A close friend of mine’s life recently fell almost completely apart. He is without work, a permanent place to live, he is broke and sick and bitterly unhappy. He launched a new podcast and his own Facebook Page.
Today, I began to listen to the podcast.
A newcomer to his life would have thought he was the happiest, most successful, and upbeat person in the world. I had to stop reading, It was a long lie.
A few minutes later, I received a link from another friend, a woman who was important to Maria and me. She has just been through an ugly divorce and is moving away; her life was completely upended.
In writing about this year on her page, she lied about almost every single thing that has happened to her – trips she wanted to take, victories she didn’t have, insights that were not real, the pain she suffered.
Nobody reading that page would have had a clue as to what her life was really like, or what she is really like. No one who knew her would believe it.
Was she lying intentionally?
Or could she no longer see the truth, since her social media page gave her a way to rewrite her story any way she liked?
Another friend of mine, a recent newcomer to the country, writes on her blog about midnight rendezvous with wandering cows, grieving couples in hospitals, mystical adventures in the woods.
This is not the person I know; this is not the life I see.
No one reading her blogs would know how severe and painful her struggles are, or how much they cost her every day. Almost everything she writes is about how happy and healthy and creative she is.
Still another friend is quick to post on Facebook when somebody dies, but otherwise has nothing to say. Being sorry for other people is often the very point of social media.
Being authentic is a sacred obligation to me, yet I see every day that social media promotes lying, self-delusion, self-interest, and narcissism. That’s the new work of social media.
Being authentic does not mean whining or trolling for sympathy. It means simply being honest about one’s life, the good and the bad.
Maria and I were both upset to come across the website of an artist we know who has struggled almost daily with rejection, poverty, and obscurity for years. Her Facebook page told a very different story – one of the awards, great reviews, museum exhibits, wealthy buyers, and happy life.
Does she know, or does she not care? Perhaps she now lives in her own reality.
Many people use each other as well as this medium to present myths and distortions about things they know cannot be accurate, but also cannot easily be challenged.
Social media is so often not a medium of truth but of self-interest and promotion that most people don’t expect to see the truth any longer.
A Forbes Magazine study found that people with a lot of Facebook friends tend to have low self-esteem. Extroverts update their status more often than introverts. Narcissists favor drama and self-promotional writing and stories.
Neurotic people have the most photos per album. People who talk of their wonderful vacations or joyous families are often hiding the truth.
A massive online study of social media posts found that the more miserable people are, the happier their social media posts. The study concluded that we should never be envious of other people’s glamorous online lives.
Life is like that, it is often hard. Why pretend otherwise?
It’s easy, said the study, to fall into the trap of letting other people’s perfect social-media profiles convince you that you’re somehow falling short.
Facebook and Twitter threads blow that worry to bits.
The study also found that hard-working people spend less time on Facebook and Twitter than almost anyone else.
It also found that the practice of blaming other people, other institutions, for their troubles is epidemic, and almost always supported and enabled. On social media, the left blames the right, and the right blames the left. No one takes responsibility for anything.
It has dawned on me slowly – perhaps because I don’t ever go on Twitter and rarely am on Facebook – that many people often use social media to lie about themselves, to make themselves look happier and more content and successful than they are.
These self-serving platforms seem designed to minimize failures and distort successes. The people writing on them must never look vulnerable or victimized.
To me, this is the use of writing to commit fraud; it is immoral. I don’t learn or grow from the successes, it’s the struggles that shape and define me.
I read these things and my stomach sinks, I want to take a shower after absorbing this perversion of what real writing is or should be.
I am no saint, certainly no stranger to the importance of marketing myself online. Social media is an essential work tool for me and the source of most of my income. It matters how I present myself and the work I do. I am wary of looking bad or stupid online.
But I am terrified of lying about myself.
I learned as a writer – I was taught this by John Updike, an inspiration to me and the host of the only writing workshop I ever took – that the primary obligation of a serious writer is to recognize and acknowledge the worst parts of himself and to never use writing as a tool to make him look better than he is.
I have always used my writing – which links to social media – to understand myself and my weakness and to heal them by being open. I have always believed this is the path to being read and appreciated, not sugar-coating my life and writing only in my self-interest.
The history of my precious blog has sustained this idea so far.
When I fell into a horrific depression, I wrote about it- every day. I expected my readers to abandon me, but the readers who stayed and endured me at my worst are the most loyal readers I have ever had.
They didn’t want me to polish up my image; they wanted the true story of a life. Because they have struggles too.
I resolved to be open about my mental illness, my anger, my delusions, and cruel mistakes. Being authentic was not noble, it was self-serving.
I have no secrets; there is nothing anyone can say about me that I have not told about myself, more than once. I say again and again when you read me, you will get the good Katz and the bad Katz, but you will always get the real one.
I’m not always sweet and understanding, I can’t be. I can only be me. You will never get a rosier picture of my life than it is, and my life, like everyone’s life, is not always rosy.
This is my self-interest, my favor, being honest:
That is the bond that holds us together, the sacred relationship between writer and reader.
No one reading my blog believes I am always happy, self-assured, successful, generous, or proud of myself. I never use social media to gather sympathy and pity; I get help from the people trained to give it.
When we present false images of life, we distort life itself.
The more I see people I know on social media, the more upsetting it is to me to read what they write, and the less faith I have in what I read.
Hannah Arendt, my moral mentor, and great writer and philosopher wrote that ethical conduct depends primarily on the intercourse of man or woman with him or herself.
We must not make exceptions in our favor, she wrote. We must not ever place ourselves in positions in which we would have to despise ourselves.
I’ve told many lies in my life and made numerous mistakes. They always made me despise myself.
The purpose of my blog is not to make me look good, but to write about my life in such a way as to be useful or stimulating to others.
When people urge me to be nice all the time they don’t realize that this would be just another way of lying.
I don’t despise myself now. I am just learning to like, perhaps even love myself.
The standard is not the love of other person or self-love, but self-respect.
Reading these self-serving distortions, again and again, made my stomach sink, there was no respect left in me when I was done.
At 68 what’s the point in lying? I published my memoir last year. Took me 2 yrs to write and lots of therapy. I told the unvarnished truth. Lost some friends. Pissed off a lot of the people in the book because I told the truth, but at least my kids know the truth and my grandkids and future descendants will know who I really was. I have 10 other books if they’re looking for fiction and my 12th one stretches the limits even further. I know how to write fiction, but not about myself. Not about who I am. After 25 years of being controlled and told what I could and could not do, what I thought, felt and even what and who I liked and disliked, I’ve spent another 25 yrs alone, finding my truth. I know who I am now and I’m not afraid to share that knowledge.
Wow! Jon – this was an eye-opener – thanks for sharing these observations. I totally agree about your writings. I have just read five of your dog books (and loved them), but as I was reading I kept thinking to myself that this is the most transparent, open, honest man of any person I know. Thanks for always being so honest with your readers – I highly respect that in you. I’ve just recently discovered your blog but am enjoying it now too. I learn a lot from you.
Say on: tell it! Can I get a witness?
Thank you for telling your story straight up and keeping it real.
Unfortunately, SM just isn’t reality most times, it allows people to create the “life” they want seen..the life they would really like..I am very careful in what I believe on SM..I write only the truth on my sites..I try not to be all doom and gloom, because no one wants to hear that day in and day out..I would rather say nothing if I am having several bad days..but again it depends what it is..If I lose a dog, I will post it, if i lose a human member of the family I will not, at least not for a long time to come..
Thank you for this post! I struggled for years to be a writer, and did manage to sell a few articles to newspapers and magazines. I even published one children’s book. But I wasn’t a real writer, because I hadn’t learned to tell my own truths. Finally, I learned that the only real thing I had worth writing about was my own, unique truth. And now I’m happily blogging, and I put myself out there, warts and all. Of course I don’t write about absolutely everything, as I get to keep some privacy and also don’t want to hurt others who would recognize themselves in my posts. But every word I do write is true, and it is often about my struggles. And it feels good to be honest.
That is what I have always liked the best about your blog: your honesty. It gives the rest of us “permission” to be less than perfect too. I don’t think I’m saying this well, so I’ll quite rambling and simply repeat: “Thank you.” Posts like this help.
Your friends’ blog posts should come as no surprise. There is an epidemic sweeping the internet and, specifically, social media sites. I call it the “phony Facebook fantasy” and it developed as a result of the almost fanatical desire to portray one’s life as happy, successful and something that others aspire to. Pay no attention to the continuous posts of happy kids, perfect pets, admirable careers and affluent lifestyles. When someone who usually posts continually throughout the day suddenly disappears from social media for several days, that’s when they are experiencing a bout of real life.
The way you write (truthfully, honestly, no veils) is precisely why I have read your blog, year after year. The jazzy, saccharine look-at-my-awesome-life bloggers bore me to death. It’s not that I don’t appreciate lives that are pretty and tidy, I just can’t relate to them, nor do I want to. Your life could not be more different than mine, yet I can relate to so many of your feelings – wonderment, gratitude, disgust, delight, joy. The full range of life. Your blog is useful (Army of Good) and stimulating (see the many comments) and I know you’ll just keep doing you.
The difference is that you speak your truth and expose deeper truths. You’re a deep thinker about complex ideas.
You speak of truths that touch a cord with others because they are insightful. Telling of the pain and struggle as a cut and dried thing is what my mother would have called, “Airing your linen in public”. My father was a violent alcoholic and physically hurt her regularly. He punched me in the face once when I was in grade school and weighed only 75 lbs. No one wants to hear that. They turn away from the ugliness and if you didn’t feel alone before you certainly will afterward. I think ugliness is everywhere. People want to see the beauty and the light. I write about the insights I have about the animals, about the funny things they do which give me joy, about the beauty in the world I see. I love taking photos. These are my truths also. No one cares that I cried because my friend died yesterday or that I’m lonely or worried about money. Those are my linens for only me to see, or on rare occasions, those closest to me, if I must have solace.
Not writing about your pain and problems is your choice. I too was always urged to keep things to myself and these days everyone is supposed to be “positive” as if being any other way is to show some form of mental weakness.
Everyone has issues of one kind or another. Sometimes sharing your experience can be useful to others and you would be surprised at how many people DO care. Reading Jon’s frank, open books has always been an enormous help to me. I figured if he could overcome all the things he did, maybe I could do.
Not disclosing personal issues doesn’t make you dishonest. I gather that a lot of people mske things up to show themselves off better.
Just my opinion. For the record, if your friend died, I am very sorry, and I do care, about the other things too.
Jon, I think a partial reason for these braggings from people on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is that they don’t think anyone wants to hear the bad parts of their lives, negativity, etc., nor do they want to admit anything bad or sad is ever happening to them for fear nobody will pay attention to them. Also, there is a LOT of mental illness of every description out there. I do not belong to Facebook but I certainly know a few people who use this platform constantly for following (I call it stalking) current friends, acquaintances, and certainly old school peers who never interested them in the least while in school, but now (perhaps out of loneliness or just plain nosiness) to find out about their lives.
You are very insightful and I think correct…”It has dawned on me slowly – perhaps because I don’t ever go on Twitter and rarely am on Facebook – that many people often use social media to lie about themselves, to make themselves look happier and more content and successful than they are. These self-serving platforms seem designed to minimize failures and distort successes. The people writing on them must never look vulnerable or victimized.”
A couple of years ago I boarded with who I thought was a “friend”. She has many ailments including macular degeneration, some mental issues, is widowed, unable to drive because of her poor eyesight, and gets almost no attention from her self-centered daughter. I have a car and like to drive so it was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement as I don’t like to cook and she does! 🙂 I love to clean and she doesn’t, plus my rent augmented her income. We have known each other since 1969 when we worked together in an office at the time.
Living with her turned out to be a real eye-opener! It’s very true, you never really know someone until you actually live with them, and even then I was shocked to find out how nosy she is, how critical of others she is until she began to attack me with her passive-aggressiveness, then vicious verbal behavior. I was flummoxed by her behavior because I have always thought we were “friends” so I sent her an email (even though I lived with her in the same house at the time) asking her what was bothering her about my personality traits, and boy did I get an eye-opener of a response from her!! She went from a rolling simmer to a roiling boil in her thoughts and actions. Many hours of her day were spent trolling on Facebook. I also learned a LOT about myself during my year’s stay with her and tried to “correct any of my character flaws” that were bothering her. Well, nobody is perfect so it became very uncomfortable for me to be around her. The sad part was that unbeknownst to me at the time, she was bad mouthing me to all her friends, neighbors, and relatives until I happened to overhear one of her telephone conversations. It was at this point I let her know I’d be out of her hair by the end of the month.
And, to make a long story short, she showed me all her Facebook posts over the year since she needed editing help from me because of her poor eyesight. You would NEVER ever guess anything bad was going on in her life, that she was having problems with her “boarder” (me), nor that her daughter and little granddaughter who live only 10 miles away were anything but doting and perfect!
Takes all kinds I guess!
Have a great day, Jon!
I forgot to tell you this photo of Fate is very nice and looks like the beginning of a quilt idea for Maria.
Truly a fascinating entry.
I have never written a blog, or felt any urge to because I am sure, from knowing my own character, that I would “embroider” it. My mother would say that I and my sister seemed to go to different schools! I am known as a great letter writer and I do write letters when I am feeling down. It is a way of cheering myself up and it works wonderfully well. They aren’t fiction but they find the happy aspects of my home, my family, my pets, even the New York Times, although this latter is pretty difficult these days.
Hmm, my letters probably show a jolly person, which I am not particularly, but is this bad? I don’t think so.
I think you are addressing two different topics here. The first, that people “lie” or mislead others when writing on their personal blogs; that they don’t share the details of the traumatizing episodes of their lives; but, instead, write of positive or imaginative things. To that I say, perhaps they are people who write of positive things because it makes them feel more optimistic, or perhaps they are not ready to speak of the trauma – it may retraumatize them to write about it, and maybe someday, with a little time and distance, they may be able to write about it when they are ready. Or perhaps not. You have told people many times not to tell you what to write. In a way, is that not what you are doing to the writers of these other blogs – telling them to write about the trauma in their lives instead of what they want to write about? I do appreciate what you say about the prevalence of presenting our best possible face to the world through carefully-curated Facebook and Instagram and Twitter posts; and how that can have the effect of masking vulnerability, authenticity and pain. You have bravely chosen to share all parts of your life, good, bad and in-between and I believe that is why you have garnered so many faithful readers (and I count myself among them). The choice to be vulnerable and open on-line is, as in life, a deeply personal one that requires a good sense of self, what one can bear and not bear, and how much more hurt one can tolerate if that vulnerability is criticized, or worse, laughed at. Perhaps people are not so much “lying” as protecting themselves.
Laurie, your diagnosis is interesting but far too speculative for me. I can’t speak to everyone’s motives, but the bottom line is quite clear. People’s presentation of themselves on social media is quite often inaccurate and self-serving. To me, that is immoral, and I cannot, of course, testify to the inner motives of the people who do it. If you read the surveys and studies online, their findings are nearly unanimous…People don’t wish to tell the truth about themselves, and rather than simply say nothing – you don’t mention this as an option – they lie. The reader is in an awful pickle, how is he or she supposed to know what the truth is? It isn’t a question of trauma versus tranquility, it’s a question of looking human versus misrepresenting oneself.
Ah, but what is truth? (Again, I am referring to the first part of your post where you comment on the personal blogs of friends and acquaintances). Just because these writers choose to focus on different areas of their lives and not write about the traumatic events does that mean they are lying? And when you say speculative, may I respectfully ask if you are not speculating when you judge insights as not being “real,” and when the life YOU see is not the one being written about, that you term this inauthentic? Perhaps the focus on things other than pain is the authentic way these people deal with pain; perhaps, the insights they have are real for them, if not for you? Again, I do agree your view of the happy-clappy adventures presented on social media like Facebook and Instagram. Then again, I looked after my grandkids for a few days, and my pictures were of our adventures, not the time the milk spilt on the floor or the scraped knees.
Laurie, to me, it’s not a question of focus..people can write about what they wish (like me) but painting a false picture of your life is not a question of focus, but of honestly. If I go on vacation and there are bugs, awful food, leaky roofs, nothing for the kids to do and bedbugs in the mattress, and I post a Facebook image and story of my happy family romping on the beach, laughing and talk about what a great time we are having, to me, that is simply a lie, not a choice of emphasis. Especially when the family gets home and private sends a message talking about what a dump the place was and how miserable everybody was. A more frequent example is people only posting images and words that make them look happy and fulfilled. I’d urge you to read these studies – this was not my idea – which detail in great and persuasive length how people are using social media to portray themselves as happier and healthier than they are. And how this makes readers feel inadequate and envious. People are always telling me I have a perfect life, and I am always careful to let them know my life is great but not perfect. I don’t want anybody buying a farm thinking they are marching to paradise.
The real choice is not saying anything, you don’t have to lie. But to me, the option is between fantasy and total truth. Life is full of struggle, and I don’t emphasize it either, but I do acknowledge it. What I want is for people to know what my life is really like, not a fantasized version to make me look good. This may or may not be important to you, but it is important to me. And you are correct, of course, people have the right to say anything they want. But that includes me. I don’t tell other people what to do, I tell people what I do. Your description of your grandkids sounds lovely to me, and suggests you might want to read my piece a bit more carefully. It says nothing about adventures like that, that is not relevant to what we are talking about. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and civility, Laurie.
Once AGAIN Jon, you ‘Hit The Nail On The Head’ with your excellent post!