Why do we use F*#$ so much?

We are using it so much now that it has lost its meaning, mainly the young people of today. We say the f word like it means nothing. Yup, you guessed it right. I am talking about the word “fine”.

Every single time we are asked with the question “hey! How was your day?” or “hey! How are you? Been a long time!”. We just reply something like this “hey! Nice to meet you! (even if you actually aren’t). I am fine, how are you?”. Did I just read your mind? Nope, it's just fairly easy to know what the other person is going to say because we all deep inside doesn’t really want to tell people how we feel, that we had a crappy day, or that we messed up in the office, or that the first thing that you did in the morning was to spill the coffee and the rest of the day was a shit show. No, we don’t, we don’t because we all want to be perfect, we all from inside desire perfection, a perfect life, a perfect family, a perfect ’71 Chevy.

The more concerning and alarming thing is that we also wear masks in social media which is supposed to be a place with which you can communicate with your friends no matter the distance and the time zone. I recently came across a millennial lingo which made me feel like I am old. But the crux is that there are two types of Instagram profiles that most of the teenagers have, finsta and rinsta.

So basically, a finsta is an Instagram account that contains all the edited and glamourous photos of you in exquisite locations. And a rinsta is an Instagram account that contains the day by day documentation of what all you have messed up and all your shitty days, and this profile of you is only followed by the 50 of your closest friends and family. Now I am going to ask you one question. Which one of these do you think is real?

You might think that rinsta is the real one, that captures the raw person that he/she is in real life. Well my friend I am sorry to say this, but you are wrong. Both finsta and rinsta are real, they both portray the image of the two sides that they are. we all are exquisite and yet messed up in our own ways.

Masks in social media are the epitome of the fundamental paradox of masking – I am not myself!

We humans love masks, in fact, we have been wearing masks and celebrated festivals relating masks like masquerades since we know. If we dig up the history a little bit, masks were mostly worn by men to show their feminine side in a non-judgmental way in theater and festivals. And what about women you ask, women have been using masks to portray their masculine side in the theater (P.S women weren’t allowed on stage for a long time).

You see there was no problem when the use of masks was literal. Like there was a literal and materialistic mask that one wore, and when they took it out, they knew that they were themselves again. The problem arose when we started using masks figuratively, which means without the existence of a materialistic mask. The then group and community coping mechanism is now transformed into a performative construction of self that doesn’t even really exist. You see we brought the usage of masks from the stage into our personal life and made it our companion. Every social media post, every conversation that we have is a carefully constructed performance. From the outside, it might look very messed up and dirty, but from the inside, this usage of masks is a very well-oiled machinery one might say.

Since we are talking about social media, I want to stray a tat bit to the teens of today. You see the teen now is the most clever and forward generation. One might say that they are the happiest generation because of the above-given reasons. But where we most often lag is the fact that teens are now exposed to social media than it was ever before. They know all the gruesome things that are happening around the world at an age where they don’t know how to keep their feeling and emotions on check. due to the use of social media, body dysmorphia and eating disorders has increased by 30% in U.S and U.K alone. The authoritative American freshman survey suggested that between the timeline from 2006 – 2016 the number of students who feel overwhelmed has increased by 51% and the number of students who notice the symptoms of depression for more than 3 weeks has increased by a whopping 95%.

You see, a perfectly constructed social media feed is the culprit here. When you scroll down on those picture-perfect feeds with its own aesthetic, we feel that “if they can do it, then why can’t I?”. and this very thought is watered by the words that we all have heard from our parents, “oh, you are so perfect” “you can do anything” “oh how special you are!”. So, when they grow up, enter the real world and see that they are not really as perfect as they think they are, they feel like they have been living a lie the whole time. So, they project an “image” of themselves that falls under the socially misconstrued boundaries of “perfect”.

In a book written by Will Storr – selfie, he has mentioned, “we are not who we think we are, rather we are what we think others think we are”. now I know it might sound like something that phoebe would say, but if you read that again, but this time more carefully, you would notice that it is the most perfectly constructed sentence to define self-esteem that one can ever make. Talking about personality traits, I came across this fascinating combination of personality traits from the “big five personality traits” aka the OCEAN’s five. The personality trait combination is: (*might vary slightly)

·       Openness 90 – 95 %

·       Conscientiousness 75%

·       Extraversion 90 – 95 %

·       Agreeableness 15 %

·       Neuroticism 10 %

Now, what is so interesting about this combination? Well, it is said that this is the culturally embraced model of self that dates back to Greece. Again, quoting Will Storr, we all are lumps of biology, mashed and pounded into shape by mostly chance events. so, our human potential is limited. Yup, we cannot move mountains, we cannot stop the time and we cannot follow a time table that we all made. But on the contrary, the idea of an “ideal individual” shoved into our throat is a person with a free will, one who can become whatever they want to become.

And who they usually choose to be is an extrovert, slim, individualistic, optimistic, popular, high self-esteem and yet socially aware individual with an entrepreneurial dial. If you notice carefully you will notice that these are the qualities that all the superheroes in all the comic has, be it marvel of DC, they have the same qualities and hence we strive for these qualities in ourselves.  

We often look back at who we were and feel proud of what we have become and how much we have changed. The truth is, if you give this personality test to a third grader and give the same test to him when he is 20, the results will be the same. We put in so much effort into changing ourselves and jade our souls along the way, but it is all a waste!

We cannot really change who we are from within, we are who we are and that’s it.

This doesn’t mean you give up; it just means that you spend less time and energy trying to appear as if you don’t have any shortcomings and trying to do a little bit better than what your oblivious self would be. We can rather think about how our actions might affect others and check in on those who care about you and try to remember the anniversaries and birthdays.