Social networking sites nowadays are just a pool of pathetic people saying “look I’m interesting!” I should know, I’m one of them. We’re always in contest to see who can post the wittiest statuses and artsiest pictures, though the definitions of ‘witty’ and ‘artsy’ seem to be very different for everyone in my generation. We feel this constant need for virtual acceptance, sometimes from people we don’t even know. Though the reasons behind this can range from my generation’s seemingly blanket-like lack of self-esteem to the sheer stupidity teenagers apply to their internet use.
My network of choice is Instagram. I’d enjoy Facebook but nobody with brains uses it regularly. You mean I have to push a button that says “like” to prove I love my mom or I’m going to hell? Send me there. Please. Anywhere that emotion isn’t determined by a button you push. Not to mention pretty much every status I read has little to no substance behind them. Mean people act nice and reprimand others for doing things they themselves do, dumb people Google smart sounding quotes and post to seem smart, and then the people who post the same things everyday i.e. “Truth is”. So I choose Instagram because it’s just a bunch of fake people who post pretty pictures. I’m proud to say I’m one of those fake people, and I only say fake because we all use the filters. Nothing is naturally beautiful, you can take a picture of anything, click the little box called Valencia (who named these?) and wham! Your picture of that dead squirrel carcass you drive by on the way to school is a work of art. But that’s the point and I don’t mind looking at pretty things every day, even if they are fake because at least I don’t have to read about how Corbin bought a coke zero today raise the roof?.
So I’m scrolling through my follow requests when a certain “Prettyboy1234” pops up; I know, how original right? Naturally I look to see if his name lives up to his picture. It doesn’t; he looks like a mix between a cracked out Chris Brown, oh wait…and Eddy Grant, with shorter dreads. In a matter of seconds he likes my last three pictures I posted. So I like his last three pictures as it’s only “insta-manners” to do the same. One of the pictures I happened to like was a text-gram (the only fault to Instagram because it lets the dumb people have a voice) that said,

“Like this pic and Ill rate u in 1 of ur pics”. I didn’t think anything of it, 75 other girls had already liked the picture hoping for attention from this not so “prettyboy” so I figured he’d forget about my like. Low and behold contrary to my thought process the comment bubble appeared on my screen as I was staring at a particularly eye catching picture of some random girl’s hair. Clicking on it brought me to a picture I posted with a caption that were lyrics from Elton John’s Tiny Dancer; what can I say, I can’t control myself when it comes to gay men at a piano. “9.5 ur beautiful(:” the comment read. Now, to anybody else that would be a sufficient number, and the ‘beautiful’ part would warm a heart, or maybe not. To me it should be a sufficient number, but you have to remember, this is coming from a strung out looking d*bag. Now, I’ve heard worse about myself, and I know a perfect 10 is a little far-fetched but that half a point that I wasn’t worthy of in this “prettyboy’s” eyes bothered me. What about me is good enough to be rated a 9.5 but not a solid 10? Or rather, what’s wrong with me that I didn’t deserve that point five? If I were to rate you, you sure as hell wouldn’t be up there buddy. Why waste my time with a 9.5? This is what’s wrong with social networking sites. We give people too much power over us. People we don’t even know have the ability to break us without thinking twice. I gave a homely, conceited, no good a**hole the power to ruin my self-esteem. I can only imagine the feelings of the girls he gave lower scores to, I was only a half point off from being perfect and I was upset, what about them? Why do girls depend so much on the opinion of boys who are far from perfect themselves? We all need to stop being defined by guys who are worth about as much as the s**ts my dog takes and define ourselves by the people we are. It’s not worth the anguish to dwell on what some random d*bag on the internet says about our looks because they don’t have much to be proud of themselves. What do we have to be proud of? Look around; there should be plenty to be proud of.
?Easy A directed by Will Gluck