Your Emotion Is Showing!

Hiding my emotions in real life is one thing, but now you’re telling me I can’t tweet about them to my 17 unenthused followers?

By Nina Raemont

Sometimes, I feel like there was a day in elementary school where the teacher taught everyone else in the class how to hold in their emotions and I just happened to be absent for that lesson. I have never and probably will never keep my emotions in. If I feel something, I want the world to know it. Usually, this isn’t too much of a problem for me, as my life is generally easy-going. Whenever the question of, “How are you?” comes up, I respond that I am, indeed, fine. However, as my emotional health undergoes the trials and tribulations of normal and unfortunate human inconvenience, the answer I give has started to burden the innocent conversator who is simply looking for me to respond with “good!” and move on.

The question of how much emotion is acceptable to reveal to our peers has always been a dilemma, especially for someone as transparent as myself; there is nothing I believe in more than the importance of veracity. But with the oversaturation of social media and an individual’s online presence in question, it has become even harder to truthfully manage my own presence while maintaining the socially acceptable amount of emotion displayed through digital spheres. We do not log on to these spaces to falsify our own image; however, for the sake of social desirability, we have unintentionally created a byproduct that forces us to portray our lives through rose-colored glasses and does not truly represent our emotions and identity. 

A slight hypocrisy exists within these social spheres in consideration of the categorization of what is acceptable to publicize to peers. You can’t be too happy or else you may appear boastful and fake, but show sadness and people become uneasy with the unexpected emotional burden you have unintentionally placed upon them. What occurs when someone publicizes their life’s extravagance to the masses is the viewer sees this perspective, compares themselves to the subject, and asks “What am I doing wrong?” Thus, insecurity ensues. Similarly, when someone posts depressing and emotional content, the viewer feels an inclination to help, yet is usually struck with confusion over how to do so, reminding themselves that they should be doing more than simply acting as a bystander. In both scenarios, regardless of the post’s emotional charge, the viewers are aware they aren’t doing something that they should be and inflict themselves with feelings of guilt and insecurity.

These unspoken rules of how much feeling is deemed acceptable to display create a platform that normalizes lukewarm displays of emotion and that attitude is more toxic than being emotionally aware of our peers’ feelings. To learn how to properly support each other, through both the triumphant and terrible times, we must witness both sides of our emotional spectrum. We can’t push these sentiments aside because we are uncertain how to handle them; we must learn by handling. 

So I encourage you to tell your followers how happy you are if and only if you are truly happy. And if you aren’t, don’t sweep it under the table or post something that prevents your friends and family from knowing what is happening. Wear your heart on your sleeve—on and offline. If it happens to be a little broken, those who want to mend it will bring their sewing kits. And for those who don’t, there’s always the “remove follower” button.