I heard someone compare Instagram to a fridge, you know what you’re going to find inside but you still just have to look. As we scroll through our feed thinking — How is she able to afford this every day? Or how is she in Bali again? and why my best friend isn’t catching a flight because I’m upset. Hell, even my dog doesn’t cuddle with me the way it looks cute on Instagram with sappy music.

If we follow social media, everyone is happy. There is a constant need to candy paint life, experiences, get-togethers, objects, and jobs. But in reality, we are a generation of unhappy people trying so hard to play pretend of ‘seeming happy’ on the internet, and it’s all getting supercharged through Instagram. Apparently, the world altogether skipped to the good part without ever showing the real side of things.

And Instagram is no place for normalcy, it’s a place of extravagance and false targeting by advertisers. Because who knows what these influencer posts are trying to tell us but the feeling that ‘I am not good enough or living a lesser life’ is universal and has settled comfortably in our mental real estate. The not so bad news is that everyone is living a lesser life based on who you’re comparing it with and social media is that window to the world we aren’t a part of and the party we didn’t get an invite to, that, to be honest looks pretty amazing.

So what if it’s a micro influencer’s barter deal with a high-end restaurant that got her and four of her friends into that place. We choose to pick the narrative that makes our life look malnourished. Sure, social media has taught us hundreds of ways to find happiness, but all that learning has also pinpointed hundreds of things we don’t own or can’t have.

And now that social media has acquired a central place in the architecture of our head, brands and businesses want a piece, by sneaking in a suffocating quota of marketing messages into our feeds. What is sad is that how our idea of self-love is also embedded with a carefully worded sales pitch. Take ‘Me time’ for example and how social media has raided the idea to plug-in products. ‘Me time’ isn’t a staycation in your own city in some Xyz hotel, it is simply doing what you love or just being with someone you love.

You’d think now people would wake up to this realization and accept vulnerability or celebrate honesty at last but no, the capitalist inflicted aestheticization has pushed us further and faster into this race to the unicorns and rainbow world.

So now we are marketing ourselves and we are the brand managers of our ‘always happy, YOLO’ type online personas and profile aesthetics. And the jungle juice with brands, influencers, and everyone’s individual best has knocked down other ways in giving meaning or judging our lives.

I have witnessed first-hand how Instagram has given us new standards to judge our lives and that takes so much away from real moments, experiences, and sadly life as a whole. No matter how happy our loved ones are making us feel or how hard they tried to put together party decorations, Is it Instagramable?

Social media is the best of everyone’s individual world and you know, you can’t compete with everyone’s best and you should in no way discount your own blessings because of that. As much as it sounds like a support group talk, taking social media seriously will only make you unhappy, a troll, or a victim of burnout, take your pick!