This is not a particularly insightful observation, and I’m sure most of you are aware of this, but my god has that place ever good downhill, even compared to how it was before…
I only still have an account because some people (women, always women) seem to view it as an “acceptable” communication method for acquaintances. And if you meet one and you say “I don’t use Instagram” then that’s an immediate conversation-ended, lol. And admittedly it can be useful sometimes, for that purpose. Or to see what a select set of people are doing.
But man, for the majority of people I know, on there, whether I went to school with them, or Uni, or met them in some other way, it’s all become the same vacuous bullshit.
Girls LARPing the millionaire lifestyle despite being largely unemployed. Guys posing shirtless on treadmills or showing how “fit” both they and their partner are. All manner of pretentious, vacuous relationship bullshit.
Sure, Facebook is, and has always been, fucking terrible, but at least people are sometimes funny on there.
I can only think of one person on my Insta who ever posts anything particularly “amusing”, and I don’t even know her personally. The rest of it is utter, utter braggadocio shit.
/endrant
A huge subset of the world is fake. My observation, those that have nice things or a nice life keep it to themselves. Those that go to great lengths to present their greatness really don't actually have it. Even ones that do it's the ones whose things are fleeting from being full of debt, or being a thug or something that will end up shot or ODed.
A metaphor I'm always telling my cousin, who's a teenager and grown up in the world of social media too much, and also fits the dirty mind of someone that age. It's just a dick measurement contest, quit measuring. Basically, quit comparing yourself to liars on the internet. They are lying. The real alpha exudes confidence and uses that confidence to claim the woman while the betas are distracted in their petty fights for dominance.
It isn't new. Even before social media, even before the Internet, people wanted to compare and compete with one another by lying about their social status. It's the reason for the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances in the 90s and the phrase "keeping up with the Jones's". It's just now on a macro scale, you're competing worldwide and everyone thinks they are a celebrity.