Blog Post #2: Perception 

One thing that stuck out to me the most was the phrase, “It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for” What that phrase means to me in terms of identity is that it is something that is very individual and different to each and every one of us. We talked about a few ideas about perception in class and specifically the perception we have of ourselves which is determined by two things: idiosyncrasy and the social self. Idiosyncrasy meaning what you came into this world with and what that makes you, when I think about what defines me, I start with the obvious, I am a female of white nationality and come from a well off family giving me access to things others normally would not have such as the fact I grew up owning horses and having lots of land, I went to a private school and am fortunate enough to attend college. The other side of that is socially what I define myself as, I work a full time job at a car dealership so I consider myself responsible, I go to school and pursue a degree in communications which adds another layer to myself that being a student and going through the trials and tribulations of school, I avidly attend and train at a gym which shapes my mind making me very determined and persistent in my goals. While factoring all this in it also made me think about the stage metaphor we discussed in class and how we have this front stage self and your backstage self. Nowadays this is such a common thing because of the growing use of social media, if I was asked to assign one platform of social media to this idea it would have to be Instagram. We’re all so busy making sure everything looks perfect, we eat perfect food, we have perfect makeup, our bodies are perfect, our bedrooms/houses are perfect, etc etc etc. Our “front stage self”. It is honestly to the point of so much madness and fabrication of our lives that I truly believe we lose ourselves in it. I think with this day and age social media is something we let define our lives way more than we should. I know people that have panic attacks over what to post and not post, how to post it, I have literally heard the phrase, “I am so embarrassed to have to post this about my life”. Excuse me? To HAVE to post something. No thanks. I told that person, “you realize you have the choice to not post anything, to not disclose anything to hundreds of random strangers that don’t have any direct impact on your life?” I feel like as if we are losing more and more of our genuine selves to our “social media” selves. We are so busy making sure our front stage self never falters and always looks perfect that we neglect our backstage self which needs the most attention and is the missing thing we are not looking for. No one looks for things like your mental health, your emotional well-being, your morals, your character, or even if you’re kind to others which is what really matters, not your trip to Cancun or your “beach bod”.