John Grant Quotes

What you're seeing, certainly on Instagram, is not real, not a reflection of real life, not an interaction.

Particularly Instagram, people look like they have a much better life than they really do. People basically seem like they are way better-looking than they really are, and they are way happier-seeming than they really are.

With Instagram and Twitter, you're constantly looking at other people and comparing yourself to them, and it's just not beneficial. There is always going to be someone skinnier or prettier or with better skin, and that same girl you're looking at is comparing herself to someone else.

We who curate our Twitter feeds and Facebook walls understand that at least part of what we're doing publicly, 'like'-ing what we like, is trying to separate ourselves from the herd.

Instagram is my edit of my life.

Approximating authenticity online is not such a tall order. In fact, it may be the very least we can do.

My Google existence is probably larger than a lot of people's.

Instagram influencers project a specific, highly crafted image of perfection - one that is largely white, thin, and psychologically Zen. Critics argue that this boom, in turn, has helped fuel excessive self-promotion in which we post about only the good moments rather than reality - essentially, a distorted echo chamber.

It's important to remember that what you see on Instagram is not reality. I find it hard to not be on my phone the whole time comparing myself to what I see on social media.

None of us have it all together; it just seems that way on Instagram.

Twitter is an extension of every dumb thought I have, firing it off - Instagram is a little more methodical.

We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection, because we get rewarded in these short term signals: Hearts, likes, thumbs up. We conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth, and instead, what it really is is fake, brittle popularity that's short term and leaves you even more vacant and empty before you did it.

Instagram is a perception game.

Social media, unfortunately, just makes it a lot easier to be jealous. It sets up false expectations of reality, so it's really easy to look at someone else's life online and assume that they have everything going great for them and that their life is perfect.

A girl's social networking profile is a persona she constructs, a photoshopped billboard on the information superhighway. It also offers a salve for the anxiety so many girls feel about relationships, providing the answers to burning social questions like, What do other people think of me? Do people like me? Am I normal? Am I popular? Am I cool?

Twitter is about creating whatever persona you want to create and either sticking with it or changing it or evolving it or contradicting it, and I've done all that stuff.

I am the queen of hashtags! I love hashtags. I think in hashtags. I wish I could write everything in hashtag.

Shakespeare would have it wrong these days. It's not the world that's the stage - it's social media, where you're trying to put on a show. The rest of your life is rehearsals, prepping in the wings to be fabulous online.

What it's done for me is highlight the fact that we need to lean into the cartoon universe of social media.

…maybe the whole Internet will simply become like Facebook: falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous….” - Zadie Smith

Being on Twitter is like having a fern.

I have no Facebook page or Twitter - I don't participate in it, and I don't like it particularly. I mean, it's a form of interaction, which strikes me as extremely superficial.

I'm one of those YouTubers who doesn't daily-vlog, so my life may seem very open, but my audience only really sees probably 50%. I keep a lot to myself, and I cherish the things that are for me and the people closest to me.

I know so many kids who literally are, like, Instagram-famous. They have done nothing but post pictures on Instagram. And they have followings. People love to see them in person, but it's only because they post on their Instagram. It's literally crazy. Kids will paint a picture of themselves that is so far beyond who they actually are. It's like they're wearing someone else's skin.

The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.