Vanity: Slowly Changing for Social Media

Anna Hart, the writer of the article, “Generation selfie: Has posing, pouting and posting turned as all into narcissists?” said that she herself admits that she has become self-absorbed because of social media - how she’s conscious with how she looks in the picture, and how the netizens would react to it. From her article, I could grasp the ideas that vanity isn’t new and that we are slowly changing ourselves for social media, whether you’re from the “Baby Boomers” or from today’s Generation Z. Admit it or not, but everyone has been consumed by vanity.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, vanity is the fact that you are too interested in your appearance or achievements. It is used to describe something that is done with the aim of getting praise, fame, or approval rather than for serious or good reasons. But the thing is, as the author said, “glamorizing our own lives is nothing new”. Being glamorous started way back in history. If we look at galleries, or portraits of people back then, we could see how made up and staged they were for the picture. But the only difference, and the difference that changes the matter in a whole new perspective, is how we engage with the image today. Back then, no one would care about your picture. But now, you have a whole lot of followers judging you here and there. And that’s what makes social media toxic. People would easily judge you for how you look, and not for who you truly are as a person.

Even if we don’t like our pictures taken, we can’t deny the fact that we know our angles. Once someone takes our picture, we direct them on how to take it as to make us look good. Techniques on the positions of our bodies when having our pictures taken are even instilled within us. And if you don’t like something in the picture, there are plenty of applications available for that. It caters your need to “beautify” and “enhance” the picture itself. Yes, it is normal to want to hide your flaws. But what’s not normal is eradicating this flaw permanently. All of us are equally beautiful because of our imperfections. We don’t need to change ourselves for the people around us, and we don’t necessarily have to allow them to direct our lives. I myself admit that I have become really self-conscious when I came into age and grew up in social media. It takes me a whole lot of effort to post a picture. “Does it look okay? Are my pimples that evident in this picture? Do I look fat? Should I edit this more? Will the people send hate to me for this?” All of these thoughts are continuously running and rambling through my head like rats. They won’t go anywhere, nor disappear. They’ll just add up as my self-esteem flunks whenever I see pictures of my friends looking all beautiful and flawless.

It is a standard to say that my generation, generation Z, is a generation full of tech-savvy and self-absorbed individuals. But what they don’t see, the bigger picture, is that when you look around, everyone’s on their phones. My 78-year old grandma’s always on her ipad, being more updated on Facebook than I am, and my 3-year old cousin can’t stop playing his mom’s cellphone. Even if we don’t realize it, but the people, with the aid of technology, has become submitted to it. There is no one exempted from this. People do all sorts of crazy things for the picture, like taking a selfie while there’s an earthquake or a flood.The world is changing, and so are we. And I hope that we can learn to react better to change.

Vanity is changing our lives and behavior. It allows us to create a platform full of lies and disguises of ourself. Instead of making social media as a means of communication and openness to people, we do the exact opposite. We hide behind our “selfies” and photoshopped pictures, and become self-conscious with how we look because of the opinions of people who judge us by our physical features and not for who we are on the inside. As we are slowly consumed by vanity, we also slowly become someone we’re not, but rather, someone that the world dictates us to be.