The Age of Envy
5 minute read
We’ve all been there… late at night, slightly catatonic from endless scrolling down a digital rabbit hole, on the page of someone we don’t know and will probably never meet, wondering how they managed to fit into those skinny jeans after just having a baby and why we don’t have a thigh gap? It’s what I like to call the social media vortex of toxicity – not too catchy, I know, but potent in its effects of low self-esteem with a side of anxiety.
We live in an age of envy. House envy, kitchen envy, food envy, parenting envy, holiday envy, hair envy, career envy… thigh-gap envy. Aristotle once defined it as ‘pain at the sight of other’s good fortune’, stirred by ‘those who have what we ought to have’ – it’s always existed but social media has just catapulted into our living rooms on a minute-by-minute basis making us all accessible for comparison.
We are bombarded with ‘photoshopped lives’ and while we know the narrative isn’t real, on an emotional level it still triggers us, especially when it throws a mirror up to what we aspire to but don’t have. We might start following certain accounts for inspiration only to end up envying the women and feeling worse about ourselves. It’s so easy to fall into a late-night scroll-a-thon to find yourself consumed by images of other people’s lives which cast our own to the soundtrack of ‘crappy existence’ or ‘could do better’.
I like to think I’m a fairly content person, confident and anchored to my values. Except that I’m not because I only need to see a total stranger’s before and after of their perfectly-curated home or a reel of someone’s trip to Cancun while I sit at my crumb-strewn keyboard surrounded by debris to get stirrings of failure and life envy. With mere weeks to Christmas my feed has exploded with homemade wreaths and perfect-looking puddings whizzed up in a matter of minutes with barely a whiff of overwhelm while I scramble to find the Christmas decorations for the non-existent tree.
I will remember that, despite a flood of Insta-worthy Christmas images, it is a time of year when plans go awry; at no other point of the year is there such a strong desire for everything to be perfect and when that desire is likely to be damned. People’s grip of the reins gets tighter, our inner control freaks get louder and we become obsessed with putting cute little crosses in Brussels sprouts at ridiculous hours of the night amped by Instagram ‘how-tos’. The reality is life is imperfect, messy and often, bloody hard work, especially at Christmas. Remember that when you’re watching a perfectly-manicured Millenial dusting a dozen ‘Masterchef’ mince pies.
We used to point the finger at magazines for perpetuating the unattainable lifestyle and beauty standards for women. Now, social media plays an even bigger role in how we see and value ourselves despite it having the same marionette strings behind it as magazine images; we shouldn’t expect any greater degree of transparency from it as a platform and yet we do. In its mere decade and a half of existence, social media has managed to create the world’s biggest ‘filtered’ talent show stage. We are comparing ourselves to optimised versions of others and what makes it worse is the ‘others’ are just like us, not some celebrity whose life always seems otherworldly and unattainable, which only serves to ramp up our personal comparison. But for every frameable photo of a woman in a bikini on a beach, turned to face the sunset, there are the hundreds of unposted vignettes of that woman at work, arguing with her partner, stressed about money, kids and whether her bum looks too big in that bikini from behind. We know that person has probably taken 150 photos before choosing the ‘best one’, that they’re serving up their ‘best side’ and yet so many of us are wracked with self-doubt after peering into the seemingly well-manicured lives of others.
And, despite the focus being on Generation Z, it’s arguably our generation of mid-lifers that bear the negative comparison most heavily. We are at an age where society has us believing we’re losing our beauty currency, we’re grappling with slowing metabolisms and younger versions of ourselves nipping at our ankles. Our self-esteem might be wobbly already and so we feel the grip of comparison more tightly than ever before. The more vulnerable we are to those messages, the worse the choices we make for ourselves, despite knowing much of it isn’t necessarily ‘real’. Such is the masochistic nature of social media – it hurts to look, and yet we can’t look away.
In her TED talk The Culture of Comparison Bea Arthur talks about how, when we experience FOMO (fear of missing out), our happiness becomes a target. When we grade ourselves and our choices against others we paralyse ourselves.
According to Arthur, when we align ourselves with our purpose and stay on our own track we live above the noise.
I remember being 10-years-old and feeling that FOMO when everyone in my class, bar one of my friends and I, got a cabbage patch doll. I pleaded with my dad who refused to succumb to the consumerist pressures.
My friend and I banded together in defiance claiming they were ‘ugly’ but the piercing envy, resentment and FOMO were bubbling below the surface. A few days later when our classmates bored of the dolls, there was a smug satisfaction of not having bent to fit in. Our parents had taught us a valuable lesson: we had, according to Bea Arthur, aligned ourselves and moved above the noise even if, at the time, we didn’t realise it. Of course, nowadays it’s harder to navigate the terrain when it’s coming at you from all angles. We live in a world in which everyone seems excited, ecstatic and #livingtheirbestlife and the paradox we face is whether we share enough highs to seem balanced and not boastful, share enough lows to seem humble but not at breaking point, and enough filtered moments to seem human but not unattractive. Exhausting, right? At the end of all that effort it all just feels inauthentic. We share the best of ourselves and feel even worse when we don’t measure up to the lives we’re showing and are left wondering what to do with the 20 perfect cupcakes once Instagram story is done.
But here’s the rub: Instagram might be a great place to discover new recipes and styling tips but it is not a tool for comparison or a road map for life; you cannot find your self-worth at the end of a scroll or the latest Birkin bag. Think of it like nutrition – you are what you eat and if you gorge on unhealthy content you’re likely to feel sluggish so change up the content and follow accounts which inspire and uplift you.
There is only one comparison that matters. Are you enough for you? If the answer is yes, time to put the phone away and get on with life. You can always opt-out and, thigh gaps are overrated anyway.
Orla Neligan, December 2021
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