It's easy to get caught up in the stunning vacations, beautiful couture, and unbelievable access that fashion bloggers get. Highly-edited Instagrams, Snapchats, and blog posts allow us to forget that behind each photo or video lives a real person, with real issues that they usually aren't sharing with their audience.
Yesterday, Aimee Song broke that barrier.
Song, who's the wildly successful face behind Song of Style, is known for her cheery personality and sunny disposition. While on a trip to Paris for Haute Couture Fashion Week, Song shared a video on YouTube where she talks about her demons. She started by saying:
"I think the hardest part is pretending like everything is OK when it's not."
She spoke about turning down invitations to events or potential job opportunities because of personal reasons. Song also addressed how she's perceived as a generally happy and confident person:
"Somebody was asking 'How do you stay confident?' and I actually really faked it. I faked it all the time — not all the time, but I fake it a lot of times. I don't feel confident and I don't feel happy at all. I feel so sad inside and sometimes I feel so sad and so broke inside, especially lately."
She also touched on the pressure to appear happy on social media and in person:
"I feel even more sad when I'm around people because everybody's life seems so perfect, but then again, I realize that's probably what you think about my life."
Song then tearfully revealed a heartbreaking truth:
"When I was little, I was bullied so bad — I was bullied so bad that I wanted to kill myself."
We all know that social media — especially Instagram — is nothing more than a highlight reel of a person's life. Even armed with that knowledge, it's still hard to remember that a seemingly perfect life on social media doesn't necessarily translate to a flawless life IRL.
The one positive aspect to all this, though, is that bloggers and vloggers (most of whom are young women notorious for their "flawless" lives) are finally drawing attention to various mental issues, like anxiety and depression.
Vloggers like Zoella and Kalyn Nicholson openly talk about their battles with anxiety and lifestyle blogger Chriselle Lim openly talked about depression. They're opening the door for other bloggers and vloggers to talk about their struggles with mental health, especially when fashion is painted as such a glamorous and whimsical industry.
Song's video served as a reminder that it's OK to be open about your battles and that social media only shows what's on the surface — not the pain underneath.
