i need to be someone new

i get sick of myself too quickly

i’m creating telegram channels, new instagram accounts (finstas, spams, a dance account, a writing account, a photography account and what have you), changing my profile picture, spending embarrassing amounts of time deciding what i should put in my twitter bio, choosing pictures for my spotify playlists and naming them when i realise the unusual amount of joy that this brings me. it is amidst this years-long frenzy that i finally paused and pondered why i seemed to have an obsession with creating these new things, vessels of myself to exist in an online space, representations, windows to different parts of my soul and doors to different rooms in my heart. it appears that i’m addicted to the idea of re-inventing myself. i’m transfixed by the idea of a transformation, ANY transformation, as long as it will allow me to become someone new.

every once in a while, i think i need to change something about myself. i need to adopt a new persona, some new aesthetic maybe, or maybe a new colour vibe, who knows? this explains a lot of things, like why i can never commit to using a notion template just because one day i make it all brownish beigeish tones and the next day i open it and feel like i want to enter my pink coquette era and that i’m done with the dark academia aesthetic. i decide i want to have an aesthetic spotify profile, so my playlists are all of a certain vibe and colour scheme. to fully immerse myself into this character i try to play, sometimes i even try to listen to new songs and new artists in an attempt to make my music taste seem cooler and quirkier. i don’t know when it all started, but the point is i get sick of myself too quickly. and i always need to be someone new. or at least, someone else, anyone other than me.

i think it may be because there seem to be many archetypes of people in our world today. people with different aesthetics and niches and vibes and personalities, all of which are equally intriguing and attractive to me in various ways, so much so that i want to be them all. i don’t think i know myself well enough, so i resort to adopting what society and social media has deemed to be nice and cool and wear it like a costume, hoping that the shoe fits so that i can walk in it. or perhaps, i do know myself well, it’s just that i like too many things and can’t decide what i like more, so my likes and preferences change like the weather, and so i buy a new shoe and wear it until i get sick of it and realise there’s a prettier and cooler shoe on the market and so i decide to get that too. then i have too options and i can change my mind as and when i want.

perhaps my fatal flaw is that i am a trend chaser. and social media has been both the root factor and the exacerbating factor of this flaw. it’s always coquette girl this, dark academia aesthetic that, clean girl aesthetic this, film photography aesthetic that. one second ribbons are outdated and the next they’re flying off the shelves. one second colourful accessories and quirky fashion is the way to go, and the next second people scoff at it and say things like “remember when we thought we were the shit”, speaking in past tense as if these trends did not happen a mere two or three years ago. social media uses these trends and aesthetics to package a lifestyle, a lifestyle of being pretty and a lifestyle of positivity, but most importantly, a lifestyle of potential. it promises beauty, it promises cohesion, because no one’s life is inherently perfect all the time and no one’s entire rooms are based off a clean girl aesthetic or a coquette girl aesthetic because realistically these are impractical ways of living. people prioritise neatness but it is not neatness for the sake of it but rather neatness for the sake of functionality. people prioritise convenience and the occasional good deal for slightly plainer bedsheets. people use things that are not always pink and decorated with ribbons. people don’t customise their instagrams and exclusively wear white and pink clothing with ribbons, people probably have cupboards full of clothes that they wear when they are not focused on taking a mirror selfie on instagram.

life is messy and somehow we cannot accept it. when we see tiktok videos of rooms in pretty pink, or sleek cream-white-beige colour themed rooms, all we can think about is how pleasant this person’s life must be, to come home to such a beautiful room everyday. how organised this person must be to be able to maintain their living space so well. they market an unattainable and lavish lifestyle that not many people can have. and that makes us crave it even more.

so when we are unable to implement these cohesive, beautiful, trendy ways of living into our daily life, the natural resort is to infuse it into our online personas. after all, your online profile and space is easily changeable with the clicking of a few buttons and a pinterest account. and if you’re really committing to it, perhaps a song or a poem that you can quote in your bio. and that is why social media exacerbates my problem. the online space seriously makes it unhealthily easy to change yourself and reinvent yourself completely, depending on who you want to be. and it’s almost addictive, to scroll through a bunch of beautiful pictures on pinterest and download them all, and incorporate them into your different social media profiles or your spotify playlists. it’s a guilty pleasure for me, really, to download a pretty picture from pinterest that represents the general vibe of the playlist i’m about to create but also matches with the general vibe of my spotify profile (both factors are equally important), then to name it a simple yet sophisticated and cryptic title and leave a cute little lyric in the description and have my newly-created playlist join the others. i open my spotify profile like a drug just to scroll through my playlists and admire them.

and so, social media is definitely an enabler of my desire to be someone new. but perhaps some introspection is due. what does this say about me?

i tire of myself, i’m fickle, and i don’t know who or what i want to be presented as. i have never thought of myself as someone with poor self-understanding and i typically consider myself to be pretty self-aware, but i guess i’m starting to doubt it because it seems that i don’t really know who i want to be. and it’s a scary thing to think about, as i stand on the cusp of adulthood, readying myself to take the leap. it’s not really about where i’m headed, but rather, who i want to be when i get there.

but then again, how can i expect myself to be just one thing? i am a mosaic of every thing i’ve ever liked, every colour i’ve ever wanted to paint my room, every person who has touched my life and every piece of media i have ever consumed. life is messy!!!!! i am messy!!!!! social media makes us want to change our personas in the online space to model after an aesthetic, because life is too messy for ultimate cohesion and tidiness, and so we make our online spaces and profiles cohesive and tidy to make up for it. i guess what i’m trying to say is i am too messy for ultimate cohesion and tidiness, and social media is a reflection of me, which is why i keep changing myself and transforming myself to fit whatever i love or whatever i’m thinking of at the moment. i am everything and i guess my fickle social media presence reflects that. i am flickering.

i’m going to reframe things for myself: i am everything. so maybe i need to stop trying to make my social media neat and palatable to whichever stranger perceives me on the internet and then change it every time i feel like being someone new. maybe my socials need to be messy and haphazard to showcase every aspect of me that is worth showing on the internet. but i definitely need to check myself and make sure i don’t lose myself trying to be someone else online.

but change comes gradually, and i can leave this reframing as a note to myself to remind myself that re-invention is not always necessary. it’s true, but i’m young and i’m learning. i’m exploring and finding the person i want to be. trying on the shoes and walking around in them until they break or my feet start to hurt, until i finally find my perfect glass slipper. i forgive myself for being confused about who i am and wanting to be someone else and i forgive myself for giving in to the charming wiles of social media and the next big aesthetic. i’ll indulge in the spotify playlist-making for the fun of it. it’s all a part of the journey i’m on with myself.

after all, i’m finding a skin i am comfortable in.

i hope one day, that skin will be my own.