Revised Personal Statement
Mr. Kao closed the book with a loud thump. “Okay guys, let’s take a break.” Thirty-four hands unanimously dash into their pockets to log onto Facebook and Instagram. But as I saw the repeated swipes, scrolls, and flicks of fingers, I always wonder: Are we taking a break by socializing, or are we taking a break from social media by studying at school?
Social media is where we hide our disadvantages–where we mask ourselves with the best image of our lives. Not being on my Instagram feed makes me feel behind everyone as if I’m a 5-year-old playing with play-dough amongst others carving flawless sculptures.
When I’m at home, I look over all my photos so I can photoshop them and apply countless filters. I zoom in and out to make slight adjustments to the brightness that affects the way I look, so I am extremely conscious of my edits. As I complete a seemingly flawless version of myself, I type in a caption that I’ve been debating over days about. Before pressing the post button, I check my work one last time, more carefully than how I reviewed for my math test yesterday. And finally, post! Next, I switch to a messenger app and type, “Like and comment on recent” to all people I know, regardless of whether I personally am close to them or not. People will then come to my Instagram account to like and comment with these typical words: “pretty!” or “stunning!” or “beautiful!”
Same comments by the same people, everything is possible with a click: a tap-tap-tap. As an artist, I know what it’s like to weigh the real versus the fake-perfect. And this is how I started to create my personal account, just for myself to see, on Instagram. My feed is a jumbled closet where I dump in my white–soon to be shabby gray–pants with folded creases, a yellow sweatshirt with smudges of matching cobalt blue and ruby red acrylic paint: A close-up of a huge pimple that annoyed me for the entire day, two different makeup products I bought at the mall because I couldn’t choose between them, a rectangular trash can at school with a cool pedal design, an annoying fly leaping around my wallet, a flat panel of featureless gray sky with people walking pass with KF 94 masks, and many posts dedicated to the terrible food they serve at school. One “specialty” is Green Curry — and yes, it tastes as bad as it sounds.
My personal account is a ____: a canvas with smudged and smeared brush strokes. Every new post is another brush stroke of pink, turquoise, and magenta, slowly but surely fashioning the cornucopia of colors that depicts my daily thoughts. A burst of crimson represents my burning desire to win the next volleyball game. A streak of navy symbolizes study sessions in the dead of the night during finals week. And–let’s not forget–that blotch of barf-green to remind me of the trauma-inducing Green Curry.
No matter what, I take at least one picture per day. This is how I keep a record of my daily life to remember my story. Rather than a repetitive “wake up, eat, school, homework,” I want my distinct and personal record of them. All the special days and even the not-so-special: the terrible food I ate that day, the red bruise my friend left on my forehead from a finger flick–all the small details that make my day, and myself.
