Narcisse's Love

Dear Peach’z,

Let’s talk about how our vision of ourselves is altered by our use of social media. Don’t try to look away thinking you arn’t concerned, because we ALL are. All of us, young Z’s generation, are the New Narcisse.

Let’s all great Narcisse Love, don’t automatically notice the negative connotation of this little nickname because that’s not all it implies. Even if social media causes us to constantly pay attention to our physical image with daily selfies and constant display on a stage in front of an uncontrollable number of spectators, we can find some great things in this.Because if everyone can see me, I also can see everyone, and this opportunity of visibility is the place where some great people can act against body shaming, racism and all those things we don’t really need in life.

But we all know it, the main problem of social media is our obsession to look perfect, everywhere, all the time, even if we know how impossible is it to do it. More of that this envy is amplified by all those « perfect » people we follow without knowing why, who just throw at our faces how their lives look perfect compared to our own.

But even though I technically exercise complete control over my feed, I struggle deeply with the authenticity of the person I portray on social media because it is very much a performance. I don’t care how self-aware, autonomous, or “real” you are: You’re still curating the images and the life that you present to the world. And that’s what gets us into a never-ending spiral where everything revolves around who we are and how to make it falsely more authentic, more beautiful, more kind, more perfect, more funny, more everything better than the other.

Even when you really want to stop this illusion, you just convince yourself that you are more authentic because you at least don’t photoshop your photos or you don’t use filters. But here you are, trying to look more natural than the others.

What’s really scary about social media is that when we’re feeling unfulfilled in our real lives, it’s all too easy to turn to the digital version, it offers us comfort but above all an incredible feeling of satisfaction, it make us believe that our life is successful, a total success and that everyone should envy us. But sweet Peach’z never forget how false it is, your social media will never reflect your life but just the vision that you have of it.

By Julie Hamel