When I came home from college for Christmas break, I went to half-apps at Applebee’s at least twice a week. Blame it on being broke and underage. Naturally, I ended up running into half of my also under 21 (both age wise and dollars in their checking accounts) classmates.
The comments I got from people were the same:
“It seems like you’re having so much fun at college!”
“You always look so happy in your Snap stories”
“You and your friend Lynzie are so funny on Twitter.”
And of course, I smiled and my reply was something along the lines of “Yeah I really love being at school! I’m so happy there.” And that was true; at least partly. I did find my people at college, from my group of best friends that I’ve had since my first semester of freshman year to the 100-something girls that I am meeting as a new member of a sorority that has already given me so much love and joy.
But, I’ve also hit my lowest points in college. There is a pressure unlike anything else that I’ve ever experienced to do it all. I need a minimum 3.0 to stay in my major, the highest GPA requirement of any program at my college. I take six classes, I’ve had jobs in past semesters, I have classes that are beyond demanding (whoever said being an education major is easy can eat a cactus). However, I couldn't let these people I graduated with know that. First of all, they were probably just as stressed as I was, no one wants to hear about another person's finals week when they are still recovering from their own. However, there was another reason, one that probably makes me sound incredibly shallow.
I wanted people to think I was having fun. I wanted them to read my tweets or look at my Instagram and get the impression that my time at college was like one big party. It made me feel like I was powerful and had more control over my life than I feel like I do.
One of the greatest joys (and burdens) of being a millennial is the insane amount of social media that we are privy to. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook; we have different personalities on each. I don’t think my mom would be too impressed that I made it to my 8 a.m. sociology class after out-drinking five boys in a case race the night before, but one of my 380-something Twitter followers might be. I’m dying in the library as I type this, but I just posted a throwback picture where I’m on the beach. It was at sunrise and total #skyporn, but that’s just a picture. It’s one moment and life is made up of billions of moments, both good and bad.
There is so much that social media reveals, but there’s just as much that stays hidden. It’s like we have to be on all the time; peppy, happy, funny, and the perfect amount of sarcasm. And if you’re not? That’s fine, type a witty 80-140 character tweet, Insta a cute picture from last week’s mixer, and you’re good to go. No one needs to know you’re having an off day.
Life imitates art. When you are constantly putting out an image of constant fun, that’s all people think of. What so many don’t understand, a concept that can be pretty tough to grasp is the idea of highlight reels vs. behind the scenes.
Case in point: Madison Holleran. She was from New Jersey, just like me, growing up in an upper-middle-class town, just like mine. She was a student-athlete at the University of Pennsylvania, just like my dad was. She was funny and beautiful, she would have probably been friends with me and my friends' freshman year if we were the same age at the same college, or at least that’s how she seemed to me.
In January of 2014, the freshman track and field star made national headlines, not for breaking 1600 meter records, but for something way more tragic. After Instagramming a beautiful picture of Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia (with the perfect filter and contrast edit), Holleran climbed nine flights of stairs to the top of a parking garage and committed suicide. In the aftermath, it was confirmed that she had been seeing a therapist and made several statements to family and friends of feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and anxious.
I read about Madison for the first time during my senior year of high school in Kate Fagan’s ESPN article, “Split Image.” To this day, this story still gives me chills. Maybe it’s because she grew up an hour away from me, maybe because my dad played football at Penn and experienced pressure to be perfect both in Political Science 101 and 5 a.m. practices, but maybe it’s because of the way Holleran used social media to portray her happiness and try to suppress what she was feeling, just like I constantly find myself doing.
Pictures are just pictures. Tweets are just tweets. Life is not summed up in 140 characters and 200-plus likes on Instagram.
