Style, Femininity, and the Social Media Machine

“I Don’t Know Who ‘Me’ Is Anymore” – on Style, Femininity, and the Social Media Machine

I really hate social media for ruining my relationship with personal style and femininity. I don’t fit into any of the boxes it shoves down our throats. Every time I look at those “clean girl” or “it girl” aesthetics, I struggle—because you never really see the person. You just see how they look. And somewhere along the way, algorithms and internalised sexism taught us to prioritise control over personality.

Because if you show yourself in any way that breaks from the curated grid, people start forming opinions that go deeper than “wow, pretty.” Suddenly it’s “she talks too much,” “she’s annoying,” “she’s trying too hard.” And I don’t blame the girls who curate their feeds like that. Of course they do—it’s the only way to be liked with any consistency. I just wish I could believe they were truly happy doing it. But it’s hard to imagine many of us can actually feel happy when everything we share is mediated by a screen and a filter and a caption we rewrote five times.

An old friend of mine once reblogged a post that said:

And yeah, I felt like it was aimed at me. Because she wasn’t wrong—one day I was all in on whatever was trending, and the next I was rejecting it completely to align myself with something “alternative.” I was flip-flopping between two extremes, trying to find something that felt like me.

When I saw that post, I whispered back in my head:

Because it's not just about what we like or dislike—it's about the way we’re allowed to exist. Especially women. Especially online.

It scares me how much everyone is starting to look the same. Not just in the “popular” styles—I’ve seen whole groups of “alternative” girls out, and they mirror each other too. And it’s not their fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. But it makes me feel like there’s no room to be someone in-between. Someone who changes. Someone who doesn’t want to look like a character select screen.

As strange as this might sound, what actually provoked this whole post was… 2014 YouTube.

I started watching Zoella for the first time, and it triggered a whole new identity spiral. For the past few months I’ve leaned more into an alternative look—band tees, eyeliner, all that. But watching her old videos? It made me feel something. Not just envy for her style, but for her laugh, her warmth, her ability to just be a person on camera. Even though what she posted was still curated to some degree, I think it’s just harder to hide yourself in a video, not to mention her blog. There’s something more vulnerable, more human, about it. Something TikTok and Instagram rarely allow anymore.

And I realised—this isn’t a new feeling.

It started when I became friends with the kind of girls I used to call “popular.” The ones who always seemed perfect and put together. But the more I got to know them, the more I saw them. Not the aesthetic. Not the stereotype. Just people. And they also felt trapped. Pressured to dress a certain way, to be effortless, to stay inside the lines.

And that’s when it hit me: This feeling—it’s universal.

It’s not about liking eyeliner or lip gloss. It’s not about being a clean girl or an alt girl. It’s about being scared that you’ll never be accepted unless you pick a lane and stay in it forever.

And what if you don’t want a lane? What if you just want to be you—even if “you” looks different every week?

I don’t have a neat conclusion. I still don’t know who “me” is. But I’m trying. And maybe that’s all any of us are doing.

This is quite a big deal for me to post, it's something that I haven't been able to articulate or understand for years, and although most things are a mystery to me still, this makes a little more sense, and I really want to share that with someone. I'm just a 16-year-old at the end of the day, and know very little about anything, but thank you for reading this.