Thank You for the Birthday Messages
Illustrated by Zoe Gigis
I have a lot of friends born in October. The night before their birthday I typically spend 20-30 minutes searching/editing the perfect photo series to post for that person the next day. I’d be lying if I said I don’t make sure I look good in those photos as well. I guess it’s just something a lot of us are, sadly, used to on social media, making sure the “look” or aesthetic is as flattering as it can be even if it’s someone else's birthday. I like doing it because I would assume it makes that person smile. A lil “hey I love you” reminder.
I turned 20 a few weeks ago. I woke up pretty early that day, like 7 or so. Probably like anyone else on their day of birth, the first thing you do is check your phone to prepare for an overflow of texts in all caps with the confetti effect, gifs, missed facetime calls and facebook messages from adults that you totally forgot existed. Of course from very close friends, I received very lovely texts and messages either right at midnight or in the morning, I am grateful for just that. As the morning went on I kept checking my phone with no notifications to block my wallpaper of me and my closest friends. Some friends remembered it was my birthday around 1 or 2 *which by the way, is something I could never be mad about. I cannot remember anyone's birthday off the top of my head. I myself either need to see the cake symbol on someone’s snapchat or someone else's post...I should really really make a list on my notes app*.
However, the way I found out a lot of them remembered my birthday, mainly lifelong highschool friends, was not by a text, but rather the notification “___ tagged you in a post”. Those came flooding in around 4 or 5. Of course I’m grateful, in many ways those small acts go a long way. I don’t know about anyone else but I get this weird spurt of adrenaline when I’m tagged in a post. It shows, in a minor form, that I’m positively a part of someone’s life. Just on the day I turned 20, I thought it was weird that from many peers, the only messages of love came from instagram and not from a more personal form, like calls, voice messages or text. Not a bad weird, just a normal weird. I was having too much of a lovely day spent eating cake and watching horror movies with a couple friends to ponder why exactly that is, until I opened a snapchat.
A black screen with a caption that reads “like and comment” with a drawn out capital S meaning “streaks.” I knew it had to be referring to the kind birthday post she made for me a mere hour beforehand. In an instant, that answered the question that was in the back of my mind. Why the love on social media and only social media? It’s because we’re fucking controlled by it.
This is all I could think about the day after, wondering if we’ve all become mummies to our six inch screens because it makes us feel “belonged.” The way I look at it, it is due to this EXTREMELY insecure phase we are in as young people. We desire constant validation, and a way of getting a quick spark of that is through social media. We keep using it and using it in hopes to prove to others that we are “living our best lives”...and as someone who’s a victim to that system, I can tell you it’s exhausting. Once we post, we feel the need to keep posting. We need to prove to others that by the likes and comments on our image, we are in fact loved and idolized. I post these aesthetic happy posts to shield the fact that I am just as anxious and insecure being 20 as I was when I was 14. We’re so unaware that constantly proving our happiness on social media is making us...less happy. The never ending comparing yourself, figuring out just the right series of photos to post at which particular time of day, figuring out a caption that doesn't make it seem you’re trying too hard...all of this in an effort to be “accepted” by the fellow 20 year olds around you.
It’s nobody's fault. It’s not my friend’s fault for only posting on social media for my birthday and not shooting me a text, and it’s not their fault for asking for likes and comments on it either. We’re just so attuned to that way of communicating, if you can even call that communication. We’re all addicted to it, we don’t know life without it. We carry it around in our hands every second of the day, it’s just who we are. The following Sunday I got my weekly screen time report, saying it went up 58% from last week, of an average of six hours and 15 minutes per week. That made sense to me, constantly refreshing instagram to see the next post or story uploaded, as well as documenting the birthday moments on my camera roll instead of really experiencing them.
In a larger puzzle piece I am eternally grateful. I made it to 20 years, a perfectly healthy, stable, loved and supported 20 year old. I am a much better off 20 year old than many in this country and in the world and I have to remind myself of that. Though as another gift to me, I’m gonna start my 20s off the phone. Signing off from my insta, finsta, snapchat and twitter to see what it does for my mental health. I’m doing this so I can live through my 20s not proving to other people that I’m “in my 20s”.
One day at a time, trying hard to actually look up and learn to love the little non virtual things that this world has to offer. I hope in the long run I realize it’s the best gift I ever received.