'How many 'likes'? Does it matter?' inspired by Jo Elvin

Most monthly magazines start with an editor's letter and Jo Elvin is the wonderful editor of Glamour (just incase you didn't know). Glamour is my all time favourite magazine, hands down. I buy it every month without fail just because I know it will have articles I can relate to and stories that will make me stop and think about life. It isn't your typical magazine filled with gossip and that is one of the many reasons why I love it!

In the final months of 2015 Jo's letter was called 'How many 'likes'? Does it matter?'. I remember sitting at work on my lunch break reading this and in my head agreeing with every word that Jo had written. One phrase that really stuck in my head, still there now was along the lines of 'someone will always think you're a shit'. You know what, whoever gave Jo this advice is so right. Someone will always think you're a shit, we can't please everyone and we can't make everyone like us. But that's okay.

So 'How many 'likes'? Does it matter?'.

It won't come as a shock to anyone that we live in a world that is filled with constant internet access, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So many of us use the cyber world to communicate with each other instead of speaking to one another face to face. This upsets me because you really can't beat human interaction, speaking to someone face to face, being in someones company that isn't a million miles away.

Don't get me wrong though because I love the cyber world just as much as the next person, it opens us up to so much more of the world, so many more possibilities, so many more experiences, so many more relationships.

But at what point does the internet become a bad place? In my opinion one of the downfalls of the internet is the constant access, the constant access to compare ourselves to others, the constant access no matter what our mood is. Sometimes the internet is a devil in disguise.

We are all humans and we all just want to be accepted. Accepted for who we are and for who we are not. What makes us feel accepted most online though? The likes? The favourites? The retweets? The mentions? The shout outs? The followers? All of these are just numbers, figures that do not define us as a person.


I wanted to write this post to just address the topic and reassure you (plus myself in the process).

I just want you to know that if you get 4 likes it doesn't make you any else of an amazing person than the person online who got 4,000 likes. You are an incredible, amazing, brave, unique, strong, inspiring person regardless of how many likes you get, how many followers you have, how many retweets you get. They are all just numbers at the end of the day, but you know what single number does matter...1. The one person behind the online account...you, you are important, you matter. Never forget that. You can't please everyone, not everyone will like you, you won't like everyone and that's okay.

Never forget, 'someone will always think you're a shit' but that doesn't matter ('shake it off, shake it off'), we are all different and unique, just be the best you that you can be.