Social Media Might be Ruining Your Perception of Reality.

Earlier this year, I was in the waiting room of Mercedes-Benz. We just purchased a new car and were waiting for it to complete all of the service checks and for it to be cleaned. As I sat there, I looked around. There weren’t that many people, maybe four or five. What I noticed is that I was the most overdressed person in that room. Which wasn’t really a shock, I'm used to being the most dressed person well…anywhere. Most of the men were dressed similarly to my husband, regular shirt or t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. The women wore some sort of athleisure and sneakers as well. Where we sat, you could kind of see the cars that people dropped off, or went to go pick up. Almost all of those regularly dressed people in the room were dropping off, or picking up models that were brand new and worth 90,000 dollars and up. Although it was something I kind of knew in the back of my mind, I had a sort of “Aha” moment.

Most people are regular.

I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. A place that is regularly described as (at least from what I've heard) mini LA. When you look it up on Instagram and Tik Tok, you will see a lot of blonde, Barbie looking women at expensive resorts, big houses, or clubs, and restaurants. You also see many flashy men with Ferraris, expensive watches, etc. As far as the lifestyle, there is some truth to how it’s portrayed on social media. The median house in 2023 sold for around 800,000 dollars, there are many expensive cars that you see just driving around but most of the people you see don’t actually look like how they are portrayed. During the fall and winter, I like to take long walks along a path that runs through my neighborhood. Most of the people I see walking their dogs and riding their bikes are OLD. Not just middle aged but I'm talking in their 60’s and up. At first I chalked it up to the fact that I was waking up early but no. At all the restaurants, clothing boutiques, and grocery stores, most of the people I see are old and regular looking. Of course there are younger people who live in my area, I see them often as well but even in our condo complex, my husband and I are on the younger side of the inhabitants. So, if most people anywhere are typically generic, what does that mean about our relationships?

Well, most relationships are regular as well.

The social media concept of #couplesgoals is probably one of the most, if not the most popular concept on the internet. People are obsessed with the aesthetics of both other people’s relationships and their own relationships. People plaster wedding pics online, extravagant engagements, couples trips, and outings. There are even whole YouTube channels based off of it. We, well y’all because I genuinely don’t care, are obsessed with the relationships of celebrities. Many people look up to these social media couples and celebrities as not only beacons of hope but how they should conduct themselves in their own relationships. There are people who genuinely believe that if their partner, or relationship isn’t “instagramable”, it’s not worth having. To be honest it seems like very much an unhinged way to live your life but if you like it I love it.

Although I consider myself “chronically online”, I post very little of my actual life and that is very purposeful. It’s not so much that I think my decision not to do it is the best decision but because I consider myself a very spiritual person and the concept of “The Evil Eye” is very real for me. When you post your life on a public platform, those who are envious, unhappy, and do not have the best intentions for you may be placing their negative energy onto you and your family. While I believe that you can protect yourself from spiritual attacks, I’d rather not put myself, or my loved ones in that situation in the first place.

Okay, I got a little esoteric there…But can I be honest? The happiest, longest lasting, most fulfilling looking relationships I've seen or encountered are not on social media. These are older adults that I know in my real life who have been happily paired for years, and decades. This isn’t to say that all the couples you see posting their lives online are unhappy, I think that would be a gross misjudgment of what I'm trying to say here. However, I think that most people (Including myself) only put the highlights of what they're experiencing. Relationships in real life are rarely an aesthetic hashtag and we should stop trying to make our own happiness contingent on the ability to get likes on a post.

Speaking of aesthetics, what’s up with the obsession with “Old money”?

When I was single, I dated three multimillionaires, at least three that I knew of. These were of course all older men in their late forties, fifties, and sixties. Of the three, one of them came from what would be described as “Old money”. No surprise but there are a lot of misconceptions online about what that looks like. Many people when they think of it, think of boring-I mean “Classic” colors like beige, white, navy, light blue, black, and browns. They may think of countryside estates, polo clubs, yachting, expensive restaurants, and Bentleys. In short, even the fact that there is an aesthetic around old money might make people think that it has a look. Well, the guy I dated wore cowboy boots, bolo ties, awful plaid shirts, and drove a F-150, and his favorite thing to eat was barbeque pork ribs and mashed potatoes. Hell, we met at a dive karaoke bar. This isn’t to say he didn’t have expensive items, or that we never ate at the fanciest restaurants but if you ever met the guy he just looks like your regular middle aged Texan man. The truth is wealth doesn’t have a “look” because when you have a lot of money, you really don’t care about being perceived as having a lot of money.

So what’s the point?

In my opinion, social media is a snapshot of the best and the worst in humanity. On one hand, it can be used as a tool to organize against injustice, as we saw with the WGA Strike. On the other hand however, it can feed the darkest part of our ego and keep us addicted to the serotonin that comes with chasing a fantasy life. There’s a popular notion that people online need to “go outside and touch grass” and honestly there is a lot of truth to that statement. Social media has the ability to hinder our perception of the real world, and what we as individuals truly want out of life via very sensitive algorithms. It’s not bad to indulge in social media but don’t take it all so seriously. After all never forget what Beyoncé's internet is for…memes.