(High) School and Social Media

hello, this I Saniya and I am in my senior year for way too long. You know the reason. So I am not going to elaborate at all. (reason=the pandemic in with a lockdown in my city, for my international fans out there, I hope y'all still read this)

But I was thinking if I was going to miss school. The answer is NO. School sucked. I hated it. Obviously, not all aspect of it. And not all years. It was mainly just *coughs* high *coughs* school *cough*. If someone would give me a million dollars , a mansion and a free round trip to Disneyland and tell me that I can either go to high school and take all of this or lose this if I don't go. I won't go. There was not ONE thing I liked about high school. There are high chances that I hated these years because I shifted schools (omg don't even get me started). To be a little more specific, the first two years high school were dreadful. I was acting like someone I wasn't. My report card reports were down (according to me). Mental health declined. But I had a shit ton of friends. Too many friends. Too many memories. But since I wasn't feeling amazing during that time how can I cherish those memories. I never felt like I belonged in the space that I was out into and something about the high school "drama", "boys" and "gossip" seemed so irrelevant and unnecessary at a point. Things were getting better in 11th grade but then 12th hit and we were stuck in a pandemic. I felt like I was missing out on something the entire time I was in high school. Even when there was nothing I was missing out on. Some days I just did not want to got to school. Like I was done with it. School indeed gave me an unmatchable energy boost which made me all happy and positive and shit. But it was exhausting, dude. I am SO GLAD it's about to get over. I can't just be stuck in the future, so I always try to appreciate and express gratitude for the present.

Honestly, I hated the friends part of it all. I don't know if it was just my school, or this is a high school ritual. But there was so much groupism. By which I mean there were cliques, but not the stereotyped ones. The "groups" were so damn stupid and now seem irrelevant from a bird's eye view. They were not the reason for this unwanted rant. They were just useless, unwanted and so so stupid. When I entered the new high school everyone had settled into their "groups" and I was just the new girl trying to fit in the entire time. 

Junior year/11th grade/2019 was one of the best years of my school life. One of the major reasons being my absence from social media. I deleted everything. I hate to say this, but I saw everyone's true colors. I realized how much everyone was faking it. I realized how much social media has an importance in today's age and for this generation. Early 2019 was rough, but after that while everything settled down. I surrounded myself with better people and better opportunities. I engaged myself in things that were productive and that I liked doing. 

The thing about Instagram is, that everything on Instagram is fake. No matter how much you casually post, how dumb your captions are, how vulnerable you might be, there is always somethings that will remain fake on social media. Everyone on social media creates a new personality for themselves, which is usually the way they want to be perceived by people. The harsh truth is that everyone on social media  shows what they want to be but no on really shows what they are. I think we all can just accept that the personality we create for ourselves (on platforms like Instagram) is somewhat unreal. This problem is accompanied by the fact that we all make a judgement about someone on the basis of their social media profile. If you meet someone in reality, and then you go follow and stalk them on Instagram you'll succeed in making a new first impression of them. If you first stalk them on Instagram and then meet them in reality, the same thing will happen. But this time, you'll rely on the social media first impression of them rather than the real impression. That sucks. This first impression, in turn, not only haunts you to death in thinking that maybe they are "better" or "superior" than you in some manner, but it also demeans you. Your self-confidence completely declines. Sometimes, this cycle happens subconsciously, which is worse, because you can't identify the root of the problem. For me (in the two years of high school I talked about), this was exactly the problem.

img source: google/urban street wall art on facebook

Instagram makes a new reality for each individual using it. That reality is perceived by people. We don't even realize this but Instagram becomes more than just a social media account to share picture of things/people that you like; it becomes another world. This new world becomes something where we become robots. A different environment which completely relies on the fact that what you post, how many people follow you, how much you post, and all of this is governed and happens under one dictating body: Instagram. So is this the new modern day matrix?

Matrix, Urban Dictionary Definitions:

1. computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into a battery.

2. a term describing a controlled environment or situation in which people act or behave in ways that conform to roles pre-determined by a powerful person(s) who decides how the world is supposed to function.

We're living in the matrix, aren't we?

if you liked reading this crappy write-up, then read another crappy write-up: a human's lesson on perspective

by me