The Social Media Diet: Comparison is Poison, and We Are All Exposed to It

SOCIAL MEDIA, COMPARISON SYNDROME

On August 1st, I recorded a video on IGTV (Instagram TV) in response to a touching email I had received from a reader a few days earlier. Her letter, in fact, had prompted me to meditate on the delicate act of sharing my personal life on social media, and in the specific on Instagram.

In my video, I shared what had happened to me that same week when my photos from the Newport Folk Festival, of my new house, of my family, etc. had brought about a veil of melancholy for that struggling reader. 

“The remodel of the new house has been a nightmare,” I said, “Ben and I have even considered selling it.” We were heartbroken and scared, after yet another unexpected expense.

“I loved Newport, it was a beautiful experience,”

I continued in the recording,

“but it’s not easy to be in an environment in which you are often considered a side dish.”

I told you the truth about how it felt. 

With these two examples I wanted to make clear that — for as truthful and real as one can be on social media, there is always another side of the coin that the “audience” doesn’t get to see. When the reader who emailed me was experiencing a bit of sadness scrolling through my happy snapshots of life, I was hurting, too.  

I cried a lot returning from Newport. 

“How people behave is about them,” Cei reminded me, “it’s not about you.”

I knew some of ‘those people’ wouldn’t probably care much about anybody but those in their circle; I knew the theory, but I couldn’t help to compare myself to them, and to hurt profoundly when not asked anything about my life.

This has been happening on a regular basis, since I have entered Ben’s world, the entertainment world: people seeing me as a young woman who married a wealthy, successful older man, and who therefore doesn’t need to work, or who doesn’t have a life and a career of her own. I think this happens in any élite, if you allow me the term. It hurts, but that’s not really the point of this essay; the point is that comparison is poison.

I have never compared myself so much to other people since creating my Instagram account.

On my feed, in fact, there is always something that somebody else has, does or goes to, that I want. There is always someone more successful, thinner, prettier and richer than me. And as long as I measure my worth against others, I will never be either happy or successful.

Cliché, I know, and yet true.

Cei asked me how did I feel before Instagram, and if there were attributes of mine not affected by comparison; then we agreed on developing and exploring those areas.

“I am resourceful,”

I said,

“and I am strong.”

With being resourceful, I paired feelings of self-confidence, brightness and lightness of being; when it came to being strong I said:

“It’s like taking a breath of fresh air and remembering who I am.” 

How beautiful is that?

…taking a breath of fresh air and remembering who I am…

I am sharing this story because we are all exposed to the toxicity of social media, of the Likes on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or of the thumbs up on YouTube. We are all exposed to comparison. 

Instagram has proved to be my main platform of communication, and also a potentially wonderful medium for exchanging beauty, art, inspiration, and activism, so I am not quitting.

But because I am building with you a community of people who care — a safe space — I want to be honest about how I feel in the hope that, if you ever feel the same when scrolling through your feed, you can remind yourself who you are independently from the success, the money, the health, and the achievements of others. 

Social media is affecting society drastically (especially young people in their forming years). We can’t have new generations who are bitter, angry, jealous, greedy, and so ambitious that they disregard those they encounter on their path. It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s an awful way to live life. 

Would you want your child, niece, grandson to be raised on vitriol? 

In the ‘famous Beachwood years’ I often talk about on this blog, I didn’t have an Instagram account. 

Ben met me back then; he fell in love with me when I weighed more, when I had no money, and when I stood far back in my artistic career. 

Men found me attractive when I didn’t get facials, haircuts or regular manicures; they found me attractive when I didn’t have the time to workout every day and when my body was less fit than it is now. I attracted good people in my life in those years: I got myself a book deal, I got myself to meet Leonard Cohen and completely change my life, I got myself to record a great podcast. 

I was happier because I knew who I was, I knew my worth, and I didn’t compare myself to others.

Of course, I did encounter struggles and set backs; I was laid off from a job I didn’t like but needed, I received hundreds of rejections from agents, publishers, and fellow artists. But I never lost track of how strong, talented, and resourceful I was. I didn’t add weight to life, and I didn’t obsessively want to lose mine. 

When I compare myself to others I am the maker of most of the obstacles and the difficulties I encounter.

When I measure my worth against others I become miserable; I am not interested in sex, in laughter, in happiness, in joy. I am only interested in getting to where that person is, to where that other person seems to have arrived, or to where that other one has gotten before me. 

That’s why I can’t enjoy life. Do you remember my essay two weeks ago? La dolce vita, Paris…

***

On August 13, as I drove back from celebrating my 7th year of sobriety, and from a beautiful afternoon at the new house with Ben and our friend Paige, I heard on the radio, for the first time, Tool’s new single (we Tool fans have been waiting 13 years for it). After barely a minute of the band playing I thought: “Cool, but it sounds just like their old songs.” I was disappointed.

As the song progressed, however, I quickly became able to hear all its layers. What Maynard James Keenan (the frontman) had created with his other two bands, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, had clearly influenced the new Tool record so beautifully that my body shivered. The valley had by then reached 102 F.

Immunity

Long overdue

Contagion

I exhale you

Lying

I opened up to you

Venom in mania

Now, contagion

I exhale you

Fear Inoculum, Tool

When I first approached the end of this essay I hated it. I didn’t want to publish it. 

“They will think I always write about the same boring stuff,”

I thought.

“They will never read to the end.” 

But as I wrote the final paragraph I understood that — just like the new Tool song —- it offered layers of experience, of past insights, lessons, and breakthroughs that — in a way — made ‘the same old topic’ a brand new one to enjoy and meditate on. 

I like this essay a lot, and I like the new song almost as much.