Social media, Addiction and Self-esteem
This is a topic that is applicable to many people, not just to crossdressers, but I'll try to link it to crossdressing.
Instagram and facebook is pretty fun in general. We use it to connect and chat with people sharing the same interests as us, we posts photos of ourselves having fun and get praises, which gives us that little hit of the happy drug doapamine when the photo gets a ton of likes or comments that we're pretty/beautiful.
However, ever since I started using social media for my female self a bit more heavily, I quickly noticed 2 big issues which makes me think twice about maintaining the social media account.
Addiction
I started my open Instagram account back in Nov 2018 as a bit of an experiment, to see how many followers I could rack up and share my photos. I decided to post daily to generate activity and encourage followers.
After about a month in, I shut my account down.
I found that I was starting to be addicted to social media in a very unhealthy way. I spent way too much time open and closing the Instagram app to check if I had new followers, likes and comments. I started obsessing over how each new post compared with the earlier posts in terms of likes and comments. After posting a new photo, I'd start thinking about which photo to use and what caption to write for tomorrow's post.
The addiction and obsession got a bit scary for me as I never felt it before in my guy mode. How much of my waking hours did I waste looking at social media apps and obsessing over something so superficial and vapid as comments and likes? It was so easy to do a double tap to like a post, or write a simple (and possibly) meaningless "Beautiful girl". After a while, I noticed that some followers basically commented on every post, which was akin to casting a wide net on many women, probably hoping for a reply.
Instagram wasn't the only culprit. There are so many places to while away your precious time and life, such as Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc. In small doses, social media is fun, but once it becomes obsessive and there are clear signs of addiction, I think it important to do a detox.
Negative Impact on Self Esteem
I believe that everyone has moments where we doubt ourselves and self-esteem is momentarily placed in question. Nobody is perfect. However, excessive use of social media tends to trigger unhealthy amounts of comparison with unrealistic standards, which can cause self-esteem issues.
Firstly, photos posted on social media are very curated. Only 1 out 10 photos taken make it to the Instagram feed (statistics not substantiated...but you get what I mean😜). This means no unglam photos, no accidental double chins, extra fats are hidden by a good photo angle, etc. I am guilty as charged! My social media accounts for both my guy and girl mode only show the best photos (of course my guy mode has way lower standards)
(Transgender Beauty Queen Yoshi Rinrada. Can you believe she was born male? Real girls will kill to look like this)
Secondly, we tend to follow certain accounts on social media. For crossdressers, these tend to be transgender beauty queens, beauty influencers, cosplay cuties and other prettier crossdressers in the community (as much as we hate to admit it, everyone wants to hang with the pretty and popular crowd). Seeing these beauties on a regular basis warps your sense on reality, making you think that such perfection in beauty is the norm. It simply isn't! Take a walk in the shopping mall and how many "Goddesses" do you see? Probably not as many as your Instagram feed. Yet sometimes I do the silly thing of comparing myself with someone like Yoshi Rinrada...it's almost akin to comparing myself with the Olympics Gold Medalist. The problem of comparison can be even more acute in crossdressers; after all, we are further from our ideal image, since we don't have real boobs, wide hips or other obviously female features.
Finally, images online are usually edited in some form or another, they simply aren't 100% real. Of course there are really beautiful people who don't need photo editing software, but most crossdressers have used apps to smooth out skin imperfections, sharpen the jaw, enlarge the eyes, and apply beauty filters. I do that too, just to make myself look slightly better, but it just means what you see is not the real Isabelle. With apps like "Faceapp", it is even harder to tell if an image is real or not. So comparing ourselves to images that have been edited and perfected to modern beauty standards...is kinda dumb.
After using social media a bit more heavily, I finally understand why an increasing number of 16 year old teenage girls face self-esteem issues.
(Some days just kind of suck)
Even without venturing onto social media, I struggle with some self-esteem issues. My skin isn't the best, I'm not as confident as I should be, and I always feel like I should and could do better. But when I feel really frumpy or hopelessly imperfect, I try to recognise that I am in a rut and the only way out is to stop digging myself deeper into it.
2 Comments
Nice article. Thanks for sharing. For me, I am less worried about addiction but more worried about getting attention from unwanted crowd. I also have a Facebook account for my CD self and I am getting friend requests from guys or non-CDs. At times, there are messages just to chat with me even though my FB account is "faceless". Guess must be my costumes that got them. Haha. Of late, I am more obsess with writing for my blog as I wanted to capture my memories before it start failing. Haha...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I totally understand what you mean by each of us are struggling with self-esteem issues. I think each of us are perfect in our own way. Don't need to worry or compare. Learning to accept the imperfection in each of us is perfection. Cheers.
I joined instagram only this year in 'girl' mode. In guy mode, I have been using social media/sns since the late 2000s. I learnt of sns since the friendster days (probably revealed my age but it's ok lol) I didn't get too attached to it then as I was still in school and it was just a simplistic website where we post comments/photos.
ReplyDeleteBut when facebook arrived, it was the game changer which made social media very mainstream and accessible to everyone.
I feel the same way like u and many people around the world. I was definitely addicted to it in the early days. Any big or small milestones from everyone would be shared online (birthdays, gatherings, weddings, overseas trips, etc) We will start liking our friends' photos whenever they updated and exchanged annual birthday greetings. (even though it was through setting reminders) It was a good way to also get in touch with friends whom we lost contact over the years.
As the years went on, I started to get sick and tired of sns. At one point, I didn't logged in to it for many weeks and then months.
I had developed sns fatigue and I couldn't find a good reason to go online. Some people around me also asked why I hardly logged in or updated my sns account.
I read a nice article on this behavior and a sentence extract from it articulates my feelings well. I will share the link below.
"We are constantly bombarded by “Photoshopped lives”, he says, “and that exerts a toll on us the likes of which we have never experienced in the history of our species. And it is not particularly pleasant.”
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/09/age-envy-be-happy-everyone-else-perfect-social-media
This behavior applied to me on instagram too when I joined a few months ago.
But I soon realise that it is a healthier to not get attached to it and compare with others. As ultimately, almost everything is polished or photoshopped right? Why should I get affected by it?
My present view is sns is just a communication channel for people with same interests. I value the comments more than the photos now. Disconnect from time to time if it is too much. Focus more on real life activities. That will make us in control of our lives, live more healthier and more at peace/ease.