Living an un-curated life: Rethinking our self-presentation on Instagram / by Ruth Guest

I sit at night and find myself scrolling endlessly, reel after reel. The blue light penetrating deep into the back of my retinas. Swipe. A border-collie howling along with a keyboard, adorable. Like. Swipe. A new Italian sandwich-spot in Dublin, nice. Saved. I’ll check that out later. Swipe. A gym-bro posing in a mirror, not-for-me. Swipe. Anyone who has social media knows, it’s constant. 

One day I had an epiphany and remembered the real reason I downloaded Instagram in the first place. My younger self who downloaded the app many moons ago saw it as an opportunity to share my vision on the platform to the world. But now, it doesn’t seem possible. In order to be seen online as a creative you must submit to the algorithm, become a sheep, and follow the trends, whatever they may be. And in order to follow the trends, you must consume the content presented to you through the algorithm. In that process, you become sucked into the vortex of endless content. 

Should one bend their vision to please the algorithm? And is it really possible to live a life, un-curated?

As I enter my early 30’s, a part of me wishes that my 20’s weren't spent trying to seek validation from others for my photography, or trying to get an algorithm to approve of my work to get me on the trend train. Great photo? Cool, we will show this on everyone’s news feeds and you’ll get 1000 likes. In reality, the only likes that were ever important were my own. 

The online world is full of influencers, some of whom wear a mask, curating and showcasing the perfect life on their social media, with some influencers even attempting to showcase their ‘authenticity’ to make themselves relatable. This is wildly ironic, because there is no originality anymore. With everyone being so highly influenced, even the influencers - are they really showing their true selves?

The Instagram Paradox

I downloaded Instagram for photography. Real photography showing real people. Not meticulously curated images of peoples perfect houses, with their perfect dog and perfect life. Originally, Instagram was a platform for creativity and expression, a place where you can share moments with your friends and family, your travels. Blurry square photos in a sepia shade filter coined ‘Valencia’. All in all, you’d get maybe 5 likes? Of course, in those days we were still showcasing our highlights, but we didn’t really have the influence of others around us demonstrating a ‘better’ life. This concept seemed to creep in gradually as the platform developed over time. 

Now, we curate this life and showcase a perception of reality that is flawed. On a bus journey into the city last week, I counted three separate incidents of people in their mid-20s posing in the doorways of beautiful Georgian buildings, while their friends down the steps blasted away snapping photos on their latest iPhones. Three separate incidents in the space of 5 minutes - a bit insane right? This idea of randomly posing in aesthetic looking places is not a new concept, but one a lot of people may cringe at. While we can’t tell exactly what these people will use the photos for, one can guess it may be to share on their Instagram. 

The Quest for Validation

For generations, before social media, getting a compliment and validation from our peers is nice, we all know this. Instagram has increased this craving for compliments and validation ten-fold. To those women posing in doorways, do I really blame them when I experienced this myself, just in a different way? It reminds me of that trend ‘felt cute, might delete later’. Just, wow. What has happened to our society, that we seek constant approval for our work, or how we look, from others. 


I remember when I would post something online, it was rarely validation for how I look, but how my art is perceived by the world. The awareness of who likes what, what the comments are, positive or negative, would only confirm my desire to create more of that content, in an attempt to have approval, and ultimately belong. What I have learned over the years is that self-approval is so much more important to having an authentic presence on social media. With photography, and what I post, I decided to become more real in my self-expression. I wanted to post what I wanted, because intuitively it felt good, and felt true to me. As a creative, that switch from sharing things online from what people wanted me or expected me to share vs. what I wanted to share has seen me lose freelance work, and even lose people who I thought were friends. 

The Reality Behind the Screen

Keeping up with the Kardashians (or Jones’, whatever you choose) and behaving a certain way in the digital age is intense and exhausting. We are bombarded with advertisements everywhere we go, I don’t blame people for falling into this trap. We always want the latest clothes, makeup, and technology, just to keep up. But living this curated lifestyle can have emotional and even financial impacts. One recent statistic showed that Gen Z are using Klarna to purchase clothes but are putting themselves into debt. Millennials and Gen Z can’t afford to buy homes, yet we’re getting into debt spending money on clothes? (That’s an argument for another day!)  Financial considerations aside, social media has been known to make people, especially young people compare themselves against others, because of the validation seeking behaviour. We can never say that social media can negatively impact someone’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, but we can for sure say there’s correlations.

Conclusion and Finding Authenticity Online

While social media is a place of creativity and expression, it can be muddled by noise, advertisements, and people living highlight reels and perfectly curated lifes. How is it even possible to switch off from the influences of TikTok and Instagram to live a truly authentic and full life? While either consuming or creating content, losing oneself online to the masses and noise is too easy. Two things that I think can help when consuming content is self-awareness and self-regulation. Taking active breaks from social media, and understand when you’re being sold too. These are some of the key teachings we educate pre-teens and families at Sersha, because if we don’t understand our behaviour and how we interact online - it can be a recipe for disaster. 

In an attempt to live an uncurated life myself, I have archived all my photography on Instagram. I only post now on my personal website. Why? Well I can post what I want, when I want, without being a slave to the algorithm. Likes and validation don’t bother me anymore, because I post for myself and myself only.

For the readers: Attempt to live an un-curated life, a life where you don’t have to showcase the highlight reels and seek approval from your peers. Capture those moments for you, for your memories, or because you want to take the photo. Don’t fall into the trap of creating content for the validation you seek. Find that validation within yourself.

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