SHORT HORROR STORIES #7

DISTRACTED ACTIVIST

We have long stopped marching and taking our issues to the streets. Now our issues to Facebook to change our display picture, Twitter to rant  and Instagram to post a selfie about it.

However, the real question is: Are we actually changing anything on a structural level or are we simply getting sucked into a social cycle of what we believe is required of us?

BRUTALLY HONEST LIFE IN THE MODERN WORLD ACCORDING TO SOCIAL MEDIA
+ Have a bigger butt (by surgery or squats).
+ Have large lips (by overdrawing or fillers).
+ Have a large follower count (fake, real or both).
+ Contour your face well.
+ Get a nose job.
+ Have perfect flawless skin all the time.
+ Be hairless.
+ Take perfect selfies.
+ Take selfies in Lingerie or Bikinis (the more skin you show the more likes).
+ Eat Healthy, Go Vegan, Go Gluten Free.
+ Exercise till you have abs.
+ Be Fashionable, Wear Designer gear, Buy Watches and Expensive Handbags
+ Be Empowered (material objects = empowerment, capitalistic proverb).
+ Be an Entrepreneur.
+ Fly to exotic locations and pose with things you can’t possibly afford.
+ Appear rich and successful, so everyone thinks you actually are.
+ Be more successful than your friends (you can compare your life with their Facebook/Insta to see if you are more successful)
+ Be a feminist, be an equalist, be a right-wing liberalist (even if you don’t know what the heck that is).
+ Support a cause, join an alliance (Charity is fashionable, plus everyone else is).
+ Find a shortcut, you’re getting left behind on life.
+ Be Perfect, Have a Perfect Life.

We think we’re free, but we need to adhere to life as portrayed by Social Media, as Victorians adhered to ‘How to be Victorian Manuals’. All for what? So we can fool people who don’t even know us, that we probably don’t even like, that we have our shit together. When in reality we are bordering a mental crisis from Social Comparison depression. As we continue to acquire & compare in the material world, the inner self is hidden & replaced by nothing but envy, ego, emptiness & contempt.