Self-Catfishing with Steroids
Steroid use is up, especially among young people seeking to display a particular physique online. The turning of the male gaze upon itself represents a radical form of alienation—and one with some nasty side effects to boot.
Constantly on display on social media from birth, a growing number of young people enter the world as social media content. So while it may not be the television screen that is the mind’s eye, their appearance on screens does become reality. For me, a 47-year-old Gen X’er, this can at times be difficult to fathom. I grew up in an analog era when pictures would be displayed in albums that might only see the light of day during family celebrations and holidays. Being born before the ubiquity of the video camera, my first steps were never immortalized; my first words were never captured and shared for viral validation. Photos captured a moment, a marker to reflect you were there: Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, a parade. Only a certain type of person who truly appreciated photography would try to capture every “precious moment.” Today’s youth exist, by contrast, in a self-inflicted surveillance state, one where we are all celebrities walking down a perpetual red carpet.
This pseudo-celebrity is all of us. Maybe some are less likely to acknowledge it because we have relationships that exist outside of the online sphere. Younger generations don’t have much of a choice in the matter: the online persona is the reality, so one needs to be ready for the photo op. The camera is ubiquitous, and the internet is eternal. There is no “online” and “offline” reality; there is only the online self. Every event, every casual hang with friends and family, is an opportunity to be on display for social media consumption. There becomes a pressure to constantly be aware of yourself as a character, or better yet, a “brand.”
