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Wednesday, March 30, 2016
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My take on social media.

The last few weeks the cold weather has come to stay here in the UK, the temperatures were below zero for the first time since Autumn began, layers and warm drinks are now mandatory, as well as lusting over Yankee Candles! Honestly, I spend an unhealthy amount of time in shops smelling candles... don't you?
Cold weather also means, watching TV but for some reason this year I'm so restless that I don't really have the time nor patience to sit still for an hour to catch up on my favorite shows!
But whenever I do the ironing that's when I'll watch something, because I dislike ironing, the television get's me through it.

Candle shopping... again!

So, ok, earlier this month I read about Essena O'neill, a teen Instagram model who had more than half a million followers (on Instagram alone) and about half of that on Youtube, quit social media. She uploaded on Youtube a very emotional video saying that social media is fake. Apparently despite having all these brands after her to promote products and after spending the last 6 years of her life obsessing about getting ''Likes'', looking beautiful and seeking external approval from mere strangers, she was deeply unhappy. It was all about the numbers, followers, ''Likes'', comments... Essena, found she wasn't having fun being an internet celebrity and she stopped, which is exactly what anyone in her position should do... At the end of the day she chose to promote stuff she didn't even like and make a living from her looks alone, she can choose to stop it whenever she wants... You see there is a difference between a celebrity and an artist, some are both, but creating amazing photos just to get attention, make others jealous and strive for idolization is different from creating something that you believe in and you would do even if no one was seeing it! This girl, like many others, started posting for the wrong reasons and was living to post, for her entire adolescence! I can't relate to her crisis but I know that it's going to open a lot of young eyes out there! And may I highlight the fact that she was speaking about the way she and a lot of other teens use social media. She didn't say everyone is in it for the same reasons, which some online commentators assumed she meant...
But it got me thinking... I'm not here to disagree or agree with her, a lot has been said about this matter and the veracity of her statements, but I just want to give my unbiased view on this topic as I never heard of her before and I'm relatively new to social networking, I started my Instagram account last year, along with Google+ and only 3 months ago I started a Twitter account,... I know... I've been living under a rock...

Dress from Zara, I've had it for ages...

But seriously though, from what I gather, she has a point although not entirely accurate... Sure too many people get hooked and spend way too much time online and miss out on real life, specially young people. It's easy to get sucked up by it all and spend hours cyber-stalking people, checking ''Likes'' and even comparing your life and physical appearance, I get that, and this is a very, very important debate that, I think, deserves attention, so credit to Essena for starting it! But we need to be careful not to generalize social media users and content creators as fake, and I 'm not saying she did , but certainly a lot of people took it that way. Many content creators put so much work, thought and creativity into their content, that I find unfair to dismiss the value of their work... It may look easy and effortless but in many cases it isn't! Is social media bad? It all depends on what you do with it... is it fake? You bet your butt it can be... If you choose that route! I'm sure a lot of social media accounts aren't honest, and a lot of people, like this model, make money promoting lies, and it's part of the industry, but like traditional industries, there's good ethical professionals and there's crooks! The thing is, it is a tool that can be used for either good or bad. It's like ones hands right? you can use it to feed the man, or to kill the man! Is it staged? damn right it can be, art is staged, you need to convey an idea or a story... and even on their personal accounts, most people want to look their best, it's like when we go out, you don't go in your sweat pants (well...most of us anyway), in public, people like to show their best self. And I know that there are lovely people doing amazing work through social networks and/or promoting worthy causes and inspiring others positively! I understand that it can promote unreal body image and a sense of unattainable perfection that can affect young minds but for goodness sake, where are the parents in all this? Sure this education, in my opinion (as a mother myself), has to start at home or perhaps schools... Kids need to know that make up, filters and airbrushing are used constantly to create images to attract costumers.

Jacket from New Look.

Cute little red bow earrings from H&M

Not all that shines is gold, specially in this age of self-promotion. It's important to ask ourselves why we follow who we follow, why we '' Like'' what we ''like'' and be conscious of what we post...

Social networks are here to stay and more and more are being created as we speak, we need to know what works for us and what doesn't. Some people get inspired to better themselves and some get jealous! Some strive to be the best they can be and some want to be some model of the internet, they don't even know!
It's important to live first, post later, to create a sort of balance that will make life all and all more enjoyable.

There's also the matter of originality...
Personally, When I started getting interested in writing my own blog I started following a lot of bloggers on Instagram and was surprised to see that mostly are beautifully, bright, high resolution, turquoise water, minimal white themed pages! Not that there's anything wrong with it, I like things that are different from my personal style, but there's just too many "looky likey" Instagram accounts! Or is it just me? Someone found the formula and everybody followed, for lack of original ideas? Perhaps, however the numbers speak for themselves, style over content it may be but those are the accounts with millions of followers. Shouldn't we do what we like, instead of what gets us more followers, where does originality stand in all of this? Probably in a dark corner rocking itself to sleep along with artistic integrity. #goals? I don't think so! What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Much love,

Rita