Fooled

Taken from this post, this passage hit a bit close to home:

Since TV was invented, critics have pointed out the dangers of watching the perfect people who seem to inhabit the screen. They are almost universally beautiful, live in interesting places, do interesting work (if they work at all), are unfailingly witty, and never have to do any cleaning. They never even need to use the toilet. It cannot be psychologically healthy to compare yourself to these phantasms.

So it’s interesting that social networks have inadvertently created the same effect, but using an even more powerful source. Instead of actors in Hollywood, the characters are people that you know to be real and have actually met. The editing is done not by film school graduates, but by the people themselves.

I confess: much of my Facebook/blogging/tweeting are the 'highlights,' versions of myself that I'm most proud of (or least ashamed of). I don't write about them often, but my life is plenty full of struggles, questions, insecurities and obstacles. I used to blog about those things (though, as if to foreshadow, I wrote very, very cryptically) over at my old blog, which I kept between freshman and sophomore year of college.

I don't think there's any shame, however, in just broadcasting your highlights. People comb their hair and check their teeth before they go out; they wear Booty Pop panties and overblow their resumes. We've always advertised what we think is our best believable narrative, and when we get hard pressed, we'll believe it, too.

In only slightly related news, see a blog devoted to ugly animals. Also, check out Jewel singing her own songs at a karaoke bar to unsuspecting crowds:

Kind of reminds me of Charlie Chaplin losing a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest.