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Health & Fitness

The Veil of Social Media Lifted: Who I Truly Am Is A Fabulous Fraud

As a business owner and social media manager, it’s my job to be an attention whore, a twitter maven, an Instagram assassin. Every month, a new app that stresses human connection is hurled into the market place, another medium to keep us from actually communicating who we are, where we are at, and what we are truly doing. As a business owner, my job is to build my brand, and that means sharing EVERYthing that I do that relates to my business: my outifts, my speaking engagements, and the beautiful feedback that I receive from my clients immediately gets blasted on the web, hoping that I can possibly inspire someone, make a connection, or at best, gain a client and spread Le Red Balloon’s message of love with the world.  I stumbled across an amazing video on Upworthy, another social media channel but a brilliant forum that rakes the world finding nuggets of inspiration, art, culture, joy, and sadness to share with the greater public. I personally am thankful for their spurts of brilliance as it invigorates me to do things such as this: listen to a little Miles Davis in quiet and attempt to be naked with the world.

Loneliness is something that haunts all of us: all world issues demonstrate a massive drought in love and understanding. It amazes me that in a virtual world, with so many channels and people, all I hear is incessant chatter – of this I am a guilty contributor. I can’t say with authenticity that I have shared images solely because I want to encourage and inspire someone. No, deep down I have hopes for something in return, perhaps connection, adoration. Shimi Cohen’s 4 minute video demonstrates the vicious cycle that human nature propels us to and how through our over complication we are isolating ourselves from our souls, from humanity, from one another.  The endless pursuit of self promotion has turned us into individual publicists and P.R. agents, crafting our every action and message (however ordinary they might be)  into something of glory, honor, and wonder for the outside world to “see”.

I recently stumbled across a blog entitled “40 Days of Dating,” in which two friends in the same circle attempt a social experiment to see if there is something there between the two of them. I couldn’t help but ponder: “How sad is the dating scene, that in order for two people to explore romance together, they have to create a blog, brand, social media strategy, etc.”

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This is my attempt to put something clean and pure out into the inter-webs and to shed light on who I truly am, what I am truly doing, and how I really feel. I hope that this small blog post of vulnerability reveals an authenticity and integrity that, at times, cannot be found anywhere else.  A book was published a few years ago, “The Defining Decade – Making the most of your 20s.” A therapist had so many lost, dazed, jaded, and confused clients in their 20s, she felt compelled to write a book. She had a whole chapter dedicated to social media and Facebook, as she knew a large majority of her patients spent hours crafting their image for social media channels and then comparing themselves to others: always feeling they fell short, failing to recognize that these envy stir-ers are meticulously crafting their image just like them.  This is for my fellow millenial   whose issues take up more than 140 characters; Twitter couldn’t handle them all.

This is who I really am:

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I am a contradiction–someone that is so confident but profoundly insecure.

I question my life’s meaning on an hourly basis.

I compare myself to others and cry when I feel short in comparison.

I worry that I am too old for my age.

I worry.

I sometimes use my kindness to manipulate others into liking me.

My greatest fear is the world not knowing who I am. 

I’m secretly an introvert. 

I am not: 

I am not someone that gets full from a salad and if I order one, I am most likely stopping at McDonald’s on the way home.

I am not a woman that enjoys playing games with men.

I can not be Samantha Jones, no matter how hard I try.

I am not someone that can hear a cruel word and keep going without crying.

I am not someone that enjoys watching and reading the news, as mostly it leaves me disappointed in the human race. 

I am not fearless. 

I am not someone that will willingly give you the last french fry, cookie, or dollop of guacamole. 

I know that we are complicated people, but it seems to me the more raw we are, the more we share the moments of utter fright, vulnerability, exposure, and fraud, we will then have the capacity to strengthen the human connection and to live a meaningful existence plump with true connection.

‘Twitter and Facebook and MySpace; all that stuff makes you warped. We’ve basically given ourselves data entry jobs. I’ve actually heard people say things like, “Aw shit, I have to update my Twitter.” Really? You have to? That’s a big priority for you?’ - Louis C.K.

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