How to handle comparison on social media
Social media sucks for many reasons. It manipulates your opinions and emotions, spreads disinformation, destabilizes democracies worldwide, promotes genocide, and distracts you from the book you’re trying to write—all just to sell advertising.
But from a coaching perspective, I love it for the way you can get to know yourself better. Namely, what comes up when you compare yourself to others on social media?
Without careful curation, we’re bombarded with images of people who, in one shape or another, seem to be better off than us. They’re besties with Oprah, start every morning with an hour of abs, and live in a palatial home with a freezer stocked with fruit- and flower-filled ice. To add insult to injury, they beat us to the job that we should have gotten. They’re getting so much attention when they’re not nearly as smart or talented or hard working as we are. And they have a hot partner with whom they have hot sex every night, and a cute dog, and cherubic children, and they’re so frickin’ happy because their lives are perfect and they have it all and what the hell are you doing with your life?
The pang of comparison can be so hot that we don’t even interrogate it and just keep scrolling to flee the feeling. Plenty of people actually quit social media altogether because these feelings are so overwhelming. Doing so may make the feeling go away, but it doesn’t fix any of the underlying problems.
Yes, we can soothe ourselves with some platitudes about how social media is not reality, but it's worth going deeper and asking why exactly it’s so personally challenging. Our envy and insecurity should be untamed in this exercise so we can see what lies underneath.
Who in particular are you comparing yourself to?
Why this person, of all people?
What do you want that they have?
Why do you want that?
More often than not, there’s a quiet yet powerful current of self-loathing coursing below.
JUDGMENT IS THE REAL PROBLEM
The problem isn’t necessarily that we compare ourselves but that we judge. Comparison is perfectly neutral. There are people who have more money than me. That’s a fact. And it doesn’t mean anything about me as a person.
But judgment is a total dick. I’m broke and therefore I’m a total loser. Judgment lives rent-free in our heads and we have to kick that asshole out. It shames us for being us, for being human. Everything becomes something to get graded on. We go from imperfect yet whole human beings to meat sacks rife with flaws.
And somehow most of us think that we are failing, which can’t be the truth. The system is designed to make us cringe at ourselves. Our global consumerist economy would literally collapse if we loved ourselves, or even felt a little bit chiller about who we were.
The project of being alive is immensely difficult. Modern definitions of success are unattainably high. Cut yourself some slack.
If we can develop a kinder, more compassionate relationship with ourselves, social media will only be terrible for other reasons, none of which are related to your self-esteem.
Here are some slimy ways that comparison (+ judgment) makes us miserable:
LESS THAN
This comes in different flavors:
This person has great abs from that hour of abs that he does every morning. That person has such an incredible, sunken Ozempic face. I’m not good-looking/smart/successful/rich/pick-your-poison enough.
FOMO - That party looks amazing! Everyone there must be so cool! My life sucks. I just stayed in, like I do every weekend. I need better friends.
I’m not where I want to be with my career, I don’t have a partner, and everyone else is making babies. I’m being left behind.
To which I’ll ask, why are you diminishing your existence, your uniqueness, your struggle? Why are you outsourcing your worthiness so that you don’t have to make up your own mind about whether you’re enough? Who taught you to think like this, and how are they benefiting from you beating yourself up?
THE ONLY ONE
When you feel jealous on social media, sometimes it’s of the person we feel most similar to, most competitive with. And invariably, that competition was installed by patriarchy, which teaches us that there can only be one person with a marginalized identity in the game. Under the current regime, the fabric of the universe would literally split apart if we had more than one Lizzo.
When I used to flinch on social media, it wasn’t because Beyonce’s glamorous life was threatening to me, but rather the glamorous lives of other Cool Girls whom I perceived to be wealthier and more beautiful than me. I felt competitive with them only if they were Asian women, an internalized racism a lot of us harbor if we grew up in white, liberal, upper-middle circles. We were often the Only One at Bar/Bat Mitzvahs and theater class, and came to relish the specialness of that status in its own perverse way. In my own unlearning, I’ve come to see other Asian women as both my allies and also just as any other person doing her own thing, on her own journey, with her own trials and tribulations.
Only One-thinking is designed by patriarchy as a distraction. If we’re all just trying to out-compete each other, we don’t challenge the real winners of the system or question why this system was built like this to begin with.
GRASS IS GREENER
This thought comes up when you see the object of your envy and think that they are automatically happier because they have all the things.
Maybe. Some things are better once you have a certain foundation in place. This foundation is commonly built on health and money (but only up to a certain amount—happiness plateaus around $75,000 a year in income in the U.S.). From this foundation, psychological safety, the belief that you are free from harm, can grow.
Beyond that, there are other things that make people happy, like being with friends and non-toxic family, or feeling that your life has purpose and meaning.
But there is no eternal bliss. There is no endgame where we stop suffering. Our brains cannot sustain a constant state of ecstasy. We will pretty much still feel the same no matter what. Achievement feels great for a short period, but soon enough, you come down from that high and you’re back to baseline. That’s not a bad thing, that’s just the way our brains work.
Maybe the person on your feed is enjoying greater stability than you because they have health insurance and a retirement account. But I guarantee you they also struggle with the same anxiety, itchiness, discontent, boredom, depression, and insecurity we all grapple with. Humans are humans. To be alive is to feel it all.
JUSTICE IN AN UNJUST WORLD
I’m so much better than this nepo baby who got that job! I work harder, I’m more talented, and I’m smarter—and I still didn’t make it!
This is a tough one.
DEFINITELY pretty much every system is rigged. Let yourself be angry about this, protest this, and build fairer systems.
As to whether all your hard work, talent, and intelligence should amount to anything…first, hard work doesn’t make you inherently more deserving. That belief stems from our form of Protestant-based capitalism that uses hard work to code for goodness and worthiness. This logic disenfranchises folks who can’t work, or perform work that we invisibilize (like care-giving), or simply don’t want to work—which is 100% legitimate and probably the real secret to a happy life!
Second, I can’t speak to subjective qualities like talent and intelligence, but let’s go with your assessment. You are better qualified than this nepo baby. You don’t know as many powerful, fancy people. You have more things on your plate—more bills, a smaller financial cushion, family across the ocean to support.
It makes a lot of sense that you’re aggrieved. It’s a hurt that comes from wanting justice in an unjust world.
Indignation is one of the hardest feelings to manage. There is no recipe for what to do with this feeling. I think it’s completely valid to let this feeling spill out. Our world could use some more disobedience. It is okay to be unwell.
But I also understand if you want to let it go. It’s a hard emotion to endure in the long run. Recognize that things are not alright, but that you can still find your peace.
Finding your peace doesn’t mean forgiveness. It doesn’t mean diminishing what happened. It doesn’t mean moving towards love where there isn’t true love. It is just an act of self-preservation, an act of defiance in a world that doesn’t guarantee your wellness.
Ok that’s it. If you want to work on any of this together, please reach out. About me: immigrant, Stanford grad, ex-Silicon Valley, and happy expat living in Berlin. On a mission to help underrepresented folks define and create their own success.
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