Is The Internet for Pretty People?

It seems like the internet is for the pretty people. The ones with perfect hair and perfect hips. With green grass and appropriately big earrings. With holiday home tours and perfectly white teeth.

Basically, not me.

And I began to wonder about this virtual world we spend so much of our time in. Is it for me? Do I have a place here in this magical online land? Am I enough?

It’s easy to think that we see what’s real through a screen. Everything looks so real. We see images and read words that are carefully crafted. And they are really beautiful.

We clutch our devices like gospel and wonder why our theology is off. Let's change that. Share on X

When my kids were little and we would watch a Disney movie there was always a villain. Inevitably, someone became scared, and I had to coo the gentle reminder: It’s not real. It’s only make-believe.

Maybe we need that reminder here sometimes. Sure, there are parts that are real. There are amazing people doing amazing things. But we are only seeing part of the filtered, staged image. Maybe we need the reminder: It’s not real. It’s only make-believe.

Carefully crafted online beauty only makes our ordinary seem like failure. Let's give one another permission to be beautifully real. Share on X

Because this space online is for all of us. Even in our messy ordinary, especially in our messy ordinary. Let’s give one another permission to be beautifully real.

Easy to say. Harder to do.

But maybe if we walk with one another on a journey toward real, we can appreciate the beautiful and the ordinary at the same time.