With social media, we always need everything we do, say and wear to reflect who we are as a person. Our rooms, for example, have to be decorated for an aesthetic reflecting who we are internally. The look of everything being cohesive with each other is pleasing to the eye. That’s why we have aesthetic tests and style quizzes that help us search for our physical identity. To not only look appealing, but to be identified as chic in a natural way is the goal.

Paparazzi pictures of celebrities are a good example of this phenomenon.

So many celebrities look put together and “cool” whenever they are caught off-guard. These icons, like Lily-Rose Depp, are used as style influences because of how fashionable they appear to be when spotted in public.

In reality, there are designers that put together outfits for these celebrities knowing that they will be spotted in public. Their carefully curated looks go well with their famous persona, and this is what makes them so aesthetically pleasing, while also making us ordinary people feel as though our exterior must match our interior.

Our individuality, according to social media, has to be illustrated visually. That’s how we can share who we are without verbal communication. Others can get a sense of who we are through the look of our bedrooms, outfits, and hairstyles. This plays a lot into how fashion, especially in Los Angeles and New York, is heavily tied to identity. The idea that fashion is a way to express one’s self is the motto I believe LA lives by, hence why it’s idolized.

However, personality is something that is internal. One can only understand it through verbal communication and observation of actions, not through outfits, grooming, weight and attractiveness. Sure, one could say that a cleaner person is more sufficient than someone who’s sloppy, but that assumption would only be solidified through getting to know that individual.

We like to assume that we knew it all along when we find out that the sloppy person turned out to be less sufficient. Yet, that wouldn’t solidify the idea that messier equals counterproductive. It’s our hindsight bias that makes us feel that way; hindsight bias being the “knew it all along” phenomenon.

Perhaps illustrating our identity visually gives us the false idea that we have a clear understanding of who we are. Knowing who we are allows us to feel whole within ourselves. We can create an illusion of how we want to be perceived by setting the stage in accordance with who we want to be. So now, people on the outside believe that we are the individual we want to be even if we aren’t yet there mentally. It’s the false idea that the outside is a window into the soul.

Someone can look clean and put together, but when you go to their living space, it’s the opposite. It’s all a performance to be seen as something we are yet to be. Cosplaying the person you strive to be is far easier than actually being the person you want to be. Being that person incorporates both mindset and physical characteristics – simply looking the part allows you to stay where you are mentally but still feel like you’ve improved.

It’s all tied into self-perception and the perception of others. We want to be seen as something positive by ourselves and by other people, hence why we do things to make ourselves feel better and to look good to outsiders – to be seen but only in the light of our choice.

So, why do we always feel the need to define ourselves? Our confidence and self-esteem could largely play a part in this idea. Perhaps allowing self-love to play a larger role in our lives will eradicate the need to perform. Naturally, our look will be cohesive with our identity because we didn’t go through lengths to solidify it. In reality, self-identification is unnecessary being that our identity is already set – there’s no need to define it.