The #NoFilter hashtag embodies everything I hate about Instagram and social media. Everyone’s so f–ing special these days — yet also so f-ing sensitive too — so we end up patting ourselves on the back for those rare occasions we peel back the artifice, shed our false masks, and actually post those rare and untouched photos. During these infrequent flashes of vulnerability, we actually reveal a glimpse of our true selves — double chins and all — and feel both naked and exhilarated at the same time.

There once was a time when we all lived unfiltered, and actually looked like we do in pictures — ugly warts and all. Our amateur photos were clumsy and artless, and no one expected our pictures to look like they were shot by Ansel Adams or your selfies to look like Giselle. We were short, we were tall, we were skinny, we were fat, and we were all painfully average and awkward. We didn’t all have manicured public personas, managed as an agent might style and craft a Hollywood celebrity. Nowadays, we’re all stars of our own biopics. We’re always crafting and shaping,  photoshopping and editing, and endlessly touching up our messy life stories and making them neat and glamorous.

 

I’d like to think I try and live a #NoFilter life not because I don’t desperately care what other people think of me, but because I care about what I think of myself. I try to be a good man, but I am deeply flawed and fail often. I am not always proud of my actions, but I’d be even more ashamed to not own them. I am painfully human, and cannot live my life any other way. That means I do a lot of apologizing, and invariably depend upon the kindness of friends and strangers. I’ve lost a lot of friends along the way, and I regret that sometimes. At other times, I realize that if they were true friends, they would have stuck around and given me the benefit of the doubt. I can’t look like I’d like to look in a selfie, but not because I can’t suck in my cheeks or add a clever filter, but because I’d know that wasn’t me. You might not. But I’d know.

We live in a society which increasingly demands us to be skinnier, grow taller, have higher cheekbones, and craft our online personas to comply with what society expects of us. These days, we must all be models, professional photographers, gifted writers, star athletes, and of course, have adorable children and cute pets. Our marriages must be happy and visibly vibrant. While single men over 30 are broken and suspicious, childless women are objects of pity. We all have fascinating and well read blogs, clever Pinterest walls, professional and elegant websites, sexy and endlessly interesting online dating profiles, and humble-brag status posts which remind the rest of Facebook that we’re still winning the Internet and always happy always. Happy. And damn, do we look good…

This is me with #NoFilter and perhaps it is why I am single and childless, but I don’t know any other way to live. If that means I fail the Internet, and am a dinosaur of the digital age, so be it. I still manage to sleep at night.