In our booming age of social media addiction, determining selfhood has become ritualistic.
The ritual commences when opening any form of social media. Suddenly, there's a self-proclaimed microinfluencer making sure you know it's “teal girl summer.” Scroll. Another video appears, but this time it’s a reminder that we should all be “whimsy-maxxing.” Scroll again. Now, it's a melange of Pinterest-sourced images showing the perfect personal rebranding for the new school year.
This is where the ritual goes from potentially inspirational to detrimental.
Here’s the damage: A computer algorithm — and the complete strangers working it to streamline their empty musings to the masses — do not know you. As college students, when we bank our selfhood on aesthetics and meticulous curation, we slip into this gripping void of quiet insecurity. The notion of being the “perfect, on-trend student” isn’t motivational, it’s killing us.
When we allow non-human algorithms to determine the standards for human learning (and the romanticization thereof), we stumble further and further from the actual pursuit of knowledge. Wearing the perfect pair of ballet flats and having an on-trend laptop cover does not make one a better learner than their peers. Rather, it pulls us away from our own individuality and unbridled intellectuality.
Furthermore, such insurmountable pressure to entirely abandon past versions of oneself in order to achieve academic success is, actually, the very antithesis of academia. True academic achievement is entirely about finding explosive passion and inquiry in the most tender cavities of our individual brains and stumbling over ourselves in pursuit of that knowledge. There is no singular way to learn — that rhetoric is dated, unproductive and a complete threat to the imperfection that makes the human brain so brilliant and expansive.
Our time spent in college is, undisputedly, imperative to our neurological, emotional and overall personal development. As students, we’re metamorphic, ever-changing — and not in some trite caterpillars-to-butterflies way. That’s a rhetoric of identity which emphasizes perfection to the detriment of its investors.
Instead, I like to frame academic growth through this period in my life as the ebb and flow of the seasons. Sometimes, that means feeling radiant and everclear as an effulgent summer’s day, ready to raise my hand in a 200 person lecture hall. Other times, it means begrudgingly trudging through my day like late winter’s muddied sludge, withering away in the library and wondering if proofreading my essay one more time is really worth it. The point is: forcing this time in our lives as scholars and adolescents to feel perfectly linear and curated is the antithesis of personal growth.
The truth of the matter is simple: with the amount of academic and social pressure we are already under, trends become deeper than cultural fads. They bleed into our self perception and, relentlessly, insinuate that we simply aren’t good enough at being ourselves.
Reader, I ask you to reflect, and at the very least ponder this question: aren’t you more than your brand? More than the advertisements on TikTok telling you to microdose a GLP-1 and sport a “niche” pair of capris and kitten heels? More than a (deeply, hilariously insecure) podcaster telling you your masculinity is directly tied to eating steak and eggs off a cutting board?
As we dip into the new semester, I urge you to free yourself from the shackles of tidy aesthetics and algorithmic calculations of your personality as a student and young adult. Connect with the juxtaposingly simple-yet-messy experience that is the reality of being in college. It’s booming and terrifying, but also so rawly beautiful. And, remember: when you put down the phone and stop your scroll, these trends dissipate.
You remain.
This school year, don’t waste your breath chasing some artificial, hollow facade of yourself. Take it slow, be kind to yourself and focus on learning the most important lesson: who you authentically are.
Siena Ferraro is an Opinion Editor. She is a sophomore studying journalism. Do you agree academic trendiness defeats the purpose of higher education? Send all comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com
