On the "Fakeness" of Social Media

Yesterday I came across a very insightful post on r/MakeupRehab, titled "A thought on the fakeness of Instagram..." It's a long post, so I won't quote it in full, but the writer argues that successful Instagrammers like her sister, women whose posts feature them "in trendy places in even trendier outfits," perpetuate an internalized misogyny that filters down to the social-media accounts of ordinary women: It's so absolutely drilled in our heads that we have to be PERFECT at all times. On social media, we never post when we get dumped. We never show ourselves when we splurge on makeup because we had a bad day. We never show when we fail that exam, or have a fight with our partners, or are so depressed we can't leave bed. We never show ourselves eating that third bag of cheetos on the couch. We never show when we fail. And we never show ourselves listening to our favorite songs or holding our loved ones or laughing with a friend and feeling something...