You Might Want To Grab Yourself A Cuppa For This One…

This time yesterday I posted a tweet with my view on social media, that received the most likes / retweets than anything else I have ever posted. So, I thought I would put down my view in a bit more detail for you in response to recent news in the media on Essena O’Neill’s decision to quit her social channels, due to Instagram and other platforms being (in her opinion) “contrived perfection made to get attention”. This has of course sparked many conversions and agreements / disagreements with Essena’s views inside and outside of the blogging community. Which I am sure you have all have seen by now and will no doubt have your individual opinions on.

In short, I can admit that I am guilty of having looked at an insane figure or beautiful person on Instagram before and thinking for a second: why can’t I be that flawless, why can’t I be that pretty, or why can’t I post a good selfie. But after the thought pops into my head, it then dissappears and it isn’t something that worries me on a daily basis or stays on my mind for longer than a matter of minutes. As, in my opinion, it simply isn’t worth wasting my time worrying over as:

1. I can’t change my face (without plastic surgery), and

2. I like to try and turn my flaws and insecurities into something positive, where I can.

I look at it this way: “we always want what we don’t have”. But, as human beings it is only natural to have feelings and insecurities – otherwise, we would be the only people to ever feel like this, right? – even the people that I think look amazing in all of their photos as well, most likely get these same thoughts and insecurities sometimes too.

Point being, I don’t think that we can pin point social media as being a destructive force for everyone. All we have to do is look at the mass media, TV, magazines and pop culture to see this “problem” on a daily basis, as they all project common ideals of what people perceive to be society’s view on the ‘ideal’ body or beautiful facial features in some way, shape or form. But, in fact ‘beauty’ is in the eye of the beholder and is subject to each person’s opinions and preferences. So not everyone has the same ideal as to what the perfect woman or man should look like – as the media would like to make us believe 99% of the time.

For me, I think that social media is what you make of it. If you want to go ahead and post fake pictures to appear as if your life is something that it is not, then ultimately that is your own choice. I follow many successful bloggers and strong / independant women working for themselves and on Instagram I don’t ever look at their updates and think that 1. they are bragging or 2. it is make believe. So, I hope that this news does not change people’s perceptions that all bloggers are fake, as I simply don’t think that this is true. Of course, things are fluffed up a little on social media, as you can expect, which I guess is life. But the meanings and intentions behind them are real, in most cases (I hope).

Anyway, without ranting on, I wanted to initially post this as an Instagram update, as I am currently having the most fun shooting flatlays of outfits and items I have styled, being more creative with my account. But, due to recent outbursts and probably some negative speculation on whether posts are real of fake, I thought that I would express my own opinions and news alongside sharing an update of my current Instagram feed, as I am finally happy with the way it looks!

If you are not following me already and like my feed you can find me on Instagram here here – @Lurchhoundloves – and please feel free to leave me your links in the comments below. And if perhaps you would like to know how I shoot flatlays or edit my photos for Instagram, do let me know. Then this is something I can try and put together for you on my blog or YouTube Channel, which you can subscribe to here *another shameless plug, sorry* as I would love to be creating content that you actually want to see. As Always, thanks for reading and don’t forget to connect with me on my social links below…