Facebook Perfection...

Gosh, I wish I had her hair, her body, her friends, her life.  How many times have you experienced or overheard this painful and ridiculous thought?  This phenomenon, which is often referred to as the grass-is-greener phenomenon, is prevalent in every community, in every country around the globe.  I can’t say I myself am innocent, I know I have thought it, I know I have said it out loud.   The “impression that others’ lives are happier and more successful than” yours is certainly not a unique thought (Szalavitz).  In Szalavtiz’s Time Magazine Article entitled “Misery Has More Company Than You Think on Facebook,” she tenderly addresses many areas of stress and sadness in young people especially that are often surprisingly overlooked by the media.  She sheds light on the elephant in the room, the strive to become perfect, and to do so effortlessly, obviously.

Facebook is a very public way to display your “perfect” life, your “perfect” friends, your “perfect” body, particularly since you can monitor and select what is to be seen.  You undoubtedly shape and modify your identity by what you choose to publically share on the World Wide Web.  But what is not captured on Facebook is the taxing effort and the recurrent feelings of inadequacy that accompany this attempt to achieve perfection, or at least to appear to have achieved perfection.  Facebook becomes an uphill battle, as your friends’ pages look like perfection. And for some reason, “other people’s happy[ness]..makes you feel sad” (Szalavtiz). 

So if your life isn’t perfect, like your friends’ lives appear to be on Facebook, other public arenas similarly constantly promote and provide ways to become “perfect.” Newspaper, magazine and internet headlines shout “Flatten Your Belly,”  “Best Diets,” “Top 10 Best Bikini Bodies,” “Celeb Fitness Secrets,” “Shocking Biggest Loser Transformations!,” “This Could be You” (with a “perfect” moment in time captured by the camera) and the list goes on and on as these headlines suggest possible ways to make your appearance, and thus your life, effortlessly perfect.  My personal favorite is the iconic obese, miserable girl with acne that has now reinvented as the six-pack endowed, beautiful babe, who now has not a worry in the world, by some magic potion.  The juxtaposition of “perfection” and, for lack of a better word, imperfect is often skeptically drastic and unrealistic.  Yet, society today still promotes this strive to be effortlessly perfect.  Duke’s community does it, my hometown does it, my friends do it, my classmates do it, and I know I personally do it.  Yet, it is impossible.  No matter what way you say it, what way you put it, no one is perfect and no one should strive to be.  And although it is easier said than done, the goal should not be to become perfect but rather to become perfectly not perfect.