Today, every activity we do online has taken over on an absolutely superficial meaning, one that outlines our thirst for being accepted on social media in this generation. At some point, we are all found guilty with wanting to fit in with the “cool kids”, but this obsession has driven some teens to go out of their own way in order to become someone else’s role model or as they would like to call it these days: “life goals”.
It all seems like another innocent trend to post pictures on Instagram that could get you a tonne of likes, but what we failed to observe is how teenagers are spending tremendous amount of money that they cannot afford on taking pictures and selfies in order to impress their followers for about well… 10 seconds.
Whether it was purchasing photo editing apps that makes them look flawless, dressing up in clothes they cannot afford, going to expensive restaurants to order meals just to snap pictures of them or even doing activities solely for the sake of checking-in and looking cool in the eyes of their followers. Just the idea of looking like you live the good life is becoming the ultimate goal to achieve. It has clearly become an obsession for teenagers to act a certain way and speak a certain language in order to be valued among others. It has reached to a point where teens are completely reconstructing words such as “Bae”, “Goals” and “Slay” by changing their meaning just for the sake of feeling hip and trendy but, are they really achieving any “goals”?
Whether it was celebrities’ like Kim Kardashian that has marketed herself through her unique physical appearance or the famous Middle Eastern Entrepreneur Huda Kattan (Huda Beauty) who possess a true talent - all of those famous Instagrammers are playing a massive role in shaping the lives of those teenagers.
Teenagers now are dedicating themselves in building a world where being superficial is a major “key to success”. But what they do not realise is how they have been enslaved by social media, wasting time and money on things that don’t even make them truly happy. They strongly believe that the number of likes and followers they are getting on their Instagram pages is correlated to their self-worth. It is sad and narcissistic, but then again, what are we doing besides encourage this behaviour?
Locking yourself in a virtual world where looking at shiny and pretty things that seem happy is much easier than being real with yourself. We are unconsciously wasting our real lives away, heavily sedated by the idea of social approval and social status, disguising behind our social media and not knowing what we are without it: happiness based on vanity.
The writer is a media student with the Sharjah Higher College of Technology.
The International Government Communication Forum (IGCF), held in Sharjah, is an annual forum that shares global best practices in fields of government communication and aims to build a platform for better communication between governments and their citizens. This column is a collaborative effort with Gulf News featuring work by UAE-based students as part of that initiative.
