Nobody Can Relate To Perfect People

Looking back at the videos I recorded for TikTok, I cringed at the lines around my eyes, that face that looked like it hadn’t woken up, and my finger hovered over the delete button. 

Ever been there? You look back, read back, or listen back, to the thing you’ve created and it’s not good enough. Your language isn’t good enough, you look like the ugly fairy has slapped you, and the pitch in your voice is all over the place. And if you put it out there, you’re going to stand out like a sore thumb. Everyone else is perfectly lit, proofread to an inch of their life, and got the voices of angels. 

It’s in those moments when our first thought is to delete everything. And once done, it’s back to recording again or forgetting the whole deal because you’re not good enough. But do you ever notice that some of the most moving content is raw footage, text that’s not the best in English but the message behind it is powerful, and that person with that horrible birthmark on their face rivets you to the screen? 

In a world where you can hide behind an A.I talking head, be airbrushed beyond anything human genes can do, it’s easy to follow the herd. To think that you can’t make a mistake, have a love handle show, or look anything but perfect twenty-four-seven. But is that doing you any favours? To have a newsfeed filled with achievement, after achievement, to never make a mistake, or have even the hint of a bad habit? – Instagram would say yes, but the reality is the opposite.

The people we bond to are the ones that turn a car crash of a life around. The movie star that used to wake up drunk and high on someone’s lawn that now lights up our screen. The person missing limbs, or an imperfect body, that shows what our will can do even though we don’t have the best vehicle to get there. The person that’s got an ongoing problem with depression but fighting a good fight. Those are the relatable ones. Those are the people that inspire us to be more than we are. Those are the people that make us think, if they can do all that after what they’ve been through, then there’s hope for me. If I could shorten it down to one sentence, it’s this. – People can’t relate to someone that’s perfect.

That perfect Instagram coach does nothing for us. That thought leader with the perfect teeth, hair, and lighting, isn’t one we can relate to. That gym bunny without a stretchmark, or ounce of bodyfat, isn’t one we can picture being like. Those people are beyond us, don’t seem trustworthy, and seem synthetic because they’re beyond a flaw. – And yet, we stupidly believe that that’s the bar we should aim for. 

The reality is, it’s your flaws that are going to make you stand out. It’s your strong Austrian accent that’s going to make you memorable at the box office. It’s that scar on your face that shows up on camera. It’s the way you write that’s blunt and from the heart. Those are the things that make you memorable. Those are the thing that make you human. Those things make you relatable to the average person on the street. 

Magazines, TV, and Hollywood would like you believe that perfection is where it’s at. But the reality is, most times we can’t tell one actress or model from another because they’ve all come off the same production line.

Want to stand out? Turn off the ring light. Ditch the filters. And lean into your failures and your mistakes. That’s what makes you human. And we humans like real humans. – Warts and all. 

And even though my first urge was to delete my phone of all the videos I made, I hit the upload button on TikTok and posted them all there. With a face like that, I know I’m bound to stand out on the newsfeed.  : )

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