How Instagram Is Tricking You into Thinking You're a Loser

Does browsing through Instagram leave you feeling like your life took a terrible, terrible turn at some point?

Mine doesn't. I mean look at me. My life is FANTASTIC.

You thought you were doing alright but as it turns out, your husband is a loser, your kids the spawn of South Park and your house looks like a centrefold for the latest issue of  You're such a loser and you have such bad taste.  The shame you must carry around.

You, your life, and your family are all an embarrassing failure.  You know this for a fact because ...

Instagram and all other social media platforms tell you so. Case in point.

At Christmas you did not, even ONCE, get the whole family in matching footie pajamas to gather on your bed to play board games and eat popcorn while laughing maniacally and tickling each other.  Didn't.  Happen. Once.

In the fall you didn't walk through an apple orchard with perfectly tousled hair while holding your bearded husband's hand. And even if you did who the hell was going to be behind you and happen to take a picture of the event as it unfolded at sunrise?

And your vegetable garden actually has weeds.  Loser.

None of this would have bothered you one bit in your life before S&M (social media) but now it eats at you.  You wanna know why it eats at you?

IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING TRICKED.

Here's why what we see on Instagram and other social media platforms can send us into a tailspin.

When you flip through a magazine you know that you're looking at ads that have been produced.  When you watch a tampon commercial with some woman dancing through a field of lavender while holding a puppy high over her head you know it's fake.  It's an advertisement. You know there was a photographer, a lighting specialist, hair, makeup - it was a whole production. 

This woman doesn't routinely dance in puppy-filled lavender fields.  She's working. She's an actress or a model or if the ad is particularly low budget, maybe the wife of the producer's loan shark.   

Her job is to create whatever tampon fantasy the advertiser wants her to.  We don't believe this is her real life.

But with Instagram we do.

Bloggers, influencers, even average people are "just being themselves" on Instagram. So it's easy to get roped into the belief that this is them.

In turn, it's easy to become depressed over your life and anxious that you're not living up to the potential you could.  YOU could be vacationing in a fantastically appointed castle atop a palm tree covered mountain on a remote island no one's ever heard of.  With an INFINITY POOL! 

But you're not.  You're at home planning your next big trip to the dentist.

Are they real people these bikini wearing, hand holding, pumpkin spice latte drinking apparitions of Instagram?  Yes.  Are they being themselves?  No, not entirely.  They're portraying themselves, - their brand - which is very different.

We perceive the matching pajama wearing Instagram life as real life because it's real people. They're just better people than we are.  Right?

Wrong.  Obviously.  Even when we smartly and astutely understand that these social media photos and videos by bloggers and influencers are staged and fake and not even close to being a representation of how they actually live, we sometimes can't help ourselves from wondering where it all went wrong for us.

When I still posted to Instagram, I tried to be realistic about what I showed.

It's really my house. It's really my garden. It's really me.  But a tiny bit better sometimes.  I made an attempt to brush my hair or clear the half eaten bowl of dried oatmeal off the coffee table.

Also I'm kind of  lackadaisical about having my bras hanging off of doorknobs so they often pop up in the background of my photos.

The picture of me with the apples up at the top of the post?  That's not me. Why the hell would I be picking apples in a vintage floral dress.  Even if I was, why would I plop myself down on the grass with an artfully arranged basket of apples and grin like a simpleton up at a camera that just magically appeared over my head?

But did I share that photo on Instagram?  YOU BET I DID.  LOOK HOW CUTE I LOOK!  Like Cameron Diaz only cuter.

It got 511 likes.

Then I shared these pictures of that time I watched a YouTube hair curling tutorial and thought I'd end up looking like Charlize Theron ...

... but ended up looking like Barbara Bush on crack at a hoe down.

Guess what?  This photo?  It got twice as many likes.  Over a thousand.

I really don't go on Instagram much anymore. If it was still a photo sharing app, I might, but now it's reels of people making cakes in 30 seconds or changing into 15 different outfits by jumping up and down.

So yes, Instagram Reels are also not real.

Instagram photos inspire me, motivate me and sometimes yes ... irritate and anger me. You too?  K.

That's when you have to stop and remember the tampon lady.  She's not real.  And neither is a lot of what's on social media. As long as you remember that you can enjoy it instead of getting angry at it. Or your life. Or your throw pillows that don't match.

So while you're scrolling thorough your favourite social media feeds this week wondering why your living room doesn't have pom poms or your husband doesn't want to heft you over his head in the middle of a pumpkin patch like all the other Instagram husbands do, remember ... behind every Cameron Diaz there's a Hoe Down Barbara Bush.

With her bra hanging off of a doorknob somewhere out of sight.