Holly is a social media creator, makeup artist and support worker for people with learning disabilities who is based in Blackburn, England. And lucky for us, she was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda via Instagram about how this series came to be. The last time we spoke with Holly, she shared, “I enjoy making people laugh, so I started making funny videos on Tik Tok,” she said. “But I had a passion for makeup, and that’s why I created my makeup page. That’s where my ‘Instagram versus real life’ videos are.”
When asked what inspired this particular video series, Holly told Bored Panda, "Social media is fake. Don't be fooled.” She then explained that the idea appeared after she posted a few photos years ago where she had visible acne. She noted that those pictures received a positive response, so she decided to create more and more content on the topic of exposing social media.
Holly also understands how hard it can be to resist the urge to compare yourself to others on social media; none of us are immune to that temptation. “I’m guilty of always scrolling through Instagram and seeing ‘perfect’ selfies with the perfect life, and it made me feel so bad about myself. I'd constantly compare myself to these fake images,” she previously told Bored Panda.
“I then started seeing accounts showing celebrities and popular influencers on social media versus real life, and I couldn’t believe the difference.” That’s when Holly started creating her own ‘Instagram versus real-life’ images. “It made me feel so much better after I had girls message me saying my posts were helping them, so I continued to do them,” she shared.
This time around, we wanted to first check in with Holly and see if she had any major updates to share since the last time we interviewed her. “Since we last spoke a year ago, I feel as though more people are calling out the fakeness!” Holly told Bored Panda. “I’ve seen a lot more videos like the ones I do. I still see people use the editing app, but it’s still an improvement I think!” she added with a laugh.
We also asked Holly if she thinks social media will always have these heavily edited photos or if the trend will die out eventually. “I hope the trend will die out eventually, but realistically, there will always be people using it to feed their insecurities,” she shared. “Social media is a big platform for people to make a lot of money on, so if, say, a beauty influencer makes money off of her (edited) pictures, then I doubt they would stop.”
When it comes to what Holly would say to anyone who feels the need to heavily edit their Instagram pictures, she told Bored Panda, “I would say to really start working on yourself and learn to love everything about you. Even your flaws. It’s what makes you, YOU. If everyone was the same the world would be a boring place. People would probably respect you more by showing your real self instead of lying to everyone. You would also probably start to learn to respect yourself too.”
“And as I always say, never believe everything you see on social media!” she added with a laugh.
We also asked Holly if she believes there is a healthy way to use social media. “I would suggest unfollowing people that make you believe you aren’t good enough and make you question yourself or your life,” she shared. “Start following more people whose posts make you feel better and good about yourself. I started following accounts of girls who had acne when I was younger, as I suffered with it too, and it made me feel so much better.”
