Hacker News Reader

Comment by randycupertino | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend who is going through a harrowing divorce, cheating on both sides, lots of family drama, she tried to light his car on fire, police called by neighbors for fighting, etc.

On Instagram he and his (soon to be ex) wife just tagged themselves this weekend putting up Halloween decorations, all smiley buying pumpkins and cooking truffle mac and cheese, liking each other's posts.

Meanwhile he is calling me at 1:30am asking if he can come sleep on our couch. I kind of want to ask him about the discrepancy between his online persona vs real life, but I don't want to offend him.

View on HN

Obviously I don't know your friend, but as someone who has dealt with depression and whatnot constantly for most of my life, and intermittently since I started medication four years ago, I can tell you that it's not terribly hard to make yourself seem happy and content online.

It's almost easier to appear happy online when you know you're not; you don't want people to try and offer you unsolicited advice about how "exercise worked for them" or "changing to this particular diet changed my life" or crap like that, so you fake it [1]. You only post things that you think are interesting, you minimize how much you talk about your personal life, and when you do it's only to flex about something cool you did. Whenever I did open up to friends later about my mental health stuff, they were always really surprised to hear it, and that was by design.

[1] To be clear, I'm not knocking diet and exercise. If you're feeling depressed, eating healthier and getting regular exercise is probably the best (and cheapest) place to start, and offers a bunch of other benefits too. My life did improve when I stopped eating Taco Bell ever day.

I mute people's posts and stories when their content is primarily rants, resharing some kind of social justice issue, resharing meme accounts, their children. So yeah I probably would not entertain a depressing couple’s spiral for more than a few 15 second clips. They know that too.

I’m only interested in the outgoing and interesting things, inspiration about locations or events, things that could include me. When these things really seem like they will never happen I typically remove them as followers and unfollow them. (Its much easier to curate your social graph as you go, instead of waking up one day and finding it too hard to fix your feed by attempting to unfollow lots of people)

I like to know people personally and I do that in person or over direct message

I only use the story for entertainment personally

Like someone else mentioned, I don't find many people’s online persona that interesting, and I have abruptly deactivated and/or deleted my own profiles before. Periodic curating has been good for me.

One of the reasons I quit FB was I didn’t recognize my close friends’ online personas. It was too bizarro-world for me. If I asked them about it, they felt attacked. So it turned out I simply preferred not to know what they were up to online.

On the flip side who knows what is real. Some people prob feel freer to be themselves online (cough...millennials...cough)

Gen Z: exists

shit I got the terminology wrong. I AM a millenial, I meant Gen Z

Perfect Instagram is a skill you can deploy and unrelated to whether you are actually happy. Case in point: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/09/16/police-compare-notes/. There were multiple photogenic posts of smiling people in the weeks leading up to the murder, when they were fighting a lot of the time.

> I kind of want to ask him about the discrepancy between his online persona vs real life, but I don't want to offend him.

Struggling people are allowed to have, and share, enjoyable moments. Going through a divorce doesn't mean someone must be miserable 100% of the time, nor that you have to hate your spouse. Nobody is obligated to share the negative parts of their relationships and lives online, even if they're struggling.

Having a perfectly happy and problem-free marriage isn't a prerequisite for posting a happy family photo online with your kids. Nor should it be!

I don't understand why this is even a question. Just support your friend. Don't try to poke fun at the one moment of joy he shared online or call him out for some perceived discrepancy just because you know his struggles. It's not hypocritical for someone to have fun while going through tough times. It's bizarre that you'd even consider asking someone about this.

>Just support your friend >JUST

well, he is supporting him. Wondering what's going on mentally is part of that. I don't understand why this is even posed as a solution.

> Wondering what's going on mentally is part of that.

The friend called him up and asked if he could sleep on his couch as well as opened up about the issues. Grilling him about his recent social media posts is wholly inappropriate and unnecessary.

Everyone keeps their public and private lives separate. People prefer to limit the audience for their struggles. It's weird that anyone would think that public social media photos need to be brought up in conversation when someone is separately opening up about their personal problems to a private audience.

>Meanwhile he is calling me at 1:30am asking if he can come sleep on our couch. I kind of want to ask him about the discrepancy between his online persona vs real life, but I don't want to offend him.

In my house we call this 'Hashtag Blessed".

Because the people we know that write posts with #Blessed are the ones with a completely different reality online.

One dude is sleeping in his camper parked at work because wife saw a screen shot of pornhub on his phone (seriously Apple, so many accidental screen shots weren't a problem when the power button was on top), she's telling him he's cheating on her, and there was a couple in the picture, but the guy was clearly exposed, so while she's having a fit of over this and kicking him out she's seriously asking him if "Like, are you gay now!?"... Next day they need to do some cubscouts events, so it's smile #Blessed.

Why would you want him to put his drama online?

Most people want to deal with their shit internally.

I guess the wife could have put the picture of the burning car or a snap of an affair sex tape, but then they'd both have more drama to deal with from people contacting them trying to "fix" things.

Intimate moments are private, happy moments are okay for public. Bad moments can be used against you so you keep them private.

I think the the point of the anecdote is that what you see online in no way reflects people's actual struggles. If you try to compare your real self against someone's online persona you will never measure up.

Unfortunately this fact is not made explicit anywhere - I can imagine the self-loathing Facebook or Instagram would have generated in my naive, socially-inept, teenage self.

> Unfortunately this fact is not made explicit anywhere

It's common sense that you don't put vulnerable stuff online. Parents should explain this to children when they are growing up. Sure I guess you could put disclaimers everywhere "LIFE MAY NOT BE AS HAPPY AS IT APPEARS" under each photo. Maybe California will require a banner for that soon.

It's one thing to say that people might not be as happy as they appear, but quite another to say that someone's marriage basically doesn't exist, which is what the parent was saying.

It's noone's business if they don't want anyone to know.

Here GP is gossiping about them, this is what they were trying to avoid amongst their peers.

If anyone REALLY wants to know they can find out when the single photos come out.

I thought HN understood privacy.

The point isn't privacy, which is obviously a completely legitimate thing to desire. The point is that the image they present on social media is a complete fabrication. You were saying that everyone expects social media to be a little embellished and I'm saying that I don't believe this is embellishment, it is just outright fantasy, which people do not expect, from their friends at least.

Once again, the thing we're discussing is social media making people think everyone else has a great life, and your response is basically that... people should be able lie on social media? Which is fine, and also proves the original point that social media is misleading people.

You have no idea what the real situation is. A family is allowed to have a family photo with their kid even if they are going through shit. It's not unusual for two separated parents to hang out with their kid and act kind for their sake.

This thread was ridiculous. Nothing but the GP gossiping about sensitive information and many of you trying to figure out whether it's fantasy or not.

This is why people act happy, because vultures like you guys trying to sniff out drama. God forbid anyone post a happy photo, the nerve!

It's simple. Know that only happy moments are posted. Don't nose into people's lives but know everyone goes through shit just like you.

>It's common sense that you don't put vulnerable stuff online

Yes, but do people have a gut, visceral knowledge about this when they see stuff online?

Knowing something intellectually doesn't mean one's internal bias (and their effects on the individual) will stop working.

Gut irrational reactions are usually followed by a rational realization when one "intellectually" knows something.

The irrational reaction itself may be triggered by the event of seeing someone else's perceived happiness, but is probably a manifestation of a deeper self issue like an insecurity or unfulfilled fantasy.

>Gut irrational reactions are usually followed by a rational realization when one "intellectually" knows something.

I heavily disagree with that one! Most gut reactions aren't followed at all by any rational realizations, and on the few occasions when they are followed by intellectual ruminations those ruminations will often try to rationalize their gut reaction instead of analytically criticizing them.

> I think the the point of the anecdote is that what you see online in no way reflects people's actual struggles.

> Unfortunately this fact is not made explicit anywhere

People don't wear their struggles on their sleeve in person, either. People are allowed to have fun even while struggling elsewhere in their lives. There's no rule that people aren't allowed to thrive or be happy in public if they're struggling with something private.

I don't understand why anyone would think that social media would be any different.

I can only guess but as an average person I do have this fear of showing the slightest negativity can drive people away.

The person might not be vain, it's just we're all trapped in this system of toxic positivity & unrealistic expectation created by social media.

Before Instagram, many families would send out Christmas update letters to all their friends and relatives full of almost entirely happy news. Then you'd hear about the pending divorce a few months later. People haven't changed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com