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“Lemme take a selfie!” These four little words have taken over my generation. It seems like we can’t go through life without uploading a video to our Snapchat, checking in on Facebook, or counting how many times our tweet has been shared on Twitter. The same goes for Instagram. Every morning before I get out of bed, I scroll through the endless amount of pictures, most of which say, “I woke up like this.”
This always seems to agitate me. Especially when I see girl who looks like she just finished putting on her makeup and tossed her hair up in a messy bun. I always find myself thinking, “Oh really? You really woke up with flushed cheeks and perfectly curled hair? Yeah, no. Did you really just use #nofilter? Honey, don’t lie. I know Valencia when I see it.” And then I automatically regret this thought pattern.
Who am I to think these things? If you decided to go through my Instagram, you wouldn’t find one picture without a filter. Same with my Facebook and Twitter. I can’t help it! When I’m editing a picture on Instagram, I always choose the one that hides something. One that creates a shadow that hides a zit or another that makes my face look like I have a natural contour. I have never actually thought about not using a filter. It seems almost like a prerequisite to use a one.
This idea seems to carry over into other aspects of my life. I filter the pictures that I put on Facebook. I filter what I say on Twitter, what I wear every day, even the kind of phone case I buy. Why? I have always thought of myself as being fairly progressive in the way I view myself. This, of course, is a fairly new concept. When I was younger, I constantly looked at pictures of myself with my friends. I always considered myself the “fat friend.” I remember having a slight mental breakdown in sixth grade at my grandmother’s because I couldn’t find anything at Burlington Coat Factory that was in my size and age range. I was continuously bombarded with terms like “big-boned.” Even after accepting who I was as a plus size woman and becoming comfortable in my own skin, these quips would still eat away slowly at my self-esteem.
When I first started college, I remember thinking that I would never hear or think those things again. Boy, was I wrong. Just in my first semester, I was subjugated into others’ “filters” of me. I recall one night after having what I thought was heart-to-heart with another girl about our own personal body images and what we hoped guys thought about us, I had finally found someone who thought similarly. Instead, I heard “No, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I mean, you have a pretty face. You’ll find someone eventually.”
At the time, I just laughed it off. Now, looking back, I had went through another filter. This time, I came out of the ever churning image filter as the plus-size girl that had a pretty face. I didn’t hear anything about my personality, just how I looked. That got me to thinking. How many times have I filtered someone? Unfortunately, quite often. I would like to say I’m a completely innocent party and that I have never judged someone purely on appearance, but that would simply be a lie.
Now when I go through my Instagram and see a hashtag saying “no filter” or “I woke up like this” I make sure to give it a double tap. Maybe she actually did wake up like that! There is always that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me different, but who knows? Instead, I have decided to opt for a filter-less perspective on life. So maybe I still think about what others are going to say about my eyeliner and shoes. Who cares? It is not how they put me through their filter, but how I see myself through mine.
**Previously featured and received over 100 views at Thinmintspiration!
Love,
Heldie