Our world is extremely self-branding. Many of us don’t even realize that, although we as a society are more accepting of differences than ever, we are still putting people in boxes according to brand. Maybe it is just human nature to categorize yourself and others, but it’s time for an awakening. 

Let’s make teens a little more confused

I am at the stage in my life where I am choosing what person I want to be and who I am in my heart of hearts. “The granola girl,” “the coconut girl,” “a Utah girl,” “THAT girl,”  “the thrifty girl” and about 50 other curated aesthetics can be overwhelming for someone like me because it feels like I could fit in at least one of them, but in reality, none of them are a perfect fit. Duh. 

But it doesn’t feel like “duh” in the moment I’m scrolling through social media and see thousands of people who have their aesthetically pleasing being figured out at age 18. It feels like I should be able to do that too, which causes me to question what I should give up and what I should keep about myself in order to brand myself in a way that is “acceptable.” 

Haley Renney writes for Redefy: “In a generation where the main form of communication is often through social media, it can be extremely difficult to avoid the pressures of the digital world.”

I know I shouldn’t need to give up pieces of myself. This is the issue with encouraging specific aesthetics for people (teenagers) to be. People are so complex, so why would anyone think it’s possible to squeeze into one category of person?

Excessive branding and aesthetics perpetuate a message that one should be only one kind of person. 

People are not buildings

Aesthetics can be important from an artistic standpoint, like in architecture and multimedia art. They express personality, society and culture in a certain time period and stay that way forever. However, that’s just it: Aesthetics show aspects of a whole only during a short time. People are not buildings, they are supposed to grow and change.

Personal style aesthetics are very confining and don’t allow for complete exploration in self-expression.

Social media is supposed to be social

There are platforms to curate artistic, aesthetically pleasing content, so social media that is meant for sharing moments of your life shouldn’t be clean and curated. Let’s start sharing our lives regardless of if they fit a certain “look” on your feed because real life is chaotic and doesn’t always match the last picture you posted. 

We have the ability to support each other in ways that we never could before. There are roughly 815 million social media users, each with unique lives and personalities. We should support messy feeds and honest depiction so we can help people feel good about every piece of the real life they’re living.

Wear what you want to, eat what you want to, do what you want to and take pictures of it all because those real memories are way more important than fitting in a constricting genre for even a short amount of time.