Emily Chan
Social media is where people present only their very best selves, all glammed up, surrounded by friends at an exotic destination. Most of us know that there’s more to it than meets the eye. Certain camera angles and a little bit of photo editing can entirely transform a person or a place.
Sara (@just.a.sara) is a copywriter who recently moved into a house formerly belonging to an Instagram influencer, and she’s exposing some of the things she discovered about the house.
After moving into her new home, Sara came across the previous owners’ Instagram account, where they had been posting misleading photos of the house, making it look more polished than it actually was.
“I live in a house that used to be owned by someone who was trying to be an Instagram influencer and was sharing really highly edited, very strategically angled photos of my unfinished house that they knew was unfinished, that they knew wasn’t done correctly, and portraying it as an influencer’s home,” Sara said.
Sara went on to clarify that she was sharing this story to show the differences between Instagram and reality, not to promote hate for influencers or shame the former owners.
“The point was never to give them hate. It was to share how easily reality can be manipulated on social media,” she explained.
Social media has been found to have a negative impact on people’s mental health. Excessive scrolling can cause feelings of sadness and low self-worth. Often, people can’t help but compare their own lives to what they see on Instagram.
That’s why Sara is trying to raise awareness of the fact that everything is not what it seems on social media. In a separate video, she showcased an experiment she conducted to demonstrate how simple it is to alter reality.
Sara snapped some photos of areas around her house and used editing software to change things around. She tells viewers that the whole project took her about five minutes. One of the photos she took was a shot of a fireplace with her dog perched on the windowsill.
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