Hello. My name is Supriyo. People on social media think that my life is a lot like this:
When in reality, it is a lot like this:
So what really changed? It was the charade that we’ve made up using different social media tools to project a kind of life we wish we had.
*Please read this in that TVC voice*
Pehle main bohot khush tha.
Zindagi achhi chal rahi thi.
Jaha mann jaa sakta tha.
Jaha mann aur jo mann, kha sakta tha.
Dosto ke saath party pe gaya toh sabse bada concern was which place to go to after getting drunk.
Phir meri zindagi mein Social Media aa gayi.
Ab zindagi ki lag gayi hai.
Har jagah jaate hi phone nikaal ke photo kheechna padhta hai. Phir sign in karna padhta hai.
Har party mein dosto ko tag karna padhta hai. Andhere se bhari hui jagaho mein well-lit jagah khojke aisi photos leni padhti hai ki woh jagah high-end lage.
While Darwin gave us the theory of evolution, he mentioned how only the fittest would survive at the end of the day. Now that social media has taken over our lives, you need to prove your worth by putting out pictures regularly that’ll be the testament to the fact that you have a life.
Social media has now become a tool now to measure how ‘great’ our life is.
500 likes on an Instagram post where I’m eating something that I can’t pronounce? SCORE! That’s how we’ve started judging out lives.
To rephrase what Ravi Shastri says – ‘In this rat-race for likes and views, our self-esteem is the loser’.
This is what I ate for lunch today:
This is what I posted on Instagram:
This is where I am planning on going tonight:
This is where I’ll check-in on Facebook:
Tell me this. Why the fuck has social media put me in a spot where there’s so much pressure on me regarding ‘having a life’. Some people don’t have a life. Yes. I said it.
This is how I watch sports:
This is how I post on social media about watching a match:
This is how I really travel during my vacations:
This is what I post on my social media about travel:
Going out and doing things requires time, money and friends. That’s one complicated combination to have. And frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn (or maybe I do, but yeah).
With almost every app/website now providing us this special feature of stories, it has made it even more difficult for us to get away with posting irregularly. I keep seeing a lot of people have amazing lives and it makes me want to go out of my way to portray it that way.
Maybe one day I’ll have someone do this dirty work for me. But har kisi ko, nahi milta, yeh PR zindagi mein.