the real me.

The real me is me. Though it's hard to admit, the true me is honestly just me. The commercialization of me is something so fake that just makes me feel so artificial and inorganic. The real me is what my friends see when I'm in school or out of school. The commercialization of me is what people see when they see me on their Instagram feed or on their Snapchat stories. I feel like by making myself seem so different than in real life, that I am creating an unrealistic expectation of myself. To be completely honest with everyone, I do Photoshop and edit every single photo. Though it's so sad and hard to admit, it's the truth. I smooth my skin, whiten my teeth, lighten the color of my eyes, and make my face completely small than what it is. By doing this, I think that it kind of makes me feel even more insecure about myself, since what I'm telling myself is that I always have to change who I am in order for my friends and strangers to validate who I am. That's honestly just so so so sad. Now that I am becoming more aware of this, I think that I do have some confidence issues. I do feel like I have a sort of confidence that other people don't have, but in this society, it's so hard to please everyone. Pleasing everyone is such a hard task to do. I feel like it's something that I have such a hard time stopping, but it's something that I have conditioned myself to do. The real me is so much more than an edited face. I think that I'm funny, intelligent, and so open-minded. I think that that is so much more interesting than what I post on social media. Though I am not friends with everyone on my followers list, the people that actually see me on a regular basis can see me for who I really am. I genuinely believe that social media will always want to make people show an unrealistic version of themselves. I think that I will still try to edit my photos and make myself seem like something I'm not, but I'm glad that I am able to recognize that, since not a lot of people do.