Behind The Image; Liked

So this was taken on my 15th birthday. I forced my little sister to take a photo of me before we went out to my birthday dinner. And why did I want my photo taken? Great question. Back then, all I knew was what I wanted. And I wanted was to be Facebook Famous.

In order to get that, I needed a new ‘hot profile pic.’ So I tried really hard to get one. I wanted an image of myself so hot/sexy/likeable that it would reach 100+ likes. Yes. You heard that right. That was my mindset.

I was obsessed with ‘likes’. Well, really, I was obsessed with the idea of being liked by others. I somehow managed to convince myself that when I was ‘Facebook Famous’ I would forever be happy. I figured, the more people that clicked ‘like’ on my photos, the more people actually liked me in real life. Pretty simple right? To be Facebook Famous meant everyone liked you. Girls wanted to be your friend, boys wanted to date you. Everyone talked about you, watched you, stalked you, wanted to be you. It was my dream at 15. Well actually, since I can remember…

I dreamed of being one. I studied them, I envied them, I put in a lot of effort to be one of them. And this photo kind of symbolises the start of it all.

So here I was, at 15, forcing my little sister to take a picture of myself in a revealing crop (of which I didn’t wear out of the house) and with a massive push up bra (we talking +2 cup sizes). And this photo would have taken at least 30 minutes of shooting, to find the right white background, to check my posing, to yell some more at my sister for not ‘doing it how I wanted’. The whole process of photo taking back then was for one purpose: to get likes. Obviously at the time I don’t think I even thought about it that much. But hey, 30 minutes of shooting yourself and trying to look sexy isn’t just to ‘feel good’… it’s to make other’s think you ‘look good’.

But anyway, I uploaded it, with what I can remember a caption along the lines of ‘yaaaay it’s my birthday, attention to me, look at my boobs in contrast to my waist and happy smile, I’m so happy right here next to this white wall in my house, forcing my sister to take photos of me, please please validate my existence by pressing like. I just want to feel valued and my appearance is all I think will give me that sense of social approval.’

Okay obviously I didn’t write that. Imagine if I did?! Probably wouldn’t have been that funny… Definitely would not have got as many likes.

So I uploaded the photo and went to dinner with my family. All night I kept checking on my pink flip phone for ‘how it was doing’. In case you aren’t social media obsessed yourself, what I mean by this is constantly checking how many likes were rolling in.  Yes, obsessively refreshing my new photos was a serious hobby of my time. Actually, it was a serious hobby for a lot people in my life. Girls would upload together and have sleepovers revolving around ‘watching their photos’. People would gossip about likes at school, over text, to teachers, to parents… ‘She got 200 likes, she’s basically a model now’. ‘I can’t believe he only gets like 4 likes a photo, it’s embarrassing’ ‘ look at her photos, she looks nothing like that in person’ ‘she’s such a try hard’ ‘she’s so weird’ ‘she’s so fake’ ‘she’s so boring.’

Now for this photo, I remember the night very clearly… it was the first time I got a lot of likes and a lot of comments. Older guys were commenting. Hot guys from my school even. Cool girls were liking, even some Facebook famous ones. I felt like I was in. This meant I was finally getting accepted into this realm I dreamed of. I remember getting home and thinking how crazy it was that I was getting 50+ likes in only a few hours. ‘Can you believe it? These people like me!!’

I feel like we may need to cover some more context, so you can maybe understand how this whole idea of likes = happiness came about in my mind.  So when did I first start idolising social media famous girls? At 12, so 2008. There was this one girl, we will call Katy. She went to my school and was 2 years older than me. Katy, ahh well, she was the most popular, cool, fun girl I’d ever seen. She was everything I wanted to be; liked by everyone, confident, sporty, her hair was always straightened perfectly with extensions (she had naturally curly hair like me), and yes all the boys in her grade (actually the whole school) would joke around with her. See, Katy was the kind of girl who everyone loved. She laughed with the teachers, she surfed, she got 1st place in cross-country, she played soccer and was the captain, I think she even played the guitar too. She had a gorgeous boyfriend. He was a surfer too. He planned extravagant dates for her. They took gorgeous photos together. He picked her up from school in his car… meanwhile I had never even kissed a boy. Katy had a big home, expensive first car; her family was clearly wealthy, while mine was struggling back then, both with the new divorce and financially. Anyway, I knew all of this because she took amazing pictures. I felt like I knew everything about her and her perfect little life.

I wanted everything she portrayed online: she was always happy, tanned, with a close group of girlfriends, liked by everyone…and of course she was Facebook Famous. Everyone talked about her. And I at 12? I was non-existent. I felt like I was nothing compared to her. I thought I was boring, lame and weird. Since 11, I pushed away my parents; I hated them for failing us in terms of marriage. My close friends weren’t popular… so I resented them too. No one knew my name. Everyone knew Katy’s name. I remember looking at photos of her in bikini, filling out her top perfectly, smiling and kissing her gorgeous boyfriend. She was everything I thought I wasn’t. At 12 I didn’t have a boyfriend, all the boys at school teased me for my height. No one desired me. And I thought, ‘why would they?’ Everyone desired Katy. I envied her. I couldn’t understand why she had it so easy. How is this fair? I dreamt what it would be like to be her, even just for a day. I thought she was literally the dream girl living the dream life. ‘When I’m as popular, slim, sporty, tanned, pretty, famous as her… then I’ll be happy.’

Now let’s talk about 12 year old Essena; I wasn’t cool. And by that mean, no one ‘cool’ liked me, only some teachers, and my other ‘not so cool’ friends.

At 12 I was 5’8. To lay it out for you, I was a good head taller than ALL OF THE OTHER BOYS and of course every girl in my grade, and even the year above. That was what I was known for at 12 years of age. “That really tall girl”. “Yeah that really big one above the rest”. “She looks like she’s meant to be in 3 grades above” “I feel sorry for you, it must be so hard being so big”… And how could I forget, “Gi-gantor”, that was my least favourite nickname. I remember my first crush called me that. I cried alone in the toilets all lunch.

But you have to understand I didn’t just feel tall. I felt big. You know those cute lanky tall girls? That wasn’t me. I was never naturally slim or ‘tiny’. In fact, my family and friends told me I was just ‘solid’. “Essena you just have a solid build, nice strong legs”. Now at 12, the word ‘solid’ was synonymous with pretty much ‘you are verging on chubby and arguably muscly. No guy would ever like you because you are a giant with giant legs.’ That is how I saw myself physically. I wasn’t tiny and cute. I was big and nerdy.

Oh yeah, I was obsessed with getting good grades. But there was a time where I just really enjoyed learning. I once loved school. In primary school I was a self-proclaimed nerd. This wasn’t at all a bad thing, but at the time, I thought it was pathetic. No one ‘popular’ or ‘cool’ or ‘hot’ at my school loved studying… But if I think back to all my media influence at the time, all my favourite pop singers, youtuber’s, actresses… no where did anyone say wanting to learn was cool. In my memory, caring about school wasn’t at all cool. You were meant to get good grades to impress people, not for enjoyment.

I went from enjoying learning and being creative as a child, to changing everything about me. I desperately wanting social approval. So I did what I had to do. I got straight A’s while acting like I didn’t care, wearing makeup everyday since I was 12, dressing older, trying to be sexy, being loud, being sarcastic…I saw the attention Katy got and wanted it bad. So very bad. And I got it. I succeeded. Katy seemed like the ideal person, so I became her.

And I just realised this for the first time typing this out. By the time she graduated in 2012, I was her. I became Katy 2.0. I was the perfect person on screen. By Year 11 (2013, therefore two years after this picture was uploaded), I was ‘social media famous’ beyond everyone in my town. I was still a straight A student, I had a close set of popular friends, the hot guys of my area were asking me out. Everyone in school knew who I was. Actually, I was known by most people in my small town. I had the perfect body. I had the perfect hair. I did my makeup perfectly well. I was always tanned. I was sporty without trying (this was the new trend). I was gossiped about. I had all the attention I had ever dreamed of and more. And… I had never been more miserable in my life.

I was a living paradox of conditional self-love and constant self-hate. What do I mean by conditional self-love? I liked myself based on how tight and toned my body was, how pretty my hair and makeup was, how hot the guy I was talking to was, how happy I looked in photos, how many people liked my photos… my whole idea of self worth revolved around my appearance and my social media status. Basically, my self worth relied on social approval.

I had all the qualities I envied in Katy. But no one ever told me that relying on things as shallow and contrived as popularity and appearance made you feel this… empty. Insecure, lonely, hateful, jealous…

People told me I was hot. So I had to remain hot. People told me I was funny. So I kept being sarcastic and ‘funny’ at the expense of others. People told me how inspiring I was online, so I had to keep that up too. I was obsessed with being liked. So I became obsessed with myself, narcissistic I would argue. And let me tell you, that will make you incredibly, incredibly lonely.

This photo therefore represents when everything started for me… I will talk more about what it was like to be ‘social media famous’ in upcoming Behind the Image posts. But I’ll leave you with an after thought.

After thought

I started writing this over a month ago. It was through this process of recalling my life at 12 that I realised not much has really changed since. Through uncovering the past shame I felt for who I was at 12, I realised my present obsession with my appearance and social media. I realised how conditional my self-worth still is. Craving attention validated through social media I believe shows a gap in real life connections. I realised I have created a celebrity construct of myself with ideals very very similar to that of Katy. I out did her. I wanted to be valued and I sought value through social media. I promoted myself in an artificial way. I have created an image of myself that a lot of young girls will look at and think, ‘ I can only be happy if I look like her, as tall, as thin, as popular, as successful, as well travelled, as confident’….  I read these comments on my photos most days. I used to think, ‘not my problem, I’m just being myself.’

But I wasn’t being myself. I didn’t even realise I wasn’t until 2 weeks ago. I don’t like taking pictures of myself without makeup or a cute outfit… as in, what’s the point of a photo if I don’t look great? I wore a lot of makeup in most my videos and posts over the last 6 months. I also kept buying a lot of clothes. I liked having a lot of the latest trends. I liked people complementing me on how cool I looked. All my new clothes were really tight, figure showing, short, sexy. Uncomfortable. Essena at home doesn’t do her hair and makeup or wear tight clothes. Essena at home wears comfy loose stuff, hair natural and face bare. So why put so much more effort for my photos, videos and going out of my house? Who am I trying to please? If my life is so real… why do I feel the need to change my natural state?

I don’t really talk about what I truly love online. I don’t talk about my weird, emotional, music that makes me feel. I don’t creatively write or do art anymore. I rarely talk about the ted talks, the books or the documentaries that are controversial. I talk about what everyone else talks about. And when I went vegan I felt accepted and safe talking about that stuff. But being my true self, someone I have supressed since 12, is foreign to me. I don’t really know who she is. I can only remember her in glimpses.

Turns out, I’m still that insecure 12 year old that shames herself daily for not being enough. I repeat these thoughts; I’m too different, no one will understand me, no one feels this way, I shouldn’t care like this, I shouldn’t care this much, I’m too emotional, I’m too weak, I think too much, I contradict myself, I don’t make sense, I’m stupid, I’m boring, I’m overwhelming, I’m too intense, I’m cliché, I’m unoriginal.

I could go on and on. And I’m sure you could too. How easy is it to go into shame stories?

So really I’m not all that together. Not at 12, definitely not when this picture was taken and certainly not now. I can’t be present; I have a hard time being content, relaxed and judgement free. And I realised this is because I continually judge myself.

In order to really get to know myself, I’ve stripped myself of distractions. For the last two weeks I’ve:

• Gone completely makeup free.
• Turned my phone physically off for the first week, then out of reach the following week
• No social media, no YouTube videos without core messages, no TV, no movies, no magazines, no radio, no Facebook scrolling. No viewing anyone else online. A break from obsessing and watching and comparing and useless scrolling. No modern media unless from an educational perspective.
• 45 minutes of light exercise every second day; yoga, walk, jog. Getting in touch with my physical body for it’s movements and feeling – not pure aesthetics.
• 15 minutes of mediation. Yep that’s trying not to think for 15 minutes. I do a guided one on YouTube, but basically it’s just deep breathing with no thoughts; focusing on your breath, and gently sending away any thought that comes to mind.

Living through screens is not real life. It was suffocating me and all my creativity, passion, purpose, ability to love and ability to feel human connection.

And then just like that I decided I don’t need social media at all. So I quit everything.  . I can’t tell you how free I feel. Never again will I let a number define me. Not because I had 500,000 followers, I felt the same as a young girl, I would just spend hours looking at everyone else’s perfect lives and I strived to make mine look just as good… Guess I succeeded. And how completely idiotic. Everyone’s doing it. We just keep putting up staged photos in desperate hopes others will approve. I have a lot to learn… but I am enough. Right here, right now, I am enough. I don’t have to be or do anything, I am already everything I want to be… it lives inside of me. Not on a screen.

[November 4, 2015]