What a dream it is to live in LA with a brand new car and huge house while making easy money by simply being famous. Oh, and most importantly, not working a nine to five job, five days a week. Many people have dreamt of this since they were a kid. How great would that be? No school, no demanding job, fancy things with an endless amount of money. With Tiktok being the center of social media, this dream so many people have had forever can now come true. However, is it as good as it seems?

Social media is filled with fake lives that are portrayed as the dream life, even these famous 18 year olds that have their own houses and cars. Their lives are only portrayed by the good parts. Many of us that have this dream seem to let it go as we grow up and realize the dream social media life is not at all what it is shown to be. Teenagers that are supposed to be figuring life out and growing just like the rest of us, are now in the spotlight and watched for everything they do.

Everybody knows the basic rules applied to teenagers. We mess up, more than once, grow, and learn. Well, for some reason these rules are not applied to social media influencers. That is just like not much about the normal teenage life applies to them. They are expected to be grown up and mature with no mistakes. Of course, this adds an endless amount of pressure to these young stars that deep down are the same as all teenagers: just trying to learn and find their way of life.

Even in life without millions of followers, you can never make everybody happy. There will always be at least one person upset. So, imagine having millions of followers that feel bold enough to say whatever they want considering they are sitting behind a screen, monitoring your life. Not to mention, the majority of the followers are from a generation like no other, meaning they are pretty much crazy, which is Gen Z. If they do not like what they see, the whole world will know about it, and yes the situation will get completely twisted considering that’s what happens when a story goes through a bunch of people. In one click and one mistake, the whole world of social media, which pretty much pays for your luxury life, can decide you are over with.

“What people don’t realize is that fame, whatever your worst experience in high school, when you were being bullied by those 10 kids in high school, fame is that, but on a global scale, where you’re being bullied by millions of people constantly,” says Megan Fox. She explained to BestLife that she has been sexualized since her career started, making it hard to love the spotlight.

The people who are feeling bold behind the screen can bring a number of other problems. The fame and spotlight can also cause security issues and danger in real life, it can have a huge effect on your relationships outside of social media, it can cause body image issues from being judged and compared to standards, and overall serious mental health issues. So therefore, the dream of social media life is not a dream come true. Many people, including a lot of social media influencers, would choose their freedom in having a normal life over the money and luxury that comes with the “amazing” social media life.