On Being Perceived

Being 'ugly hot', restricting friends, and hating having a high screentime count.

There’s a nauseating appeal to being online. As a child of the Internet, I can’t say I fully hate it without feeling like a hypocrite. I went through years of growing up with Neopets, MySpace, and (god bless) LiveJournal by my side. I remember being 9 and having my parents set up a Neopets account for me. At the time, it seemed like a magical, mind-boggling invention. ‘Wow, am I really connecting with users from all over the world on this space, Dad?’ I asked, sparkly-eyed, as I chose a Blue Scorchio as my first pet and named it “Sparkles998” due to a shortage of available usernames.

The Internet turned into my playground of choice and what endless possibilities it showed. I feverishly changed my MSN Messenger status to reflect the mood of whatever form of rage or misery I was going through. I downloaded music off LimeWire and burned playlists on CDs for my then boyfriend. I read manga on CrunchyRoll and bought things off Etsy. I learned how to put on liquid eyeliner from Michelle Phan’s tutorials. And in an unexpected twist, I grew into an aspiring entrepreneur, a person who regularly uses Instagram to market my products and to connect with my community.

Safe to say, the act of expressing and being perceived isn’t unfamiliar to me. And till today, I understand the joy of using the Internet ironically (and unironically) to express an idea or a thought. I’m guilty of loving the art of taking mirror selfies to show outfits or looks I’ve put together. A fair amount of nihilist memes can tickle me. Closeness in a friendship or a relationship is usually demonstrated through sending content on every platform there is out there.

There’s something so visually appealing and candid about the way Gen-Zs capture effortless low-res images and even artistic shots of themselves looking bad. Because what’s a bad angle if you can somehow turn it into art? What’s cooler than showing that, fuck it, I’m truly okay with being perceived in the rawest ways possible? When I started thinking of ways to make my hereditary dark circles fashion during the pandemic, I knew I was either a genius or losing it (surprise: it proved to be the latter).

It’s fascinating to see how there are so many ways of telling a narrative, be it through images, videos, or words. Even in ‘bad art’ or ‘cringy content’, there’s something to discover. This is why TikTok works so well as a medium, and why tryhard corporate content usually doesn’t fly. In a world where we’re all exhibitionists, authenticity is still palpable. We have to show who we are without trying too much. We’re all suckers for low-effort and genuine content. Social media is the best, quickest way there is to connect and express on the go. And to nobody’s surprise, it’s also incredibly toxic.

With half-interest, we click on the circles of people we know on IG every day to see what they’re up to. On the surface, it’s an innocuous and reasonably lovely (if not nosy) idea to want to see how people we know are doing, but not at the frequent rate we subject ourselves to. I’d argue that there’s no beauty when there’s no mystery; many years of being on Twitter, now rather ominously called ‘X’ would tell you that. It’s like being locked in a 2-room apartment with your family over the festive season and realizing that as much as you love being together, you’re also gradually losing your mind.

And yet, we do it anyway. We watch the IG stories of people we know. We regurgitate content and we’re quick to use popular catchphrases to describe the entirety of what we’re going through. “He’s gaslighting me.” “She’s a narcissist for sure.” “That’s so Libra of her.” There’s almost a lack of depth from the labels we’ve created for everyone and everything. For every situation we go through in our lives, there’s a multi-static IG post or a TikTok to school us on the best next steps to take. In my mind, it’s maddening and detrimental to our development as human beings to be hand-held throughout this journey all the way.

I’ve noticed that whenever my mental state deteriorates, my screen time goes up too. Maybe it’s because when things get bad, there’s rarely an interest in doing anything except mindlessly scrolling through the Internet in search of the next dopamine hit. But what’s for sure is that it does little to help with the anxiety.

We watch the Stories of people we know and we post Stories too, to share but also to shape a narrative of who and what we actually are or what we hope we are. We feel like we know people based on their social media when really, we don’t. There’s an entitlement there that’s scary. You see, real life rarely works based on just projections. Like with all things good, the art of getting to know anyone at all takes actual time to build in intensity, nuance, and character.

2023 is the year that I gradually started removing people I no longer have any connection with and the year where I started using the ‘Mute’ and ‘Hide’ buttons liberally. I’ve also started restricting people if ‘the vibes aren’t vibin’. It’s rarely ever truly personal, or maybe it entirely is — I’d just like to think that there’s no point in giving access to people when there’s no real connection to begin with, and I’m not sure I can see people the same way again after getting to know where they stand politically or after being entrusted to Close Stories I never signed up for.

Am I weird? Yes. Are we all weird? Yes. Will everybody truly be able to like that? No. Maybe because we’re all messy in our own ways, and being intimate with others about that is something that should be somewhat earned. I don’t have to subject it to everybody, and I get that. We don’t have to like everybody, because we can’t and it isn’t sustainable to do so anyway. Maybe because being in my 30s has helped me shed the fear of being disliked a little more.

Running a fairly popular art brand on IG has also thwarted my own sense of perception and self-worth. When things got personally bad for me this year, I found that I was hit with a strong desire of wanting to do nothing. I did not want to create, and this wasn’t encouraged on the Internet. Truth is, I couldn’t be funny or creative, not even if I tried. But I knew the algorithm would be unforgiving and that this would take a toll on my brand, so I tried anyway. I felt like this half-hearted effort showed pretty obviously in my work, and it left me feeling guilty and embarrassed like I wasn’t as good as some people put me out to be.

Choosing not to post as often has affected my algorithm in bad ways. I’m sure I’m still suffering from less visibility and losing followers, but a small part of me hopes that the true ones will stick around for the ride anyway and understand that I’m not here just for the Likes.

So what’s the point of this rather long and strange rant? I don’t have any wisdom to trade-off here. I wish I did. As much as I wish I could move to a faraway country and start a new life sans social media, that isn’t practical in the least. There are pains in being perceived but it’s hard to ask for an ‘out’ when this is the game. The reality is you can’t exit the game entirely. As much as I hold resentment towards the Internet, it is also my bread and butter in my career as a content creator and writer. And hell does it feel weird to not want to reveal too much yet wanting to stay relevant at the same time.

Maybe one day something more profound can be had from all of this. But till then, you’ll still find me online.