I love social media, I’ve loved it ever since I get tweets as texts to my flip phone and built up my Myspace profile to 4,000 friends.
I naturally became invested in becoming an Instagram influencer and blogger and I love making content and connecting with people. I work in communications. Social media is basically my life and to some that may be pathetic, but to me it’s what makes me happy.
Reaching people, being creative, and pushing myself for my passion is rewarding to me.
I know some people will say kids these days are attached to their phone, put their whole lives of Facebook, and are lazy and dramatic on the internet. But social media is so much more than that. It’s a connection, it’s an influence, it’s fun.
But social media also comes with a lot of pressure. You used to get judged by your in-person appearance, now you get judged on what you put on Facebook, your follower ratio on Twitter, and how many likes you get on Instagram. It’s all very overwhelming especially if you use social media professionally and personally like I do.
A month or two ago I realized how much it was all really impacting me. I was spending hours on Instagram, combing through hashtags and following people and creating perfect photos. And it started eating at me because I felt like my work wasn’t being rewarded. Social media is work for me and a passion project for me, but I recently lost all of the fun and the passion.
I would get visibly upset when I didn’t get any good photos from an event I went to, even if I enjoyed the event it would get overshadowed by lack of likes, the retweets, the comments.
I had to put my life back into perspective. My whole goal with my Instagram in the first place was to influence others to live their best lives, that they don’t have to be perfect but they can still have fun. I wanted others to follow me so I could inspire them. I wanted the likes and comments so I could reach more people. But I lost all of that to number goals and getting wrapped up in not being as good as everyone else.
Other bloggers have fancy cameras, perfectly coordinated shots, and tons of engagement. I don’t have that and it used to be okay because I wasn’t trying to be perfect. But it’s hard not to want to be what those bloggers are, to not compare yourself to their smiles and their lives.
So I’m going back to the basics, still working on growing my numbers but not getting physically upset over them. The goal was and is now again to show people that you can live your happiest life, you can travel and enjoy what you do even when you feel restricted. I want to inspire others and I can’t do that if I’m not inspiring myself first and shrugging off the social media pressure.
