A few weeks back I published an episode with herbalist Arielle DeMartinez, along with an Instagram post that seemed to strike a chord with many of you, and I thought—as I’m nearing the end of Season 4 exploring the theme of “Beauty”—it might be a good time to dive a bit deeper into the subject.
In the episode with Arielle, which you can listen to here if you haven’t already, I confessed that I never really compared myself so unfavorably to other women until relatively recently, with the increased use of social media. When I was younger, and social media wasn’t a part of anyone’s life, I viewed myself as pretty, which seems almost laughable now, because it’s kind of hard these days to find women who think they’re beautiful, especially, and most tragically, young women. Mostly it’s a litany of what we think is wrong with us; what we would like to change; what we hate about our bodies or faces, and so on. But, mercifully, as a young woman, I was happy with my looks, and even embraced my so-called flaws, confidently accepting them as part of who I was, the whole pretty package.
To some degree beauty has always been a thorny subject, but social media has really manipulated our concept of it, as well as our outlook on our relationships, as with our spouses, or with our homes, jobs, and lifestyles in general. Now, we compare everything we have to everything someone else has, and we’re not just comparing to our neighbor, but to thousands of other people, many of whom we will never even meet in real life. When we’re done scrolling and comparing, it’s very rare we feel better about ourselves. Almost always the other person is more beautiful, their marriage is better, their house is better, and overall our lives just seem lackluster in comparison.
Things have changed since the days of glossy magazines and supermodels. Now, the magazines and the models are on our phones, and we’re all glossy and we’re all the models, filtering and airbrushing our way into a perception of perfection. Perhaps the most insidious part of social media is that it tricks us into thinking it’s real. We’re just looking at ordinary people, right? People like us? Then why are they so much prettier? Why are their lives so much better? At least with Vogue, we knew we were getting photo shoots and photo manipulation and women who didn’t eat for a living. I, for one, was not going to compare myself to Elle Macpherson and lament; that was just plain silly. But to a regular ol’ girl from Texas who doesn’t seem to have any other-worldly beauty attributes, except, somehow, she does, that I will allow myself comparison to. At least when it was just movie stars whose lives looked better than ours it was to be expected—they were movie stars, after all, with money and fame and glamour, and we were just everyday people. You may think Angelia Jolie is a stunner, but you rationally know she’s on a different level (and planet!) than the rest of us, and it’s not necessarily because her beauty is “natural.” With Instagram, however, it’s all everyday people, and it’s all true, right?
It isn’t, of course, and we all contribute to it, some of us knowingly, willfully lying about our lives, but most of us, me included, unwittingly contributing by just showing little slivers of our lives, little corners, and often the most cleaned up, tidy corners. I’m not trying to deceive you when I do that, and I’m definitely not trying to make you feel bad about your life. I just show what I want to show, and I don’t show what I don’t want to, which I think is my right. The messy pile of clothes over here, or the argument with my husband over there, or the heap of I-snapped-at-my-son-and-hate-myself over here, well, those things are my business. I don’t have to share them. I likely wouldn’t share them with you if you came over for dinner, so why would I share them with thousands of strangers on the Internet?
What that means is we’re all putting our best face forward; we all know, intellectually, that’s what we’re doing in the wild world of social media, but we seem to forget it, and how we feel about our appearance, especially, often takes the hardest hit. Everyone else just looks like they have…so much more of everything we lack.
So, here are some things I remind myself of when it comes to social and I’m starting to slip down the rabbit hole. I view these as truths to bring myself back from the abyss—and, frankly, back into reality—remembering that Instagram is not the real world, and nothing is as it seems. I’m sharing them with you in hopes they can help you do the same.
Everyone takes 50 photographs (often more) to get the one they’re showing you. Everyone. Especially professional models and influencers, who usually have an assistant or photographer snapping their pics. That might look like “effortless” beauty and photogenic genetics, but it isn’t.
We all have different body types, and they’re broken down into three categories:
Ectomorph: These are the supermodels of the world. They are lean, slender and have less body fat and muscle than the rest of us. Naturally. They were born that way. Yes, it’s annoying.
Endomorph: These are those with plumper frames. They store and gain fat more easily than the rest of us, as well as muscle.
Mesomorph: These are your gymnast types. Their bodies are athletic in shape, strong, and they gain muscle easily.
I am a mesomorph, despite the fact that I would love nothing more than to be an ectomorph. My arms are large and muscular, and my torso is short. There’s nothing long and lanky about me. I was born to carry things—crops, rakes, children—just as my ancestors, pretty much all shaped like me, were created. God made this decision, not me. If I want to look like an ectomorph, I’m going to have to starve myself, whereas the woman I’m looking at on Instagram who won the genetic lottery looks that way with ease. If she wanted to gain muscle, she’d have to lift three times as much weight to get where I can by lifting a quarter of that weight. If we lived in a world where the short, muscular type was desired, I would be the model, and she would be wishing she could look like me. But, alas, that’s not the world we live in.
Filters. Filters are great. I love what they can do to photos with a swift movement of my finger, adding in an atmosphere I see but didn’t completely capture in the moment. But they also allow people to alter the level of beauty in what they’ve captured. It’s an image elevated, made more than what it was if you were standing there looking right at it. It’s manufactured, so that people’s skin, hair, clothes, living room and so on look more gorgeous than they may really be. There is also the rampant use of touch-ups from everything to wrinkles to fly aways on hair, so that other people appear perfect, leaving you wondering why you’re not, but they aren’t, either.
Instagrammable homes and careers. Many people have homes, or areas in their homes, that are simply tailor-made for photographing, and for many influencers, it’s literally their job to have a wondrously appointed home; it’s what they sell to you. People often comment to many of the homesteaders I’ve had on my podcast that watching their homemaking and cooking so often makes them feel less than, because they can’t live up to it, but it’s important to remember that for those bloggers, cooking and homemaking is also a livelihood. It’s the content that has built their careers. Sure, most of them would be doing what they do anyway even if the cameras weren’t rolling, but that’s only if they were able to: That’s only if they also didn’t have a day job, like you might, or three small little babies, as you might. It’s important to remember that for a lot of accounts on social, it’s their jobs to do the work they’re showing you as often as they show you, and it may not be your job to do the same. I may make panettone from scratch, but part of my platform is to do things like make panettone from scratch. For you, who may be an accountant at a busy law firm, making panettone from scratch is not in your job description, so don’t feel less than because you didn’t find the time to do it last Christmas.
Perfect bodies are someone’s livelihood. This is the age-old model and movie star truth: They make money looking as perfect as possible, and they have the money and time to do it. Don’t compare yourself to these people when you’re juggling a hundred things a day from laundry to dinner and none of them include looking camera ready while you’re doing them. For the model with a million followers who “bounced back” two months after having her baby, while I was still trying to figure out how to breastfeed mine, I said, Ciao, and unfollowed. Behind the camera I’ve no doubt she had a chef cooking her meals, a trainer coming to her house, a night nanny helping her to sleep, and a day nanny helping her to get in her workouts. It is not my job to be like her; without a model-slender figure her life doesn’t work. Mine does.
A closet full of perfect clothing helps. Many people on social get sent clothing, as well as beauty products and an array of other gifts, for free. They’re either being sponsored by the brands, or their followings are so large that companies want to send them clothes in the hopes they’ll wear them and show their audiences. If you’re following someone who works in fashion, or who has a big following and always looks like a million bucks, there’s probably a good chance it’s because they’re not spending time and money trying to buy designer clothes that look and fit perfectly; they’re being sent them. Looking great in photos is pretty easy when you have a closet full of finely tailored and well-appointed clothing.
And lastly, I like to remind myself that comparison is an act of sin against myself and my beautiful life. To take what you have and make it less than what someone else has is to tell God that He’s failed.
Honestly, my friends, all the world’s a stage, and it has been since at least Shakespeare’s time, which was nearly five hundred years ago. So the next time you want to look at someone else’s relationship, or wardrobe, or body and then hate all over yours, remember the filters, the performance, the body types, the selective sharing, the smoke and mirrors, and put down your phone and go love your beautiful face and your beautiful life.
Thanks for being here with me, truly.
xoxo,
Dolores