In an over-romanticized world filled with Photoshop, filters, and excessively glamorized lives, validation from others usually takes the highest pedestal in our lives, pushing authenticity to the side. But who is at fault for thinking this way? It’s easier to display the highlights of your life than show the truth, in all its beautiful ugliness. But at what cost would it take to remain that shiny and shimmering?
In her 2020 album Folklore, Taylor Swift released a song called “Mirrorball.” Quickly becoming a fan-favorite, the song illustrates the ugly truths hidden behind every shiny facade. Throughout the song, the protagonist is likened to a mirrorball (a disco ball): broken but shiny. Amid her shimmer and glory, she is broken into pieces to keep the act going. “All I ever do is try, try, try.” In fact, this very brokenness is what makes her so attractive, capturing the attention of the crowd. “The masquerade revelers, drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” The mirrorball eventually finds herself still dancing on that tightrope even when nobody’s watching, in the hopes that she will be able to please someone, anyone.
Listening to this song, it may be easy to shrug everything off and believe that it doesn’t apply to you. However, in reality, everybody is a mirrorball. It’s human nature to want to please others, sometimes losing yourself in the process. Part of this stems from the oversaturation prominent in our culture and society nowadays. Especially with the rise of social media, it becomes easier to only share the ups of our lives, conveniently forgetting to share the downs that it took to get to that high. Why stop, though? It gets the most views and attention from people, and it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone—or so we think.
Regardless of how innocent it may seem, this toxic cycle is like ocean waves beating against a wall, slowly chipping away at the seemingly strong foundation until there’s nothing left. By constantly embodying what others like in order to please them, it becomes easier and easier to lose sight of what you want. The fine boundary between what you want and what others want becomes muddled until you can’t tell the difference. What others want from you becomes what you want for yourself, and their validation becomes the driving force behind your every action. The worst part about it is that the cycle never truly ends. Because only the shiny moments are posted on social media for everybody to see, nobody remembers that behind every staged, glamorized, and overly saturated photo is a real person with real experiences who inevitably faces low points in life as well. As people tend to forget this, the pressure to keep that facade going for everyone to see becomes stronger, and thus the cycle goes on, perpetuating this rhythmically toxic pattern that we have set up for ourselves.
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