Top: Missguided Earrings: H&M
Being nosy is getting ridiculously easy, we are the generation of over-sharers, needing to spill every last minute of our day online. Boss being a pain in the ass? Better tweet about it. Missed the train? Twitter will care. Cute coffee? Instagram. Sunshine? Instagram. About to eat? Instagram and with all of this being said it has made it a lot more easy to cyber stalk. I mean we all do it and it seems a lot less creepy than watching people in public or actually following someone home because well, no one can see you. So there you are in your safe place, watching, judging and indulging in all of the over shared information and a cuppa, bliss.
The problem with cyber stalking is that while we are watching what others have it highlights what we don't have, like those new Gucci shoes we probably won't be able to afford for a couple of years or that trip to the Bora Bora we've been wanting to go on for 5 years.
And so we sit and we compare ourselves to girls online who are also sitting comparing themselves to girls online and a vicious cycle of self loathe begins. This is one of those therapeutic blog posts that I'm half writing for you guys and half for myself because I would be lying to myself if I said that I wasn't just sitting on a cute girls blog like
nice photos
nice filter
nice blog post ideas
nice clothes
nice f a c e
n i c e l i f e
h a t e m y s e l f ...
then bam this blog post started writing itself.
NO ONE IS PERFECT
We know this, we tell ourselves this over and over again but yet we struggle to remember this when we are 8 months down an Instagram feed trying not to like a picture from Tenerife 17. The statement doesn't quite add up to the three holidays a month, new clothes in every picture and endless pairs of cute heels lifestyle that some gals seem to be living, key word seem. If you catch yourself buying into a lifestyle that makes you feel bad about your own, log out, delete the app and put your phone down. You'll feel much better getting back into your own life and interacting with real people.
THEY DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE THAT
Reading magazines as a child I was wise enough to understand that these beautiful front cover images are manipulated, photoshopped and unrealistic. For that reason I believe I've always had quite a realistic idea of beauty. Aside from manipulated images people are also manipulating there own body in the form of surgery and fillers etc. allowing people to believe they are all natural. So we are looking at surgery altered bodies and or images and comparing them to our natural bodies. We are asking ourselves why weren't 'blessed' with this amazing body that the person themselves doesn't even have, does that sound logical to you? Don't answer that.
UNFOLLOW AND MOVE ON
It sounds sad that to think that someone can affect our mental health to the point that we need to unfollow them, well it isn't, it's smart. If someone makes you feel awful about yourself everytime they pop up on your feed, unfollow them. It's not like you don't like them or wish bad on them but I believe you should choose your mental health over absolutely everything.
LIVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOU
It's nice to have a quick look at what everyone else is getting up to online, it can motivating and inspire us. The thing to always remember is that you are living your life for you and NOT the internet. If living your life is over-sharing and cyber stalking, that's fine, in small doses. Just remember that what is 'life goals' for someone else may not be for you and that is absolutely ok. It's ok to love your natural hair, have a pudgy stomach and to prefer £5 shoes over £500 ones but it is also ok to want to live a fancy lifestyle or to aspire for more.
Don't let the internet tell you who to be, just be. Thoughts? Leave me a comment down below.
Love, Shay.
