The fitness world can be such an inspiring and motivational place, but social media often brings out the worst in us.
This is demonstrated no better than on Instagram; a crazy place where luminous white teethed orange people will tell you that “#YouAreEnough” before showing you 100 perfectly-angled photos that say otherwise.
It really grinds my fucking gears!
Living Your Best #FakeLife
It’s now “the norm” to present an unauthentic version of yourself online.
Why are we so bothered about social acceptance from strangers?
After all, all of our heroes when we were growing up were the rule-breakers, the mavericks, the people who genuinely didn’t care what anyone else through of them, yet here we are pandering for “likes” from a bunch of people we’ve never met.
Giving strangers the power to influence your own level of self-worth is a risky path to tread, my friend. In the words of Joe Donnelly:
“We now live in a world of selfie posting, ego floating, insecure and shallow persona. But when your confidence is built upon a foundation of compliments from subjective third-parties, you become nothing more than a mental prisoner to the shallow words of others.
Essentially, you have no self-confidence.
In order to be truly successful you must first learn how free yourself of this quest for social acceptance, because you can never really be free, nor successful, if your whole demeaner hangs upon the meaningless comments of others. Instead, you will become an insecure mental slave, posting edited photographs of yourself online for strangers in the hopes of achieving your daily fragile ego boost.”
– Joe Donnelly
The Terrible Fitness Advice On Instagram
This is the bit I was really looking forward to writing, because Instagram is a fucking treasure trove of incorrect fitness information.
I can’t decide who is the worst…
There’s the personal trainers who deem themselves too cool to need any recognized qualifications (?!), and the coaches who’ve never actually coached anyone in a gym (“it’s all online, brah”), and the so-called “fitfluencers” who come up with body shaming trends, and the minor celebrities who nab sponsorship deals with supplement brands and then start handing out crazy dieting advice to their star-struck followers.
Fuck, don’t even get me started on “detox tea”…
(No, you didn’t misread it. This reality tv star got in trouble for telling all her followers that they can eat as much as they want without gaining weight by popping a carb blocker pill – which she was of course selling.)
Thankfully the industry is beginning to clamp down on this type of misinformation, but there’s still a long way to go before it reaches the required standards.
Heck, just recently we saw a court order drop the ban hammer on a couple of misleading-as-fuck advertisements featuring reality television stars Katie Price, Lauren Goodger, and Georgia Harrison, where the judge ruled that each celebrity should’ve been more responsible and more aware that the bulk of their social media audience is teenage girls.
NOTE: It appears TikTok is now giving Instagram a run for its money in terms of being the #1 source of fitness-related dumbfuckery. The same rules apply, people.
Fuck Those Fucked Up Fucking Fuckers
As you can see, I’m not the biggest fan of social media.
One of the best moves I made in recent years was to radically reduce the amount of time I spend on it, and I encourage anyone else who feels burned out by the conveyor belt of nonsense on there to follow suit.
On a more serious note, I know I’ve made a lot of jokes in this article to get my point across (it’s my way), but there are serious undertones here. You see, aside from the obvious risk of depression that comes with presenting an unauthentic version of yourself online, there has also been a dramatic rise in the number of folks who are clinically addicted to taking selfies (selfitis; it’s a thing), and body confidence issues as a result of spending several hours per week (or even per day!) scrolling through endless reels of “perfect-looking people” and then beating themselves up about it. (1)
So listen up:
You genuinely ARE enough. The authentic version of you is the only one the world really needs. Social media’s highlight reel mentality can make us feel otherwise, but in that’s because it’s fake as fuck. One lady did a fantastic job of documenting this, by taking these photos just a few moments apart:
So there you have it, that’s my take on Instagram.
And the next time you see a ridiculously polished half-naked selfie with a 700-word caption which essentially just reads “Never give up – and please buy these fat burners!”, hopefully you won’t beat yourself up about it.
And maybe, just maybe, you’ll click that unfollow button and put your phone down, because they really don’t deserve your attention. Fuck those fuckers.
Further Reading:
If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.
>> “Mono Diets”, Really?
>> My Honest Opinion On Herbalife
>> Clean Eating Sucks And You Fucking Know It
References:
- Social Media And Young People’s Mental Health And Wellbeing. Royal Society of Public Health and Young Health Movement (2017).