Playing Grown Ups

Years ago, but it seems like yesterday, I discovered a pink razor in my parents bathroom and decided to shave my legs and arms. As well as that disastrous event, I would occasionally creep over to my Dad's chest of drawers and cause my armpits to violently sting by spraying myself with his Right Guard. It also doesn't seem that long since I covered my entire body, and my faithful doll Paula, in my mother's Lancome red lipstick. I was only doing what (I thought) I was seeing my parents do as part of their daily routines. Now, in a month's time, I have to get my shit together and stop playing at grown ups, because I'm GRADUATING and am about to join them in the ranks of adulthood for real.
That big, giant, scary word is now being flung around in conversation far too casually by people whose lives post-university are arrogantly sorted out or taken care of. But, perhaps more commonly, it is being muttered under short nervous breaths in conjunction with jittery eyes that look to the sky like an awkward man pretending he hasn't noticed a big pair of breasts in front of him. Our English Facebook thread on the topic of where to take our parents for lunch after our gown ceremony (jokes, they'll be paying since we'll all be broke) is entitled 'Graduation - Lol'. Even more taboo is the word JOB. I tend to find that the only people who ask whether you have a job lined up are either my parent's friends and acquaintances or other undergrads who do have a job waiting for them and like to bandy it around for all to see. Everyone else seems content to avoid the topic altogether, or ask what your 'plans' are from June onwards, a far vaguer term which, usually, happily steers the topic of conversation on to Summer holidays and which niche festival you'll be attending. 

I am hurtling towards graduation without my life being in order in any way, shape or form. I keep telling people I'd like to go into 'fashion marketing or editorial', which is true, but I'm not really 'going' anywhere at the moment. I argue consistently that the pressure of knowing and finding exactly what you want to do is almost impossible to cope with at the same time as trying to get a decent degree. I think in many ways university has taught me independence and time management, but it's also made me unable to rise before 9am or to focus my mind on more than one thing at a time, be it an essay or an episode of Girls. That's even when I've done more extra curricular stuff than other students would bother with. The other day over Sunday lunch, when my brother declared he was thinking about drama school, my mother deploringly asked us if at least one child could please be a lawyer, doctor or accountant. Nice, sensible jobs but I'm afraid mother dearest, not suitable for any of your frightfully creative and dysfunctional offspring. 

Whether I have a job or not, come June 3rd when I walk out of my final final, I will probably have to start acting like a grown up sharpish. I think in your final year at university they should offer transitional etiquette classes and not just CV-writing assistance. As I hound fashion companies for internships I will wave goodbye to my student discount (I weep), I will lose my loan (and begin debt) and, at least for a little while, will likely become another waitress who you'd never guess had a 2:1 in English Literature. But I just don't feel grown up and I'm still eating raisins from those miniature SunMaiden cardboard boxes for heaven's sake. The only sign that I am anywhere near ready for adulthood is that I sometimes write in my Filofax and now enjoy receiving scented candles and nice soap as gifts. 

There is some hope; I recently did an online test that told me I had the mental age of thirty-three. However, that I thoroughly enjoyed partaking in this bout of cyber-psychometrics, clearly compiled of utter b*****ks including the question 'were you a teacher's pet', is somewhat childish, wouldn't you say?  

Facebook Me?

The other day, sitting with housemates in our usual post-supper-girly-gossip stupor at the kitchen table, I uttered the phrase, "sometimes I just want to take my whole Instagram down and start again." I was understandably laughed at, and then my housemate tweeted it. Then, like every other night in, I probably went up to my room and vegged out by scrolling through Facebook, and even after shutting down my computer allowed myself a little scroll through Instagram on my phone before turning my light out, when really I should have been reading one of the three books a week my degree puts upon me. Perhaps my self-conscious admission was sub-consciously post-modern due to the contemporary literature module I'm currently taking, but more likely it was due to the increasing pressure we all feel to make our lives interesting enough for constant social media consumption. In fact, I know that's why I said it. 

Imagine a life without Facebook and all the other various social networks? In my head it doesn't seem so bad, but then how would I remember people's birthdays? How would I get sent invites to things? How would I stalk people when I want to procrastinate? Without Instagram, how could I legitimately take selfies? How could I snoop on celebrities and see catwalk shows as they happen? Would I have to eat my perfect salad without photographing it? How would the world go round?
I think that this social media induced insecurity is a very new, but alarmingly prevalent, side affect of a generation where technology is developing faster than my nails grow. Yes it's great that I can keep in touch with everyone all the time, but I don't always want to keep in touch with everyone all the time. Also, when I'm ensconced in the library 9-7 every day tackling essays, I don't want to see how much fun everyone else is having, or how great they're looking when I'm eating an entire chocolate orange, slumped at my desk as the Asian next to me gives me withering looks. I have begun to realise that Facebook can do a lot more harm than good, and I'm ever so glad I didn't have to grow up with it any earlier than the young enough age of 16, when at the grand old age of 21 it still has the ability to make me fret. I think anyone who says it doesn't make life more of a performance is lying. Social media has even changed the way relationships work. No longer do boys have to pluck up the courage to call you, a seemingly terrible ordeal, first they must add you as a friend, then you might use Facebook chat, then you might start texting, and only when you've learnt to get on through satellite communication might you have a REAL conversation. In some cases, you can sleep with someone and not even have spoken to them on the phone, although obviously you would have had face to face contact (one would hope).
According to Facebook, I have 669 friends. I don't think I could even count more than around 60 true friends and family who's lives I really care about if you pinned me down right here and now. OH and I've just spent about 10 minutes dithering on Facebook instead of writing this post! I'm keenly aware that this is beginning to sound like a rant and not an article, but I am genuinely fascinated by the power Mark Zuckerberg holds over us all, and am curious as to when Facebook will become naff and 'yesterday'. If I still have Facebook in five years, people will only have to press the left arrow key on my photos to see a picture of me that was taken a decade before. Is that not a sobering thought? Perhaps in five years we won't even be talking to each other any more, only iMessaging.
Social media is a hugely successful part of expanding businesses, spreading awareness for pretty much any project, and raising the profiles of charity campaigns. Only the other day it was responsible for bringing to light the travesties of Pussy Riot activities at Sochi. It also (tragically) is what keeps me up to date with most of the news. Since having Twitter I've actually become more informed, as before I never made the proactive decision to buy a paper or subscribe to The Week like my more savvy friends (I'd rather spend the money on shoes). Social media is also going to allow me to share this blog with people, in which case I'll be promoting myself just as much as the next person. It's a slightly scary/hopeful thought (for when I graduate) that people are paid to do social media, it's become that much of an art form. I even listed various social media sites under 'Technical Skills' on my C.V.
I think that is where my issue lies. No longer is social media a 'platform', whatever that phrase has come to mean, for communication. It's a theatre stage, or more appropriately a cinema screen, upon which people can deliberately act out their apparently glittering lives. Even if we do live fairly ordinary lives, and hey most of us do at least some of the time, we still make choices as to what we advertise through Instagram/Facebook/Tumblr....the list is endless. I can't count the number of times I've hovered over deactivating my account in recent weeks, receiving a 'neknomination' almost pushed me over the edge....and yet I come back every time. I'm as addicted to my online alter-ego and the many avenues it takes me down as I am to Coca-Cola. And I have to admit that the internet allows me to indulge endlessly in my 'passion-for-fashion' (cringe). But I wish I had the power to resist, and the self-assurance to not care, and that I could be so alternative I didn't have Facebook and didn't look at my iPhone every 5 minutes. But I am only human, and as the world gets less so, I expect I'll be along for the ride. Now excuse me while I go and tweet myself to sleep.

MØ - Say You'll Be There (Spice Girls Cover)

(Defeat: I would not have heard this fantastic Spice Girls tribute if it weren't for Facebook, and now I have to share it).