Mother’s Day just passed, and social media feeds quickly filled with gifts, flowers, brunch photos, long appreciation captions, and smiling family pictures. If you scroll through Instagram for just a few minutes, you’ll find that everyone seems to be celebrating in the “perfect” way. But behind the posts, it brings up the question: are holidays becoming more about creating content than memories?
For us, high school students, social media is a major part of our everyday lives. Platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest allow people to share moments in instants. Of course, posting celebrations can be a fun way to express appreciation and connect with peers, but it can also create some unspoken pressure to make holidays feel nothing short of picture-perfect.
Some may feel pressure to buy expensive gifts, plan super elaborate surprises, or publicly post appreciation online–not necessarily because they want to, but because they feel somewhat expected to. Constantly seeing these perfectly curated posts can make simple celebrations feel like they are somehow not enough or fit the social media etiquette.
Calista Nguyen (12) shares, “Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough the second I open my social media. Whenever my celebrations are done in a smaller way, it honestly makes me feel pressured into changing the way I approach holidays.”
There is science behind the idea of social comparison, in which people tend to compare their lives to what they see from others around them. Social media most often only highlights the best moments while leaving out everything else. What appears online is always carefully selected and never reveals the full reality, creating this false image and unspoken pressure underneath the surface. This feeling can be even more present on Holidays like Valentine’s Day, birthdays, Christmas, and even graduations, as they all come with expectations of matching trends online. Though this pressure is not always direct, it most often comes from seeing everyone else do it.
Student McKenzi Reiter (12) exclaims, “I think people start thinking about the post before the actual experience. This is what makes it performative, as people think that if you don’t put it online, people think it didn’t happen.”
With this in mind, social media is not quite the underlying problem. Sharing special moments can help people celebrate and stay connected while creating meaningful memories, and allow people to appreciate loved ones. However, problems can arise when online expectations begin to affect how people feel in real life.
As holidays continue becoming increasingly visible online, maybe the better question is not whether celebrations look “Instagram-worthy,” but whether social media is changing who we celebrate for in the first place and what intent we carry.
