A week ago I quit my job. It was something I wanted to do for years.
I was encouraged when I decided to open my own small business of handmade goods and found a niche that got a lot of good feedback, even though it was not the main trigger that made me walk out. But the motive was always there as I vowed daily to myself that I will never be an employee again. I was never built to be one and never found any fulfillment climbing the corporate ladder. I was and still am sure that a job is killing my soul little by little everyday because I wasn’t focused on the things I love.
I am not telling you to do the same. A couple of months back as I tried to quit, I found myself not ready to abandon my main source of income. The first thought that came to me was how much I read about those social media influencers that decided to leave it all and quit. It turned out to be a bunch of complete BS because it was not mainly the income but other key factors that come into play, but this is something we will discuss later one day.
This was the first sign of how social media was ‘influencing’ me since I was able to recall these thoughts and online testimonies in a very critical period of my life. I was constantly feeling rushed with the success stories, not ‘ballsy’ enough to take this suicidal jump to pursue my happiness, but didn’t question if I had what it takes to do it, because a few tell you about how things may turn. And I am not talking about income, money always finds a way, as long as you are healthy and with a functioning brain. I’ve had a little taste myself with just a week.
On the first couple of days of my new found freedom, I found myself relieved and happy. As a creative person I felt that my floodgates to creativity were opened and had lots of overwhelming and exciting ideas. I was thinking clearer. My new adventure was well deserved and timely.
But with that came a huge sense of responsibility. I was/am never waking up late, I am trying to make best use of my time and trying to come up with new solutions for my business. I even visited some places I wanted to see and met people crucial to my creative work as well.
But this soon stopped. The sense of responsibility was fueled by the constant emotion of feeling rushed to succeed, to find better solutions, to see results, to get to where I wanted the fastest way possible.
My temper was becoming shorter, and by now I am trying to avoid people as much as I can so I don’t cause any cringe moments that I will blame myself for later on.
I am now exhausted mentally and physically, and on the verge of breaking.
If you are still reading and haven’t skipped to the bottom yet, you are definitely wondering about now what does the title of this article have to do with all of this?
A lot of studies have been conducted showing strong direct links between anxiety and social media and how it’s bringing people to depression. You will find a lot of articles online about this issue and this made me feel better about not being the only one feeling blue. Here’s my little testimony even though it might not be what you may usually find online
A couple of years ago I was faced with the biggest turning point of my life. It was that time when I finally became a responsible mature adult even though I was almost 25. It was a heavy emotional load to bare but I found a way to cope. I did that by starting an Instagram account linked to a blog that I would constantly update with a portfolio of my knowledge and skills. My niche was interior design since it is what I do in real life. I did so hoping to get exposure and work opportunities, but this turned to be a great way to escape my daily load of stress. What was once a profession I studied in order to get bread from, became also an interesting passion after receiving a lot of positivity from the online community and seeing how my tips and ideas inspired me and others in much need of them as well.
I was able to gain a fairly large amount of following in a very short amount of time with ethical approaches without relying on shady methods like the follow/unfollow formula. I ditched my blog eventually and decided to focus on my Instagram, nurturing it like my own little baby.
The down side to that was that little did I know that my (growing) self esteem was now heavily relying on social media. The amounts of likes and engagement became to me a clear factor of what it means to me to be successful. I am a firm believer that success = happiness, and vice versa. My sense of success was depending now on the amounts of likes and engagement I was receiving from people I never met in my life. Nothing was by coincidence though, everything was meticulously planned to turn exactly this way.
My self-worth was now programmed to seek validation from strangers.
That hit rock bottom when Instagram introduced the chronological order algorithm, and sponsored contents were now vital to the engagement and growth of accounts. Like everyone else, it was now harder to make my content visible and to reach more people. Now it was all about ‘increasing’ rather than receiving. The platform is constantly requiring to act faster, to think of new solutions every day, making the algorithm smarter and tougher. Taking a break for a few days to breathe in the air of the real world would cost you a ‘shadowban’ and getting silently punished for not keeping your account active on a daily basis. No efforts are enough, mental or physical. This is clearly a sign of modern day slavery.
My new found happiness/success was taken from me like candy taken from a baby. I was naive enough to believe that the rules will never change, even though I didn’t own the playground and accepted the rules and constraints wholeheartedly when I signed up.
That worsened when I introduced my small business to my existing account. Although I was getting a lot of good feedback in the real world, I was constantly feeling challenged to push through the large online crowd to make my content visible. It is almost impossible to tell if a post will do good or not. I had given up all hopes of getting organic reach and had to be constantly active of the platform to receive a very mediocre engagement in return.
This became dreadful to the way I perceived my business and I am constantly doubting my skills if they are good enough or not. Questioning my average quality of work was unaccepted by my friends in the creative field who are insisting that what I’m doing has great potential, but this did not fulfill my pursuit of validation in the virtual world.
Although the greatest artworks in history were the fruit of a deep frustration, I believe that nowadays it can be really hard to be a creative person with a low self esteem, especially when you are constantly told that you are not good enough on platforms that have become crucial for the growth of your business.
I know for certain now that I am completely disconnected from my body and sometimes lose sense of time. I am tired of tapping on my phone, trying to gather a larger audience because of the way our world is heading now. The better your online presence the better chances for your business to succeed.
On another note, people started forgetting my birthday when I stopped using Facebook and that’s just sad. Not being present online makes you absent in the real world.
I find it disturbing that I must constantly nurture something that does not really exist and neglect more valuable things, like my time, my family, my friends, my skills, and most importantly my physical and mental health. The amount of enthusiasm/commitment/stress is not getting me anything in return. Everyone expects the fruit of their hard labor at the end of the day. It’s just not worth it.
But it’s not about giving it all up (yet). I won’t be fast to quit something I invested myself into over the years. I just disapprove what we have become and want to decide things for my own self, whether it’s the content I am receiving, or the opportunities and exposure I am ‘allowed’ to get.
Obviously what you are reading now is not something you would see on Instagram and other social media platforms. No one talks about their struggles and how it took blood and sweat to get where they are now. No one shows you the ladder, but there are a lot of content showing the top of the mountain. Success stories are always inspiring and encourage you to set a goal for yourself. But what about when your own efforts are not considered valuable enough? It becomes depressing when you are constantly knocked down by not being given enough room to shine and limiting your chances of succeeding.
We are constantly getting content shoved in our faces of unrealistic goals and distorted body images, attention grabbing memes and videos, (wannabe) celebrities filming themselves venting or doing regular everyday tasks like boiling a potato and going viral for it. We are constantly faced with politically correct statements even though they do not necessarily apply to where we live or even allowed to agree or disagree. It’s like we are put in a mold of the perfect human being, one that will obey rules, think as he’s told to think, dress as he’s told to dress, live as he’s told to live. We are constantly told to live faster, to achieve faster, as if we’re going to miss that train of opportunities by not being constantly present. But social media is also begging us to slow down to feed on toxic substances.
Even communities and groups of people are being handpicked as being more worthy of others, while in other parts of the world people are getting killed from wars and starving from poverty, and some still managing to escape and succeed in the hardest conditions known to mankind. How beautiful and inspiring are their success stories? But they do not matter.
The internet never gave me any sense of accomplishment, and never paid my bills. You don’t see me going viral because I am silly enough to talk about how I had to work day and night to get through life and be able to build my small business.
I am tired of being told how to live and that my quality of my life is not exciting enough. It is just as bad as a lot of times I do not get any recognition in the real word and treated like any average person. I am tired of feeling like I am not doing enough even though my hands are sore from working on my handmade items and I am on the verge of collapsing from all the thoughts and overwhelming stress of missing out on life and work opportunities.
For the one reading this and hoping to get the moral behind this long article, I say the following: Do not do anything because it is what everyone is doing. Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect. Making Instagram and other social media an essential tool for your growth is part of the problem and the monster we have created. Do your own things and create your own rules. Leave way for mistakes and accidents, and embrace them. Know that bad and ugly things are part of your life just like good and beautiful things as well. Our world is now unfortunately dependent on virtual reality that should be really called virtual lies. Do not let all this toxic display get to you and always be aware that not only are you the user but you are also the product sold as well.
Lastly, it is the responsibility of the social media platforms to be addressing these issues and find other ways to make profit, by not driving humanity towards the edge of insanity.
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