New Year, New Me
On changing your identity
It hurts to admit but my day often starts by looking at my phone, my eyes glossing over as I scroll aimlessly before allowing myself to breathe in reality. It’s sad, I know. But I’ll venture to make an educated guess here that most people start their days in a similar way. We are all so accustomed to the routine of social media, aimlessly searching for the next best think, searching for an escape from reality, an escape from ourselves — it’s a problem. But who really cares about the long term psychological effects of social media on self esteem and self identity? Literally none of that matters, right? After all the only thing that does matter is making sure you enter into 2024 as a new person, forget all your past problems, those don’t count when a new year rings in. All that matters is that we change.
Now, change is usually not planned or curated. It often always happens without any real warning. If change was planned, then it simply wouldn’t be change. Sure, you can decide to cut bangs or dye your hair or get a tattoo and you’ll be changed and you’ll have planned it. But the change I’m talking about is internal, subconscious change, and the problem is more and more social media is shaping our internal changes which is making it all the more easier to fabricate change.
Often, when I’m scrolling through my phone I am reminded of this type of fabricated change, of how easy it would be to entirely alter my personality and identity. I notice the ways in which everyone hides themselves and re-forms their sense of self in order to fit in with the latest trends. It seems fake — because it is. We subconsciously force ourselves to become obsessed with the new “it” thing, despite a lack of interest in actually wanting or liking the new “it” thing. But what really gets me, is the way in which we end up reshaping our personalities to fit into the formula of what is popular, and perhaps this was always the case but it seems to me to be all the more apparent now. I am noticing more and more the ways in which we re-fit ourselves. We become like lizards, or snakes, shedding our skin every few weeks to appease the masses and become new versions of ourselves. So how do we do it? How do we get our new personality? How do we change our internal selves? And how do we do it quickly, before next month is up??!?!
Let’s start at the beginning… You need to be easily manipulated. And no, this isn’t always a bad thing, in fact it’s perfect if you’re willing to change and reform your sense of self every month! In order for this step to work though you would need to have spent a large majority of your early development years on the Internet.
It sounds like a joke, but manipulation is the first tool towards getting your new personality. You need to be able to believe, to buy into the trends even if you hate them at first — which lets face it, we all do. In order to develop your new sense of self it is important that you clear your mind. You can’t be manipulated if you’ve got all these preconceived ideas of the almighty self. So, once you’ve got your tabula rasa, your blank slate, your cleared mind you’re ready to go. Then it’s easy, it just takes a bit of scrolling.
When we enter the world, we are impressionable, ready to be shaped and formed. For some reason, this same thing happens when we log onto TikTok or Instagram. It is as if we are newborns again, ready to take in whichever identity presents itself as the most appealing. Once that happens then we are free to become whatever we want to become. Free to fit into whichever mold is the most popular and advantageous.
It’s hard to tell which mold we will need to fit into for 2024, the clean girl aesthetic has had its run, the cold girl aesthetic too, the same goes for dark academia, long skirts and short Uggs are slowly reverberating out of style, the list can go on and on. Who am I supposed to become when the trends we follow are week-long sprees? It’s hard to tell what this new year will bring, what trends will make me me. In being easily manipulated, you allow yourself to be ruled by the Internet. Entirely swayed by whatever new trends pop up. And this is so important, because if you refuse to be swayed or follow rules you can’t create a new version of yourself and what fun is that?
We all morph, and stretch, and purposefully change to fit in, it seems part of the human condition, the Internet has just made these changes more fabricated. But, only time will tell who we will all become. After all, new year new me!!