Her eyes and nose are red from crying too much. On Instagram, Bella Hadid shows herself unvarnished on a depressed day. In other selfies, the supermodel appears with her face dripping with tears. These words accompany his post: “Anxiety, everyone feels it and tries to hide it. It's pretty much my daily life, every night, for a few years." Bella Hadid takes the opportunity to greet the singer Willow Smith, who also does not hesitate to publish photos of her at her worst to raise awareness among young people about mental health problems.
Today, on social networks, the excessive pressure to share a dream life, always ultraglam, perfectly smooth and joyful, is losing ground.
More and more celebrities, influencers (like (like Lena Situations) and anonymous people dare to show the darker side of their lives. Last summer, it was the singer Lizzo who, during a live Instagram on the release of her new single
Rumors,
starring Cardi B, turned into a madeleine, but not Proust, stating that on this supposedly joyful day, she felt bad.
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“It is the sign of a desire to drop the mask and the race for happiness at all costs”, welcomes the psychologist Camille Sfez, author of the book
Vulnerable.
Fragility is no longer seen as a sign of weakness.
“We notice this rise in power of vulnerability on social networks, sometimes pathological with the use of hashtags #bipolar or #depression, observes Michael Stora, psychologist and author of
Networks (a) social, discover the dark side of algorithms
.
There is even a form of claim to show that we are fragile.
It's a new way of existing in sadness.
Finally, we can expose something negative.
Compensation in return?
We benefit from a form of consolation.
False pretense
The rain of likes that followed Bella Hadid's post in disarray - more than two million likes, twice as many as a more classic post - reveals how much this quest for sincerity generates the attention of followers... and a strong empathy in return. “It makes me feel good to share my pain on Instagram, it consoles me. I am not alone. There are many of us and we encourage each other, ”confirms Elsa Wolinski. The influencer and journalist frequently shares her moods and her distress in multiple stories. "I started after the
Charlie Hebdo
attacks by posting my father's empty office
(the cartoonist Wolinski, editor's note)
and my newly widowed mother.
At the start, it was more of a journalistic look, a way of showing the posture of a family that is injured but who is standing up.
Then, I shared my sorrows, my bulimia, drugs… I found an echo, it touched the people who sometimes found themselves in me, so I continued”, she explains.
Result, seven years after the attacks, Elsa Wolinski continues to share again and again her experience in all that it may be difficult, until the illness and death of her mother at the end of last year.
Social networks are becoming a new consolation tool 3.0.
The harshness of the time and the distances imposed by the Covid crisis probably encourage the movement.
Some indulge in this great emotional unpacking without restraint.
This is the case of Paulina Porizkova, who calls herself “The Crying Lady of Instagram”.
The ex-top has earned a reputation as a mourner on social networks by publishing for nearly two years a dozen photos and videos of her sobbing hot tears, stripping naked to tell her anxieties, the loss of her husband, the betrayals...
Each post generates hundreds of thousands of views (six times more than for a classic post), and his account gains influence and followers.
This is where the technology of social networks gets involved and where the system can become pernicious by transforming the consolation into a real marketing tool: the more there are likes, the more the algorithm will value a post and encourage, therefore, to pour out in public again and again, without any limits.
“Showing yourself crying works better than showing yourself happy,” explains Emmanuelle Patry, founder of the Social Media Lab.
This allows you to have more comments and to create a link with your audience.
This is a trend that we see appearing even among micro-influencers who have a small community of 5,000 subscribers.
Appearing crying works better than appearing happy
The other side of the coin? A loss of authenticity and sincerity in the subject, but also a frantic race for shamelessness. Some influencers and stars, surrounded by a communication team, confide their ill-being at the same time as they place products for remuneration. "Following the publication of a study that highlighted mental health issues as one of the biggest topics of conversation, Twitter now advises brands to use this trend in their communication strategy," warns Emmanuelle Patry. Known for her universe with a Parisian spirit that makes you dream, the French influencer Sabina Socol confirms it: “I find it good not to embellish everything, but this vulnerability is never free. In return, we always have a secondary benefit, attention, likes,comments and sometimes even money. Some brands have already asked me to show more because they know it engages.
Virtual support
But beyond the desire to share everything, are social networks really the best place to be consoled?
“This reward of likes makes everyone a slave, analyzes psychiatrist Christophe André, who has just published a book on the subject,
Consolations, those that we receive and those that we give (1)
.
Comforting is an act of loving presence, even if it is powerless.
We all have an immense need for consolation.
On social networks, it is a virtual consolation that works a bit like a drug shoot, ephemeral and addictive.
The Anglo-Saxons have a name for this: they call
vulnerability porn
this attitude of exposing oneself emotionally online in order to receive validation or attention from others.
For psychologist Michael Stora, this posture can even be confining: “I see something regressive in it, like a plaintive little child.
Social networks maintain this narcissism of the person, they keep him in this position of suffering.
On social networks, the person in search of consolation forgets that it is not the likes of anonymous people that will do them lasting good, but rather the presence of a human being in the flesh, who knows them well enough for him. make people aware of all the richness of their personality, with their strengths and weaknesses.
“In general, my patients are weighed down with narcissistic weaknesses that they try to compensate with artifices, deciphers the psychologist.
They then take pleasure in the position of suffering.
But if I maintain this position, as I do on Instagram, I prevent them from expressing their anger.
However, this anger is healthy, an angry patient is a patient who is moving forward”, underlines Michael Stora.
Far from the networks, the life of emotions follows its course, freed from likes.
We end up growing up, no longer needing to be consoled and moving forward.
By accompanying her mother in palliative care, in her last fight against the disease, until her death, Elsa Wolinski understood that she needed human contact: "When leaving the hospital, in the elevator, I met a couple.
The young woman told her fiancé: "I'm glad you're here, when I go out there will be someone for me."
At that moment, I really needed a hug."
A real.
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