Throughout our formative years, each and every one of us has to figure out how we want to represent ourselves to the world around us. The arrival and growth of social media have only added another, potentially more complex, layer to this outward appearance we hope to establish. I, for one, struggled for five or six years to decide how I wanted to represent myself on social media and feel comfortable in that. Even now, I still worry about the image I've created for myself and how people perceive that.
My freshman year of high school is the time that I first began to take some chances and feel comfortable adding people I'd just met on social media. At the time, I talked about (and therefore posted about) music more than anything else. As far as I was concerned, that seemed rather acceptable as I'd never heard otherwise. That was until I became the subject of some jabs regarding the fact that I "post too often and always about the same thing". Had it been close friends who told me so, I'd have likely just shrugged it off, but that, unfortunately, wasn't the case. Instead, it was pointed out by some of those new people I'd stepped out of my comfort zone to accept on social media. Worse yet, it was brought up in an open and public manner which was (as one could imagine) rather embarrassing. This experience alone affected what I put out there regarding my interests for the next several years. Not only did I become conscious of how frequently I post (I even began counting my posts and setting limits, effectively censoring myself) but I also started feeling uncomfortable openly talking about the things I love.
It wasn't until late last year (six years after my previous experience) that I finally started to take the chance and more openly discuss the things I love beyond something as universal as music. As I became more passionate about writing, comic books, film, and video games, it felt increasingly dishonest to simply hide those interests away from the people I interacted with on a daily basis. So I, with trepidation, started to openly post about these things. To my relief, I got positive and increased social media interaction.
There is, however, still that slight pang of concern every time I add someone new. I frequently consider how many people I've added on social media in the last year that expected a perfectly average addition to their news feed but ended up with me, in all my glory, discussing superheroes and politics all day, every day. And since I, like anyone, do want people to like me, I worry about bothering people with such things. At the same time, I know that I'm at least being honest about the person I am, and if anyone isn't fond of that person, they'll act accordingly, as social media allows us to do.
It took years, but to finally feel comfortable (at least, for the most part) with being myself even in how I'm presented on the internet, has been a major source of strength for me. Simply put, it's been increasingly beneficial to be honest about the person I really am, regardless of potential criticism. Our social media representation is just as important as our interpersonal one. Especially with how the world and socialization within it has changed.
