Being unhappy online is the latest trend

Are you still posting happy photos? Where you laugh, shine, glimmer, and glitter? Sorry, you are a bit out of fashion.

You see it more and more often: people sharing their ups and downs on The Gram. I can't scroll through my timeline without someone being openly depressed, addicted, or tired. People are more honest than ever on social media. Are you a bit overly fond of drinks? Then you just show your rehab clinic by name. Share the location, hop. Have you been at home from work for months because you have a burnout? You show how you are walking on the heath on Monday morning. And even when we post a nice picture of ourselves with sweet filters and long eyelashes, there often still has to be an ‘honest, sad text’ accompanying it. In the vein of: ‘yes, I may be laughing, but I also have it tough. I am tired, sad, depressed, alone, exhausted, gloomy, boring, dull. But I am smiling in the photo, though.’

How come that we are currently massively throwing our misery on Instagram? ‘Being sad online is trendy,’ foreign media write. It is increasingly encouraged to be open about your mental problems, and we are responding more and more to that. This is also because role models, such as celebrities, are taking the lead. Think of Gordon: we are just not sitting with a live feed in his rehab clinic, but otherwise, we can read in detail about how he is doing with his alcohol and drug addiction. Somewhere very brave and daring that he dares to share that, but also somewhere confronting. Do we really want to know how bad he is doing? Or how miserable our own neighbor feels?

Instagram is and remains an outlet. And some use it mainly to lurk at others. But you can also draw support from it. For some, that is uplifting. Just showing that it is not always happy rainbows. Sharing a photo in the hospital, showing a broken leg, sharing a story about your deceased grandfather, or just a Story with the crappy day that you have had.

It is a new trend to be vulnerable online. Of course, all those likes and hearts and loveyous under your vulnerable photo are nice, but you ultimately have to manage offline. You need to be happy offline, feel fit and good and fun. And that only works if you also live more offline. Who matters then, when you are not thinking about all your Instagram followers for a moment? Exactly.