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I CAN’T PINPOINT when or why exactly it started, but Instagram and the current trend of people we might follow running a highlight reel at the end of each month are stealing any ounce of joy left in my life.
The posts always start around the first of each month and do a recap of the previous weeks. They usually have some holiday pics, glamorous evenings, expensive new purchases and endless captions about how amazing and fulfilling the month was, the targets they smashed and how excited they are for the next month.
At the other end of the scale, I barely register the end of the month and need four or five days to adjust to the new one, mentally calculating each time how far away Christmas is.
I might be feeling fairly proud that I didn’t forget a bin collection last week, or I have found a sandwich filler that my kids will actually eat at lunch, and then I scroll past something which upends me.
What am I doing wrong? What kind of jobs do these people have? Where can I apply? Social media is supposed to be an easy way to pass five minutes with some empty mindlessly scrolling. It’s not supposed to make me feel terrible about where I am in life. I actively go out of my way to avoid anything that makes me feel terrible.
I Marie Kondo’d my feed last year and removed almost every influencer. I unfollowed and muted anyone who was intent on only showing perfection. I don’t need that in my life. It doesn’t bring any joy. It only brings misery. I mean, good for them, but also, no thank you.
I don’t want to compare myself to someone whose job is to look perfect.
Since social comparison theory first emerged in 1954, it has been argued that humans have an innate drive to make evaluations about themselves based on comparison with others. It makes sense that we would need to know who has the most resources, or who might pose a significant threat.
And for previous generations, this might not have meant much. My grandparents might have snuck a look over their neighbour’s fence to see how the other half lived, but I can see inside wardrobes, fridges and cupboards. I see people prepare breakfasts decorated with colourful fruits and flowers, while I sit bleary-eyed over a bowl of Rice Krispies. I get to watch the family vacations, but only the small snippets of everyone smiling and laughing. We share so much more with each other through social media, and it’s only ever the good stuff.
When our parents were parenting, they had no idea about how other people were living and they also had much more realistic standards. They might have seen the odd glimpse of the ideal and ‘perfect’ family life through TV shows but it was always very clear that this was scripted, and filmed on a set, and that no one actually was expected to live like this. No one was hot glueing their own Halloween decorations.
In fact, I don’t remember a single Halloween decoration! All the kids were black bin bag witches with sooty noses, all of the sweets came from the local shop, and everyone used the white plastic bags to carry their sweets.
I am usually good at spotting things that have been filtered or designed to make me feel inadequate so that I buy something. But we have to remember that there is a sneaky little algorithm at work behind it all, and it knows how to draw me back in, every single time.
Parenting. More specifically, if I am doing enough for my kids.
I just want them to have a happy childhood, with lovely memories to think back. But no matter how much I do, everyone else seems to do so much more. And they have the nerve to make it look so effortless.
My feeds are filled with ‘spooky snack ideas’ and ‘how to create a Halloween balloon arch for your front door’. Who has this the time, in all honesty? And the worst part, the absolute very worst part, is that it works. Every single time.
I spent my Saturday sticking 70-something Halloween bats up along our stairs (if our landlord is reading this, no I didn’t). All because I saw a video of an influencer from The States, and her staircase was like something from a movie set. Before I was even aware of what was happening, I had bought the items on Amazon.
The chain of misery reminds me of when I was first using the internet, back in the early 2000s using dial-up on a monstrous device in the kitchen. Inboxes were filled with chain mail. You remember them, forward to 15 people or something terrible will happen. It’s like we have come full circle back to these.
Someone makes a post, I feel like a terrible parent and worry my kids will have a brutal childhood if I don’t follow suit, I stick bats around the house till my fingers bleed, post the picture on my story where it targets other unsuspecting parents, and the cycle continues. I have forwarded the chain mail.
I always forwarded them back in the day too, just in case. So I really don’t know why I have all of this adult anxiety.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who isn’t waking up at 5 am to run 5K, blend a smoothie, make the kids a fresh organic breakfast and sing like the von Trapps as we head out the door. I feel like the only parent struggling to explain a housing crisis to my kids. I feel like the overwhelming thoughts of climate change and the kind of world we are leaving to our kids are mine alone.
World Mental Health Day is coming up on Tuesday 10 October, and I am going to use this one as an NCT. Obviously not the kind of NCT that ruins my mental and financial health, but one to just check in on how I am doing. Because if I’m not aware of my own weaknesses, then the algorithm will get me every time. And while panic buying 764 bats with express delivery might not appear on any list of symptoms, it’s probably something I should explore.
I don’t compare myself to influencers in an everyday sense, and I shouldn’t compare my parenting either.
I don’t want to make decisions from a place of feeling inferior. I don’t want to live a life of consumerism in a time of climate crisis (and I promise to reuse every single bat, each year, for as long as the planet will have me). I don’t have the answers for how we manage the impact of social media, or how to move towards portraying more authentic lives, and maybe we never will.
I know it’s easy to say ‘shut the phone down, delete the apps’ and that’s a fair point. Believe me, I’ve done it and held on for some time until the FOMO creeps in or there’s some reason to check in on something. I’m working on it, but for now, I can pay more attention to what I am looking at and the impact it has on me. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to lose my credit card for a few weeks, at least until Halloween and dare I say, Christmas madness passes.
Margaret Lynch is a busy, working mum of two, living in Kildare and wondering if Adulthood is really for her.
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Instead of criticising him, how about we applaud the fact he made such an embarrassing admission and is taking steps to correct it. There are many bigots who say things like “AIDS is god punishing the gays”. If you’re in that bubble it’s not surprising that you don’t have all the facts. There is nothing wrong with his proposal to raise general awareness instead of just awareness for most vulnerable groups. The campaign could do both.
Yes, I agree, however he represents those who vote for him?
Does he also know that men cant get pregnant ?
They can’t? My belly has been slowly getting bigger for years. What the hell could it be?
@Dessie Curley: Have you seen the film ‘Alien’?
The DUP ladies and gentlemen.
@Cillian McCormick: If this is indicative of the DUP, we could do with some of that down south!
When was the last time you saw any politician or political party admit their flaws and humbly acknowledge their mistakes?
Stubborn ignorance has been a prevailing mentality for far too long and people throwing stones at his former ignorance, well, their glass houses must be pretty drafty at this point.
In this day and age this is quite amazing but fair play. Hopefully it will start a conversation about HIV and sexual persuasions.
He must be from the Healy Rae school of scientific thought
Does he know the Earth isn’t flat?
Wow just wow
Waterford whispers news must be kicking themselves having missed such a gem of a headline. The mind truly boggles.
What rock was this guy under the last 20 year…..you can be sure he wasent stuck for company under that rock…….we have the biggest rock in the world looks like in the cabbage patch
Wow! More Brains in a Turnip
Ignorance personified
Their party only knows bigotry. So of course he didn’t, not even news.
Some truth in that very few heterosexual men will get hiv
@joe Do you have a link for that claim?
There’s millions of infected heterosexual men infected in the developing world
It does effect gays disproportionately
Your comment makes u as ignorant as him
From the article above: “He argued against an amendment to the proposal put forward by People Before Profit MLA Eamonn McCann. McCann had proposed that the campaign stressed the disproportionate impact of HIV on gay and bisexual men.”
*affect
@Colm O’Connor: maybe colm but they didn’t contract it by having sex with women.
@Anthony Healy Poroloniczak: ignorance is a lack of knowledge. So I will pass on some knowledge to you. Men very rarely contract HIV by having sex with women, that is a fact. Feel free to show your ignorance by denying this.
@joe please show a link to where you got that information.
@Maurice: It isn’t an attack on homosexuals to say that. It’s a fact. 46% of new HIV cases in Europe are in the set of MSM. Men that have sex with men. https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.drugs.ie/resourcesfiles/ResearchDocs/Ireland/2015/HSE_HIV_2014.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjxyJCIodDQAhWmKMAKHXQuD4MQFggnMAE&usg=AFQjCNE_grIWQLI2YghrRU1-XLLF_pEdgA&sig2=BTXDDmc4647hBS8Ssfo4bw
49% of new cases in Ireland are in the MSM group. Gay men should already know this. It’s not gay bashing to say this. If you are gay and don’t believe this then you are in denial.
@Maurice Bourke:
There’s lots of studies with but the numbers seem to support the view that there’s less risk for the man in a hetro relationship
http://www.catie.ca/en/pif/summer-2012/putting-number-it-risk-exposure-hiv
@hugh @joe. I wasn’t going to accuse anyone of gay bashing. I like to ask for links when someone makes a claim that sounds dubious, nothing more.
They do Joe. Any kind of abrasion or damage to skin or mucus membranes is an entry point for for the virus and while it’s less likely that a man will be infected by a woman it can and does happen. Mouth ulcers, STIs, BDSM practices are all additional risk factors.
No you wouldn’t and no she wouldn’t. Be careful out there.
BREAKING NEWS: DUP politician admits to being an ignorant thick.
Oh, dear. Deary dear oh dear..
HIV is a disease?
I thought it was a trucker license.
In the developed world it is predominantly a gay disease. Lets not ignore the statistics and treat the disease like the common cold, it has made a comeback among younger gay men in recent years.
Whenever I hear the word sodomy I get this song stuck in my head for days. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulb0pLBgRCw
What the…..?
The film is Meet the Feebles. It was directed by none other than Peter Jackson before he hit the big time.
https://youtu.be/fH_4Zt6kokk The horrors of war and drug addiction.
@jumperoo: Bet you it’s in your head now.
@Hugh Mannatee: Your doing it wrong if it starts playing music?
S#!t kicker
The importance of sex education
To me this confirms one of my theories. There is a substantial portion of the Irish Population (and possible other populations) and their politicians who are a thick as planks. (more in keeping with the intelect of a crow than a person). They can get to comprehend comflex matters, but it takes them 30 to 40 times as long as me. If there is a particular emergency pushed on them, they will try to figure it out and this can abridge the time womewhat.
Their financial management system is “hold on to everything with a death’s grip” and try to persuade their relations to leave them goodies in their wills. This DUP one believes the AIDS virus is sexually sellective. I experience the same effect when I try to tell people wind energy is a scam and does not work at all. Its just an illegal subsidy racket. See valmartinireland you tube and the Irish Energy Blog (where I contribute)
The same in advising people not to buy newpapers and note to vote in elections. Its a fact of life, better get used to it.
@Val Martin: Yeah Val, I know someone who has the same issue when no one listens to him about Dinosaurs existing along side Humans.. It must be frustrating.
Shhh leave him alone and he’ll go back to telling NASA how stupid they are
I heard crows were quite smart Val.
Interesting off topic contribution there Val. But as you have raised it Denmark fares pretty well with wind energy.
Proposing an awareness campaign now he knows straight people can get it too. Ok for the gays to get sick though coz God hates fags.
It is almost impossible for a man to contract hiv from a woman since there is no transfer of fluid from woman to man. magic Johnson became hiv positive in 1991. since he said he was having sex with different women 3 or 4 times a day he said he got hiv from a women. cut to an expert. “impossible” the expert says. “statistically you’d have to have sex with over a million women to contract hiv” then magic Johnson admitted he had sex with men.
@Patrick Gough: No transfer of fluid from woman to man? What dried up women are you having sex with???
@Donal Martin: I’d say one of the highlights of Patrick’s sex life was when he go an inflatable sex doll for his birthday and immediately fell in love with it.
Don’t you put it in the belly button?
Not almost impossible Patrick. Just more difficult. See my comment in response to Joe O Hair
@ Patrick. I would say something but the stupidity of that comment speaks for itself.
@Patrick Gough: Patrick that is a dangerous thing to believe…
The birds and the bees Bible lesson???
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