You know what’s funny? How people are always complaining about how social media is a highlight reel, and all fake. But look at popular accounts.They tend to have perfectly edited photos, a perfectly curated aesthetic, and perfectly written captions! Inauthenticity sells! We complain about it, but just keep on giving it traction! 

Okay, maybe many of these perfect accounts actually are authentic. I just do not know many people who have a personal photographer with them everywhere to capture all of those aesthetically pleasing perfect spontaneous moments. While I do think that people can make their accounts whatever they want, I just find it ironic that people complain about the “fakeness” on social media yet continue to follow it. Those are the accounts that grow. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy them too! I also find it interesting that many social media influencers have quit or taken a step back over the past year or so (at least many that I have followed). Perhaps they grew tired of keeping up with it all.

As for the captions… Sure, some of them seem to be somewhat real and vulnerable… I once read in an article (I do not remember what it was called) that many social media influencers have this “perfectly curated vulnerability” in their posts. I feel like that exactly describes it. Because we say we want people to be real online. We do, but we also want to see professional quality photos and content!

I am definitely guilty of continuously putting a positive spin on things, but I would like to think that my accounts are fairly “real.” I am a regular person, with horses. I don’t have fancy camera equipment, I have an iPhone. I don’t have a photographer following me around, nor do I wish to carry my tripod everywhere with me, so I take selfies. I do not edit these blogs for days, I type them out and throw them up as the inspiration hits! And growing social media accounts has been an uphill battle! I have pretty much given up at this point, and just use social media as a creative outlet to share the horsey parts of my life. I would also like to continue putting out real, and imperfect, content because I really think that the internet needs more of that!

I really do not mean for this post to slam influencers, I hope it is not taken that way, I am just poking a little fun at the irony of people complaining about how social media should be more real yet giving traction to accounts that are more curated. I enjoy a wide variety of content on social media, but I especially enjoy accounts that are less edited and professional looking and more real with just good content.

I’m curious, what do you guys think?? Comment below!