I’m about to appear like a terrible person but hey ho, they’re just thoughts, I do not rule the world.
When a person posts a picture of themselves on a social media site that does not accurately represent the physical specimen that they actually are is bad enough, it’s a con, bullshit. I’ve referred to this social media persona as a digital ego creation many times in many of my blog posts. It’s to be expected though, each one of us chooses the pic that makes us look the best, and it is still us most of the time. The recent trend though to filter yourself so as to look like some sort of avatar is a bit worrying, a girl I know regularly applies so much filter to her pictures that her boyfriend, also in the pictures, looks like he has no actual facial features as everything blends into each other thing.
Recently I saw a picture of another person I know and see regularly, posted by her on her feed, that looked like she had lost around 10 stone of weight and had gotten a lot younger. Again this is not that surprising, people do that now, you only have to start internet dating and meeting up with people to realise that how ridiculous this is. I met with a girl when I used online dating and she had many more miles on the clock than her profile suggested, I think it’s called catfishing (I may be wrong about the term). I suspect the motivation is to hook in the person first and either hope they don’t notice, pray they were expecting that sort of thing, or rely on your charm to carry the day. In business I think this is called the Bait and Switch approach.
Back to our picture, we’ve already established that people will readily and shamelessly put forth a rather non-truthful representation of themselves because they may psychologically believe that that is the them that they feel they are, and feelings remember are an awfully important thing these days, more important than facts if you ask some. I get this part, it’s not easy to be the physical representation of wear and tear, the product of bad genetics, the result of the years you have lived and the sheer size and complexion of the lifestyle you chose. But in truth we are what we have done to ourselves in the same way as the gym bunny is the muscular and fit person they have very deliberately created. To assume that it is any different a form of simple correct measurement, a less socially acceptable one, to praise the bicep muscle than it is to criticise the fold of flab, is to be unjustifiably ridiculous. I stood on a parade square once as a well worn professional soldier tore a line of troops a new collective arsehole because they weren’t as good as him at being what they had just become. He had a massive advantage over them as he had served 20 years and seen combat, but nobody argued the point because he was correct in his measure, we weren’t as good as him at being soldiers, yet, would we ever be? Maybe.
The ludicrous part of this story is not the picture, it is a falsehood for sure but it’s a somewhat understandable one. The silly part is that the picture is praised in terms of the comments, one person said “Beautiful” another offered the word “Stunning”. They know this person, they realise they are bolstering a falsehood yes? Those were my initial thoughts, but then I realised something, they are doing this very thing so that it can be done back to them. They are playing along with a falsehood so that when it is their turn that person will play along with them papering over their cracks and airbrushing their warts. It’s a collective bullshit appreciation society for the sole purpose of protecting feelings on a mass scale. What have we become?
A certain amount of fooling yourself is a good thing, giving your life meaning and purpose and validity is a good thing, but seeking false validity and wishing to have an equal status for your lack of effort when compared with those that have suffered and sacrificed for the purpose of their betterment, has a cruelty built into it, it is a crabs in a bucket mentality (no crab gets free, as soon as they get close to freedom another drags them back). The person who engages in self improvement is the one who should be praised, the person who has gained the diploma, who has the gym body, who is good at taking the free kicks, they deserve the praise.
It is only when encouraging people who are on a journey, but not yet there so to speak, that we should offer praise. We should not offer praise for the sake of feelings, else it has no meaning, and this is what is happening. Who says that they love you means nothing when everyone says they “love you bye” (a radio one affect), who tells you you have done well or gives you an award means noting if everyone is told the same, a prize means nothing when all get prizes etc. If we keep telling people they are smart and beautiful and funny and valid they won’t become smart and beautiful and funny and valid. I saw a woman on breakfast tv claiming to be a fitness instructor and she was at least 20St in weight, I watched a non-qualified doctor have her own TV show about health matters where she presented herself as Dr as if she had gained a medical qualification (she had not), I’ve seen very unfit soldiers at recruiting stations younger than I was when I left.
These things are ludicrous and the result of not telling people the truth. I’ll grant you that “ugly” and “unattractive” is subjective, but “obese” and “fit” and “healthy” are measurable quantities, so my initial statement can be wrong. I would contend that healthy is aligned with attractive in an evolutionary way however, it is no accident that the healthy body individual is desired by more persons than the unhealthy type, this is because of the possibilities of long term nurture, readiness of breeding, and likeliness of passing on health to offspring. Now that’s not a rule, but it is an observable phenomenon all over the globe barring a few places for some reasons that are also observable.
I’m not trying to suggest that people should not be however they wish to be, just that it is not a good thing to continue to validate people to be less than they could be so that they feel better than they should feel about being the way they are, and more importantly such actions take away the praise that people who have endeavoured to be the best they can be. Seek your praise in other ways, or dispense with the need of it at all like I do, after all I write a blog than nobody reads lol.
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