What you see on social media is often fake.
The amount of deceit and dishonesty that encompasses parts of social media comes as no surprise. This inauthenticity is fueled even more into today’s society as social media continues to increase in popularity among various generations.
“Today’s culture is heavily impacted and influenced by social media. Practically everything we do revolves around it, whether it’s the newest trend or the center of discussion,” said Lucy Garibaldi.
Recently, the falsity of social media was further revealed with the TikTok ban that occurred on January 18th, which was omitted less than a day later.
Keep in mind that TikTok is not only used as a prominent platform for entertainment, pop culture, and news; the app is also utilized as a career path for numerous content creators.
A few days prior to the ban, many content creators revealed deep, dark secrets related to their content through a well-known trend: “Since TikTok is getting banned, there’s one more secret I feel I have to share with you…”
Believing that TikTok would be gone forever, creators took it as an opportunity to admit a lie they had been withholding from their audience. Some creators kept their secrets light-hearted, and others’ secrets exposed their posts just how susceptible one can be in believing whatever is on the internet.
“I think they think that social media is something to hide behind. Like ‘Oh since it’s getting banned I have nothing left to lose, I can just tell everybody this and nothing can go bad’. They don’t think about the consequences of faking it when social media is still going on,” said Shreya Konidana.
Famous TikTok creators who participated in the trend include Charli D’Amelio, Meredith Duxbury, Kaeli Mae, Tram Tran who is known by her username babydumplingg.
To give a few examples, fitness trainers came forward exposing how they rarely do their workouts or that they’ve gotten work done, mukbangers (such as Tram Tran) stated they don’t eat all the food in their videos, and makeup / skin-care influencers (such as Meredith Duxbury) revealed that exaggerating the products they use.
It’s clear that the idolization of social media compels fame-driven content creators to advertise what they want you to see, versus how things actually are, because it’s profitable.
However, promoting something unrealistic, even nonexistent, just to boost likes tempts people to fall down a rabbit hole of comparing themselves to others.
“It creates self-inflicted torment for no reason. You’re trying to compare yourself to something that’s not there,” said Milan Tak.
This creates a negative online environment, which is well-known to lead people to feel self-conscious about the way they look and the lifestyle they are living. Oftentimes, viewers are persuaded to change to match what they see praised on social media.
“Posts, likes, and comments can contribute to feelings of perfectionism, anxiety, and even body-negativity” according to Penn Medicine.
Those with a large platform on social media need to be aware of the detrimental effects, whether that be on someone’s mental or physical health, that can come from content that is illusory.
While inauthenticity online is still prevalent today, one should not be discouraged or afraid to be authentic and real on social media. This TikTok trend brought how much we need to foster transparency, in order to build a more positive community online.
