically to clear out dead accounts, spam accounts, people that only post memes or baby photos and people with whom it just turns out I don’t have that much in common.
This time I realised that I’d started unfollowing a few accounts because they were just too, well, perfect.
Immaculately staged photos of breakfast in bed, complete with sheets just rumpled enough to look picture perfect, glossy red lips, shiny curled hair and perfect flat lays. I literally have no idea how they get these photos. Sometimes it seems like everyone but me is living in a white washed, sunlit world of perfect latte art and porridge with lines of sliced strawberries and chia seeds on top.
It seems that the images we WANT to consume are almost indistinguishable from those we used to find in traditional media. Except now we also want to believe that these are real people just snapping a picture of them drinking coffee, rather than an edited photo shoot that took time to set up.
Blogging is my full-time job, and there’s a lot of pressure to improve numbers and keep up with the proverbial Joneses. I’ve thought about having an Instagram “theme” (though I’ve never quite got as far as actually having one) and the photos I share now are much more thought out than they used to be in the early days when I started using Instagram.
It’s one of the reasons I started writing my weekly “This Week I…” posts, often they use snaps that in the old days might have gone on Instagram. They’re bad photos, but they illustrate my life.
I want to grow my Instagram following as it’s important to brands looking for sponsored content, so I work hard, and I follow the Instagram “rules”, and this morning I looked at my stats and saw that 171 people followed me, and 167 unfollowed me, and I’m not sure why I bother.
When the social media blues hit I frequently feel like I can’t live up to the shiny, flat lay perfect lives of other bloggers. The ones that had mobile phones with cameras when they were teenagers and have consumed this stuff forever, the ones with photographer boyfriends or enough space in their homes for a permanent photo studio.
We all know that we should take it with a pinch of salt, and that those curated Instagram images are the “Highlights reel” of someones life. But there are times when it’s hard to believe.
I get just as annoyed by the self-righteous “social media is bad” rhetoric as I do by the instaperfect grids and relentless positivity.
Fact is that when you’re feeling good those beautiful images and uplifting posts can be inspirational. When you’re feeling bad they can make you feel worse.
Right now I am 11.5 weeks into my depo provera injection. I normally have it at 10 weeks because I can’t hack the hormonal angst, the clumsiness and the anxiety that I get near the end. But last time I went to the nurse she told me new rules meant I couldn’t have it early. Right now, I feel awful. I am sat in a house full of the detritus of two people who are terrible hoarders and now both work from home (help me clear it out!). My hair needs most importantly washing, but also my roots need doing and I desperately need a hair cut. I am wearing star print pyjama bottoms with a hole in the leg and a stripy jumper. On my desk is a coffee cup, a broken watch strap and a pile of paper so big I don’t even know what’s in it any more.
My desk. I might not insta it, but I’ll post it here. Everything looks better if you turn up the brightness. Right?
I’m not going to Instagram any of that, I’m not going to tweet about it either. I’m going to do what everyone does. I’ll clear away the coffee cups and piles of paper. I’ll brush my hair and put on some lipstick before I leave the house and present my best self to the world.
Maybe we should share more of our bad days, but does anyone really want to see it?
I don’t have the answer to the social media blues. But next time you feel like you can’t live up, just remember, we’re all human.
We’re messy, hormonal, greasy-haired, beautiful, stylish, imaginative, creative, sad, happy, amazing human-beings. We all exist outside the window of those 140 character snippets and Instagram grids and someone, somewhere, loves seeing you in all your messy glory.
Whatever Pinterest may tell you, no one is really living that “perfect” life.
Comments
19 responses to “You're Perfect Just the Way You Are”
Totally agree with this, we all know instagram and other social media is sometimes too perfect, it isn’t the real life, yet I constantly have the feeling we have to keep up the standard. I follow you because you are real, I don’t want the pictures to be perfect. You have a style I can relate to. No photoshopped pictures, no picture perfect hair. Last week I had the social media blues and I actually quit my ootd pictures, I had a bad day and deleted that account lol. Now I use my personal instagram and don’t post that often. It actually makes me feel better, not constantly checking my insta for likes and comments.
I have to agree with you on this. I have really gone off instagram lately because of how insanely curated the pictures of a lot of people are (maybe I should call them brands?). The reason I used to love instagram so much was to see what other people are seeing, kind of looking at life through someone else’s lense… but authenticity is tricky to find. Of course this super-perfect versions of reality affect me. I’d love to post a picture of my face, but every time I take one, I see my acne, my wrinkles, and I remember how flawless this person looked, or I remember that other person with near-perfect skin.. so I’m put off. I’ve gone off Twitter, Facebook, and now instagram. Maybe I should do a sort of cull like you’ve done. I do like your pictures though, I like your mix of roller-derby and cocktails 😉
Hey Gemma,
Really interesting post. Hope you manage to push through the hormones and hoarding, driving you crazy just now, to the other days. The lipstick and faking it idea is definately one I subscribe too. Just today I felt a bit washed out and down so i’m wearing a dress that has bright yellow in it to cheer me up!
Similar but not the same, I’ve read articles recently espousing the idea that since no-one is genuinely ‘fine’ or ‘good’ all the time you should say how you really are when people ask. However I can’t decide if that just makes other people feel bad and uncomfortable, while it doesn’t necessarily make you feel any better? I’ve come to the conclusion you have to pick your moments; when the woman in the post office asks then maybe saying you’re fine is ok, but if someone you’re friendly with in the gym asks then maybe we should be honest, own up to not feeling great all the time.
Like you say, no-one is immune from bad days or social media blues! x
I literally cannot follow people who are too perfect. It just ends up making me feel awful. Also, people who only ever post outfit photos, but that’s because they’re all surface and I like to feel there’s an actual person there, not a shop-window mannequin.
I think it’s okay to share *some* bad days. I spent January waiting to find out if I still had a job, then the month ended with me finding I did, but my workload had literally doubled. All that stress would’ve made for a shitty blog, so I just didn’t blog much in February while I was getting things together again. So if oyu have the odd bad day, that’s okay. You’re a person, and the people who follow you on instagram or your blog are there for the person.
As for all the things to do, have a big cup of tea, then do one thing. Any of the things. You can only do one thing at a time, after all. And then there will be one thing done, and you will have achieved something. It’ll all come together in the end.
Love this post! Love you girl! Keep fighting!
Funnily enough I wrote a post similar to this last week – I just know I’m never going to be one of those ‘aspirational’ bloggers because I just don’t have the time or energy to be that polished all the time! It makes me feel woefully inadequate sometimes! So I’ve resigned myself to just being average old me. My favourite blogs are those with a real voice – I like reading about real people who have bills to pay and have bad hair days and aren’t afraid to wear the same dress they’ve had for years over and over. Reading about real people’s thoughts and fears and achievements is far more inspiring to me than an image of some flawless idol that I know can’t be real. Don’t go changing! X
I rarely follow people that are too much like a curated magazine. It all becomes one big blur of boring.
I get super frustrated with my social media numbers. Obviously I’m doing everything wrong and quite honestly I cannot be bothered to change all of it.
I’d love to give up Twitter, FB and IG but fewer and fewer people are actually reading my blog. I devote most of my time and effort on my blog.
I’m so turned off of the whole thing that I’m focusing almost exclusively on growing my Etsy store now…something that actually pays me real cash for a change. It is a real treat to be rewarded for my time and effort.
Hugs to you and your messy life for keeping it real.
Suzanne
Thank you for such an honest post. I constantly find myself amazed at how “together” everyone seems on Instagram and often forget that this isn’t necessarily the whole truth. I discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago whilst searching for style and lifestyle bloggers not in their peppy perfect skinned “oh my god how can they afford that lifestyle” 20s and hoping to find something a bit more real, a bit closer to my “oh god I’m in the 30s and don’t feel like an adult” reality! I came across your site and lost myself for an entire evening going back and reading so many posts. I love your perfect mix of glamour and reality and can only say thank you and how much I appreciate your hard work!
Oh thank you! That’s made me so happy! The whole reason I loved blogs to start with was that little connection and finding out other people who felt the same way on things as you do.
Sometimes it is nice to see something that is not perfect on Social Media. The thing that annoys me is that if a celebrity does it then it becomes big news because they have shown they aren’t perfect – like we didn’t know that already! x
Emma | Reverie de Paris
So true! The fact is “celebrities” were secretly real people all along. Who knew?!
Please, please, please don’t EVER change!! I LOVE reading your blog; you make me laugh (a lot!), you have a wonderful sense of style, and you are REAL! You have interests that go beyond looking perfect, you struggle with money, you love a good cocktail, you have a moan when the washing machine breaks down – these are all things I can relate to! I have to say that I don’t have instagram or twitter. I prefer to read blogs and be inspired by people I think I would be friends with in real life. Wash that hair, or don’t, but just know that there are people out here in cyber space who think you’re perfect just the way you are xx.
Thank you, and it makes me super happy to know I make you laugh too 😀
FYI, I washed my hair today, but only because I had a Dr appt and I thought I ought to look like a functional human being!
I completely agree with everything you’ve said and often wonder how full-time bloggers like you manage to survive in this world of fake ‘real’ Instagram photos. I blogged recently about the abundance of posts from perfect young bloggers who never come across bad lighting, seem to have a pro-photographer following them around and have enough spare time to do endless outfit photos. It’s so depressing when you’re in the wrong mood 🙁 Your blog and Instagram feed are always a joy though!
Sometimes you don’t feel super happy or in a good mood and seeing all this false positivity isn’t good for you, stepping away for a few days is probably best in my experience.
I’ve been feeling like this too, lately: I started following a bunch of home-related Instagram accounts, because we’re about to start some renovations, and they’ve honestly made me feel like I need to just pull down my entire house and start again. The worst of it is, most of the people I’m following are, like, 25 or something, and they have these gorgeous, immaculate houses – it makes me feel like I’m totally failing at life, to be honest.
Having said that, though, I’m a raging hypocrite, because I feel like that, but I also want my own Instagram feed to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, so I would never post a photo of my house in a mess, or me without makeup, or whatever, so I guess I can’t really blame anyone else for doing the same!
I really enjoy your posts. Love to see the outfits as I love clothes. I like slightly out of the ordinary items. Also like to read your this week I.. posts. Always interesting to hear about other peoples lives. As I have grown older I find it gets much easier to accept yourself and others just as you are. You learn life can be cut short when least expected,so its becomes more important to just get on with life, including your flaws. Dosnt mean I dont still occasionally long for the never now to be achieved thin thighs though!! X
I completely agree. I read your blog because you make me laugh. I like the fact that you present the “real world” behind the photo shoot, the fact that you tell about the funny accidents that happened just before or after that glamorous photo. I really like the way you talk about all your interests, like roller derby, cocktails and clothes. Even if I don’t share all the same interests I’m interested in other people’s lives. I don’t want to see perfect images with no story and no nuance. Keep up the good work 🙂
I’d rather see Instagram photos and read blog posts from people with messy desks, greasy roots and holes in their pyjamas than picture perfect people who make me feel small and inadequate.