Likes, Lies, And The Loss Of Self

Let's be clear: social media isn't the bad guy. It's just the platform. The real show? That's us—striking poses, giving sermons, making a fuss, showing off—sometimes all in one Instagram story. We like to point fingers at the algorithm. "It's harmful," we grumble, as we keep scrolling, liking showy activism wedged between vacation videos and pretty salad pictures. But here's the truth: the algorithm didn't create our need for approval. It just learned to meet it better than our relatives ever managed. 

Social media didn't turn us into shallow people. It just gave us a place where being shallow can reach more people. 

We've changed our feeds into shrines of anger—routine planned out, and brief. James Baldwin once said, "Art aims to expose the questions hidden by the answers." But now even questions get picked. Even disagreement gets cleaned up.

We grieve for public disasters using Canva templates. We add hashtags to Audre Lorde and Arundhati Roy quotes, often skipping the full text. We snap selfies at demonstrations, then silence entire causes when they become bothersome. 

Our support has an expiration date outlasting a day-long story. In this world, anger has become just another look. Check your feed—how often have you swiped past posts about unfairness or wrongdoing to stop on a joke or an ad? What does it reveal about us when we're more likely to heart a post about a "big argument" than a community protest? Or when our first step to learn more involves writing a short tweet and calling it activism? 

We convince ourselves we're spreading the word, but knowledge without follow-through is just clapping in an empty space.

Don’t get me wrong: social media has the power to amplify voices and inspire revolutions. It has democratized access to information in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. But here’s the bitter pill no one wants to swallow: visibility alone doesn’t change systems. Not if we’re just swiping past the inconvenient truths when they get uncomfortable. Not if we’re only resharing articles because the headline fits our worldview.

Let’s face it: we’re more interested in performing our morals than in actually embodying them.

We rage-tweet at systems we're part of. We cancel individuals rather than examining the culture that bred them. We perform morality as a performance review—one error, and you're done, no matter the growth, context, or nuance. A place that started to bring people together is now an arena where silence is suspect and flaw is punished.

And still, we come back. Why? Because we've been taught to think that visibility is virtue. That to be visible is to be good. But as bell hooks once explained, "Doing the work of love means taking responsibility for how we live our lives." Not how we act them out.

Let's face it: we don't tweet because we seek to transform the world. We tweet because we wish to appear to be the type of individual who might. And sure, there's nothing amiss in desiring to be heard—but when the competition for likes turns the competition for truth, we cease to be citizens and instead are content makers.

Activism now has metrics—engagement, shares reach. Your anger needs data. Your feminism needs imagery. We claim to "boost voices," but we boost ourselves. Often drowning out those who need it most. The worst part? We mistake this racket for progress. 

We confuse going viral with winning. But actual progress moves, bores us, pays nothing, and looks good in photos. We discuss how social media can "create an impact," but we've lost sight of what creating an impact means. It's not a trending hashtag. It's not the brief surge of likes after posting about "mental health awareness." Progress real progress, burns and doesn't care about your number of followers.

We love rebels - until they revolt in ways that we are not uncomfortable. When a woman questions a religious conservative, she is "too much." When a Dalit fellow talks about systemic extinction, we browse the past. When a worker refuses to pack their pain in advance, we are followed. Because we don't want raw. We want resonance as levels of our art.

As Arundhati Roy once wrote, “There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless.' There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”

Social media gives everyone a mic. But not everyone gets the stage.

Not to mention if you're not palatable enough? If people find your truth uncomfortable, ragged, or disorganized? Your peers, not the app, have shadow-banned you. Likes cease coming in. Comments are no longer made. Your disagreement is considered "divisive." "Too much drama" is what you're telling. 

Dissension in this context is popular when it's adorable. While it's in style. When accompanied by a lovely quote and a picture of a nonviolent demonstration. However, disagreement that is messy, noisy, or inconvenient is written off as noise. It isn't compatible with the algorithm. No one shares it again. 

"We desire honesty," we tell ourselves. The kind of harmony that allows us to sleep without having to reconsider our role in the system is what we truly desire, not the kind that fosters insight.

So no, the problem isn’t social media. It’s that we’ve started performing our politics instead of practicing it.

It’s that we ask “Will this post well?” instead of “Is this right?”

It’s that we use activism to brand ourselves, dissent to gain followers, and vulnerability to drive reach.

And in doing so, we rob ourselves of the very thing we seek—connection. Real, messy, human connection. The kind that doesn’t trend. The kind that makes us better, not just more visible.

We need to remember that not everything true will be popular, and not everything popular is true. That dissent is valuable even when it’s unliked. Especially then.

We need to log off sometimes—not to escape, but to reflect. To ask ourselves: What are we standing for when no one’s watching?

Because the real revolution isn’t in your caption. It’s in your choices. It’s in how we choose to engage with the world, not as content creators, but as conscious, accountable citizens.

Next time you post, ask yourself: Are you feeding the noise? Or are you trying to change it?

The problem isn’t social media—it’s who we become when we’re on it.

Himani Usha Tripathi is a writer, mentor, and theatre artist. Views expressed by the author are their own. This article is a part of our ongoing series Dissent Dispatch, in collaboration with Usawa Literary Review.