Envy and jealousy – the canary in the mine
On feeling crappy in one's own life, social media and a sanity check
Recently, I’ve had to examine my thoughts around envy and jealousy. I’m not normally a jealous person, but I’ve been feeling it a lot, and as a result, have forced myself to observe the things that make it worse, that I purposefully seek out like a tongue harassing a painful tooth. I simply can’t help jabbing at it, and every time there is a frisson of discomfort, there is also a strange sense of release, a delight in self-punishment, like a medieval monk wearing a scratchy sack for transgressions unknown.
I’ve also been collecting some thoughts around female online trolls in particular, and their motivation for writing mean comments hidden in sweet-smelling words that takes me back to my school days. Male trolls are awful but unless they go to the dark side of issuing threats, generally they are one-dimensional and shouty.
Female trolls reek of jealousy and an unhappy life – to the extent that I no longer get upset at their comments, and just feel sad as I block them from my page. I know their sadness, their smallness – I often think similar thoughts about other people when I’m feeling unfulfilled and unhappy - the difference being that I don’t dump it visibly onto someone’s feed to ruin their day.
I’ve managed to whittle down the fuel of my jealousy to two main things: Instagram and Substack Notes, partly because of how we share information on here, and how we can observe other people’s success. Twitter/X and TikTok don’t count (at least not for me) because the audiences are too disparate, the algorithm too thirsty and obvious, there are too many bots and I just don’t care in the same way.
Now, before the pitchforks are sent to the sharpening wheel, this isn’t a critique of these platforms. They aren’t perfect – there is a long list of gripes from biased algorithms to warped body image – but I don’t believe they are inherently bad. Instead, they hold up a mirror to the bad parts of humanity whether that is online bullying, hate speech, trolling and feelings of inadequacy. And we as a collective do get a say in how they are shaped.
I laughed long and hard at a very earnest post on Notes yesterday when someone posted a picture of a flower saying they wished it would go back to how it used to be back at the beginning, before people started to use it to promote their own work and talk about their success. Another – ‘I’ve said it befores’. When Instagram started, people were not using it to monetise their businesses or curate themselves through a particular lens. They were using it to post pictures of their Sunday roast. A flower they saw while out on a summer’s walk. A group picture of their loved ones who didn’t know how to properly pose for selfies.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to As I Was Saying with Poorna Bell to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.