No, I Won’t Go Broke to Impress the Internet:
How I Realized that There’s More to Life Than Just Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
In North America, we are more obsessed with consumerism than ever before. More importantly, Social Media has made it easier to create the way that our lives look — even if it’s completely fake. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t only happen on Instagram — think about a time where you intentionally purchased a new outfit for an event knowing that you had a perfectly good outfit at home. Just like politics, it’s all about optics, baby. We overcompensate and try to control the opinions that others have about us, equating value from expensive clothes, designer handbags, etc as being more likeable and living a life that everyone wants to live — even if it means trying hard not to sweat in on an outfit because you want to return it to the boutique first thing on Monday morning.
I caught myself working hard to present myself in a way that simply wasn’t authentic. I planned to build a sneaker collection, spent hours browsing luxury brands online sites — salivating at the future clout points that I’d rack up in my Balmain jeans. Imagine the respect that people would give me when I walked into a room wearing a Prada Jacket. To make a long story short — I realized that there was just more to life than keeping up with what the latest flavour of the month on Instagram is…
