We curate our social media profiles to reflect who we really are. And yet, this is something that is rarely achieved. Instead of reflecting reality, these profiles often express who we want to be, and how we want to be seen. Each app has a different purpose, and so we create different personas on each one in order to represent how we wish to be viewed. On the surface, these personas come off as perfectly-curated profiles; but, under the surface, there is an aspect of our true personalities, hidden beneath edited and specifically chosen pictures.
For many of us, we use similar, if not the same, usernames and profile pictures (PFPs) on various social media apps. For example, there is a running joke on the internet that this is having a ‘Lizzo pic’. This is based on the singer-songwriter known as Lizzo, whose YouTube account uses the same picture on her page multiple times, for a new video, PFP, and background. There are hundreds of videos discussing the ‘Lizzo pic’ on TikTok, with people relating it to their own social media accounts, but it is not only something that we see others discuss, since many of us do the same – me, included. Like many people I know, I have one PFP that I use for various accounts (TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc), which best portrays me to others. Having this sole persona can come from pressure to have an ideal profile on social media: perfectly-curated, visually aesthetic, and well-organised.
Most of the accounts that are shown to me on social media, especially Instagram, look almost too perfect. Flawless images with classy captions are posted for followers, and have hours of thought behind them. But, I don’t think that these photos are illustrative of who we really are.
As someone who doesn’t post on social media, I may not be the ultimate authority on this. But, to me, curating a profile in this way does not seem genuine. And, I know I am not the only one who feels this way. A recent trend on TikTok shows creators posting their pictures, captioned with their real experiences: pictures of food (“tasted terrible btw”), books (“read three pages btw”), the gym (“left after ten minutes btw”), or friends (“argued the whole time btw”). This trend emphasises how social media can be fake, as these pictures look aesthetically pleasing, but do not correspond to an aesthetically pleasing life, or even a real one.
Through Instagram and TikTok posts, stories, notes, and profile “bios”, we curate our social media personas to reflect how we want to be seen – even when this isn’t true to the person that we are.
Don’t get me wrong, all these social media apps are enjoyable, but they do undoubtedly accentuate curated personas. A key example of this is Pinterest – an app used to create vision boards and gather ideas. It gives us scroll after scroll of idealised images, screenshotted and reused on other socials, to portray something that simply isn’t real. Pinterest boards are a perfected version of myriad topics: hair styles, tattoos, piercings, holidays, city life, outfits, among immeasurable others. From these boards, we can express our interests, and the passions that we have and wish to portray. Yet, whether or not these pictures depict our lives is debateable. While, on the one hand, they show our interests; on the other hand, in reality, these images may not be truly real, with editing or AI.
Despite these points, having a sole PFP, posting pictures without full context, and making boards of immaculate images can still represent more under-the-surface aspects of our character. Sole PFPs are chosen as depictions of our personalities, pictures still express our life experiences, and picture boards emphasise things that we are passionate about. To some extent, social media can show who we really are, and, only on looking deeper, can this be expressed. There are aspects of who we truly are in our tagged posts, follows, reposts, or even secret/spam accounts.
My own social media accounts are largely blank, and my persona is not overly obvious at first glance. However, when looking at my following pages, my interests become obvious: my favourite music artists, movies, actors, plays/musicals, meme pages, and more. Likewise, friends’ interests are made known to me when scrolling any form of social media – “X reposted this video”, “Y liked this post” – and, from this, I can learn not just the persona that they present, but the genuine passions and opinions that they have.
Better still, these passions and opinions are evident in secret, private, and spam accounts: authentic insights into who someone really is on social media. Restricted to close friends, such accounts provide an opportunity to express real thoughts and post unedited pictures of events – not just those with sleek poses and specific lighting. There are no expectations for perfection on these accounts for a list of followers who we barely know, or met once years ago. In this way, we can utilize social media to show who we really are.
Ultimately, social media gives prominence to specific personas that, in many cases, particularly on the surface, do not reflect who we really are. Yet, this is not simply the end of the discussion. We can still show our personality through our individual use of social media – accounts are only ungenuine where we make them as such. Our individual personalities influence our individual personas on social media, and who we actually are can come through in how we use it.