As you can see from my title, I'll be saying goodbye to the virtual world (sort of) and that means I will be deleting my Twitter and Instagram account. By tomorrow, you won't have any follower called @rachellutzeee or following anyone by that name. Here is why I'm doing so.
Before you read on, let me warn you that this will be a pretty long post but I hope that you will continue reading and benefit from this post. Okay, I won't be going straight to the reason but as you read along, I'm sure you'll get the idea why.
For a long time now, I've always been thinking about this. "Why the hell do I care about what people think about me?" For some reason, I've always worried about what people think about me. Whenever someone insults me, I take it really personally and all I do is think about that insult and see what I can do to change it. I have tried changing but it only lasts for so long because we always revert back to our old ways. The thing is, why do we "change" for this people? Why do we care about what they think about us? Does it benefit you in any way?
I have then come to the conclusion that most of us, wants to be liked and we are afraid to be alone. We want to be an influence, we want to be cool, we want to fit in! because if we don't, we'll have no friends, we won't be accepted. If you have instagram, do not tell me you have never cared about the number of likes you get for a damn nice picture you took 5000 hours to edit. Do not tell me, you have never hoped for someone to comment, "Woah, nice body!""So pretty/handsome/muscular/hot" "Wow" etc. Do not tell me you have never wanted to buy the outfit you saw another girl wear when she posted it on Insta. If you have twitter, do not tell me you never hope for favourites when you tweet something super deep or whatever. Do not tell me you have never cared about the number of followers you have, and tried to make yourself look like you have tons of followers by unfollowing more people. Do not tell me you have never tried to tweet something cool/deep/relatable on purpose just so you can get favourite and retweets because someone else is doing it?
Do not tell me those things have never occurred to you at least once because I'm damn sure it has. Seriously, think through it. If you are 205% sure that it has never occurred to you then you deserve a good pat on the back, which shows that you are not affected by the on going peer pressure on social media. But if it has happened to you before, well, join the club because I have done the same thing. Have you ever wondered why you did all those for? Yeah, so you can get more likes?
But for what? So what if you have 5000likes and 89245798 followers? Does it make you cool or socially acceptable? Okay, maybe yes in the virtual world but in real life? Nobody's going to remember you as "She's the girl with 4927340987274 followers on instagram" or "He's the guy who got 384949348982 likes on his picture!" In the end, no one is going to give a damn about your virtual life.
Yes, I do understand that most of you all want to be liked. I want to be liked to, who doesn't? We think those likes are so important because of peer pressure. Another example, the ice bucket challenge. How many of you actually did it MAINLY for the cause and not because all your friends are doing it? And you feel that you should do it too? Just 'cause your best friend has thousands of followers, you feel the need to have just as many followers because you do not want to be less popular than she is. Just 'cause your bros go to the gym, that does not mean you have to just because you do not want to be "less buff" than he is. Then you all feel the need to post it up on Insta/Twitter wherever because you feel the need to be socially active. Right there, you are already affected by peer pressure.We live in our virtual world too often until we forget about the real world. When you use your phone and no one's replying you, where do you go? Twitter then Instagram then SnapChat then Tumblr but when you're done? You repeat the whole cycle again, you refresh your twitter timeline repeatedly, hoping a tweet pops out. Do you realise how dependent we are on them? We feel the need to maintain a good reputation on our social networking accounts so much,we forget about our own reputation in real life. We are pressured to do all these things, most of the time unconsciously and social media is the biggest contributor to peer pressure (I did my research). Yes, apps like Twitter and Insta are very innocent apps at the beginning, but now it has been turned into like a guidebook on how you should be to be cool and fit in.
Back to the focus on why I'm deleting my Twitter and Instagram. Before I continue, I'm not hating on the apps, in fact, I love the apps and I have honestly learnt so much from people I do not know (Now that's peer pressure in a POSITIVE CONNOTATION). Unfortunately, for me, the cons outweigh the pro. Whenever I see a pretty girl on insta, I feel the need to look like her and have whatever she has because people think it's cool. My self esteem goes down the drain and I hate on myself for a while because I cannot be like her. I know you may be thinking, "don't let these people affect you then." And that is exactly what I am doing. Deleting these two apps will take me one step closer to build my own confidence and care less about what people think of me. This is my choice guys. I'm NOT telling you that you should do the same thing too. If you have other alternatives then that's great!
But let me ask you something, if I told you to delete your social networking accounts right now, would you do it right away? Or would you like take a while to think about it? I'm sur, you'll be thinking, "Then what am I gonna do when I'm bored? Where am I gonna see all those funny pictures? How will I know what's happening on twitter?" blah blah blah. Well, I thought of things like that too and it made me think about how much I depend on these apps to kill time as well. The apps have been such a huge part of my life, I feel that it's so difficult for me to delete them. That is when I realise that the apps have to go. I rely on them too much and it has made me think/done things that are against my principles. It honestly made me stoop so low just to meet people's standards. I thought it would be bad if I had to be alone emotionally, but I rather be alone then be surrounded by people who make me feel even more alone -Robin Williams- Do not feel the need to conform to others. Why go through all the trouble to please others when you aren't happy yourself?
Again guys, this is MY choice, it need not be the same situation for you. But I do hope you just sit back and think awhile all the things I've said above. Do you care, even a little bit about your reputation online? The number of likes? Their comments? The followers? Whatever someone else has, you feel like you should have it to cause it makes you damn hipster/cool? And if I told you to delete those apps, would you do it right away without a second thought?
I know you're thinking, "Why don't you delete everything else Rachel?" Good question, well, here are my reasons. I'm keeping Facebook to keep in touch with people so I'm going to be deleting people I do not know. I'm still contemplating whether I should keep my snapchat because I get to see/make really retarded faces. And I'm keeping this blog because I hope through my blog, I'll be able to help people in the right ways and that is because I want to :) No pressure, haha.
So whenever I update my blog, I'll only be posting it on Facebook, that is it. If you're really interested in my blog, come visit it once in awhile and check if not, email me rachelgurl97@gmail.com (don't laugh at my email). I know this is a very controversial topic guys and it can be debatable, definitely! These are just my OPINIONS, they are not facts! If you have any questions/ comments/ statement,please just type in the cbox or talk to me about it. I want to learn more from different people! Ooh, and lemme know what you would like me to blog the next time! I'll be on holiday for the next week so I won't be posting anything during the next 7 days!Anyway, thank you for reading until the end (I'm probably off topic I know, forgive me) and it means a lot to me!:) Please do think about it though.
Love Rachel*
No comments:
Post a Comment