Why You Should Not Assess Yourself Based On Your Social Media Popularity

There is something sacred about shared moments. The sacredness of which cannot be captured in a picture. But still in this frenzied world driven by social media, people forget the liveliness of a moment and try to capture it in an ephemeral click. People forget to live in the moment while grooming themselves to be insta-worthy.

I am no saint, far less perfect. I love taking pictures of food and many times I have interrupted hungry people from eating because I wanted to click an insta-worthy food photo of the spread. I have also shared moments that meant the world to me only to realize that a moment when shared on social media as a hashtag loses its sanctity. It just becomes a picture for scrutiny. The mind that scrutinizes it, decides the popularity of the post.

Very recently I have been bombarded with questions like, “What’s the plan?” Before the advent of social media, this was a very well-meaning and innocent question. However this question now translates to ‘How rich will your social media handle be after the weekend?’ The more rocking your social media handles the more rocking you are.

Suppose you had a very special moment and out of sheer happiness you choose to share your happiness with the world by posting a picture of it. If that post does not get the number of likes that you wished it garnered, would your happiness be less? Insanely for most people it will be less. These people are the ones who assess themselves on the number of likes they get on social media. They might love a street side chai but would rather have Starbucks so that they can post about it. This is when addiction starts and social media takes over you.

There are many reasons why people might not acknowledge a post. But whatever it is, just because someone somewhere scrolled through your post without acknowledging it while fully tracking it does not make you a loser. It is important that you understand that you as an individual are worth much more than people’s acknowledgement of your posts. There’s no reason why one should change oneself to be popular on social media. It’s like changing the text of Shakespeare because someone likes Jane Austen. It’s incomparable.

My point is, be on social media. Share whatever you feel like on social media, but when you start to assess yourself on the basis of the popularity of your posts, you should take a break. It is important to understand that something might mean the entire world to you, but to someone else it might mean nothing. And that’s okay. That’s how things are supposed to be.

You might share a post that means a lot to you. It means a lot to you because you know the backstory of the picture. But for someone else, it would just be another picture on their feed. We as humans seek validation from the moment we are born. Validation itself is a form of love and acceptance. The social media handles make it easy for us to feel validated, but while you seek validation, you must make sure that you love and accept yourself first, despite all. Do you take down a post if it does not get enough likes? Do you change your opinion or your personality for likes? If yes, give yourself a break from social media. Most importantly, do not let it ruin the sanctity of your moment.

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

When you are feeling the rain with your eyes closed, when you are watching the stars, when you are laughing hard with friends or if you are experiencing something ‘insta-worthy’ do not break it off to capture the moment. Stay in the moment and feel it, so that your experience of it is so strong that nothing can take away the sanctity of the experience you have been blessed to have.

Image credits cottonbro from Pexels

Comments