Eggs, Bacon, and the Beauty of Imperfection

I yearn for a time when social media felt different. A time when, as we scrolled, we were rewarded with sneak peeks into people’s lives. I want to see the robin that you see through your window, hopping along sunlit grass. Just a quick video will suffice. I want that photo of your eggs. Eggs that aren’t quite perfect, but you’re smiling and it’s genuine because you cooked them and you never cook anything. It tells me you must have slept well last night, if you’re up this early. Making breakfast. For who, I wonder? Just you?

You can add a filter if you’d like. If it makes you happy. But I’d rather you didn’t. Because then it feels as if I’m there, standing nearby, seeing it with my own imperfect eyes. When you share these things — tidbits of normalcy — I have that same feeling I get when people-watching at a restaurant or mall, without the tightness in my stomach that demands I be ready to look away if you catch me staring.

That’s the funny part about social media, isn’t it? We all want to be seen. And sometimes there’s joy in it — orchestrating the content, the lighting, the story we’re trying to tell. It can be gratifying. An artistic pursuit in its own right. But it can also be deeply unsettling. Can make you question who you are, who you wish to be perceived as. Because social media demands we announce who we are. You cannot be more than one thing. You. Must. Choose. Are you a comedian? A sex symbol? A financial wiz? Don’t you dare deviate from the caricature you’ve christened, lest you lose the eyes that tally your worth, click by click.

But I want more than your caricature. I want all your facets. All your angles. Your good days and bad. Your successes and failures. And that’s the beauty of social media as it was. I could pull up a chair to your table, and you never even knew I was there. I could zoom in on the creases around your eyes, see how they mirror my own. I could look closely at the tapestry of your life, linger as long as I wanted on the mundane details. Because in those moments, I saw you — unfiltered. Raw. Fucking beautiful.

Not too long ago, I tried to find strangers online. People with few followers who posted the nostalgic content I craved. I discovered a man who made breakfast for his dead wife every Saturday morning. He shot the video horizontally instead of vertically, his thumb often making an appearance over the camera lens. Half-finished crossword puzzles, scattered mail, and open-capped pens littered the tabletop. One of his videos went viral, and he now has almost 50,000 followers. He shoots vertically these days, and though his table is a touch cleaner, it’s still him. Sharing his breakfast. Camera shaking in his hands. The lighting all wrong. The lens smudgy.

I zoom in, and I smile. It’s perfect.