To be, or not to be, relatable.

Last night my Instagram account gave me a monthly update. It’s been doing this lately and I usually peruse it even though I really don’t have any desire to do anything different to get more engagement. At the end of the sequence it told me that to get more likes and shares I needed to “make content relatable enough to share”.

What is relatable? I fear that the majority of social media relatability comes primarily through memes (my personal favorite) or rants. A few years ago I made positivity a priority in my writing because I began to notice that I got a greater response when I posted something that had a more negative or grumpy tone. I didn’t think that God called me to get likes for rants so I try to keep a positive spin on life while still being real.

Unfortunately no amount of positivity will keep us from hard things here on this earth. I send Brad several memes a day because they are relatable. Memes take content that could be seen as negative and makes it funny, connecting us through shared experiences (often hard ones).

The other day Brad sent me a meme that had the text “people in 1999 using the Internet as an escape from reality//people in 2026 using reality as an escape from the Internet) and I think that’s the perfect example of using humor to make a harsh reality positive. Are we happy with how the Internet has taken over our lives? Nope, so using humor is an accessible way to connect with others over the realities of life.

Sometimes I want to make a secret social media account and just see how quickly I could grow it. I would complain about my husband, how tired I am, and how annoying kids are and make catchy reels. I know it would grow. I know I would get comments and likes. Toxicity, like gasoline, ignites quickly.

The world tends to gravitate toward the negative things because I don’t think we know how to react when people genuinely like their lives and are happy. Is it because they can’t fathom joy? Maybe. Is it because everyone they know is unhappy? Could be.

Whatever the reason, as someone who loves Jesus and is honestly so grateful for this life, I can’t give you “relatable” content. I will make truthful content, and I will do my best to be vulnerable in a way that shows the grace of Jesus in my life. Life is far from perfect, but it sure is beautiful. I’m not always happy, I still yell at my kids, and I get annoyed when my house is cluttered— but I can never focus only on those things because it would detract from all the beautiful work Jesus has done in my life.

There’s a place to share the hard things that you’re going through, but I think that’s best done face to face, person to person. Social media just isn’t it (unless of course the Holy Spirit is prompting). I do my best to not post about something until it’s resolved in my life. If I’m still triggered, I can’t write from a healed place yet.

Without Jesus I would be unhappy. I would be a gossiper, a slanderer— someone deceived by all the cares and worries of this world. Jesus has taken my brokenness and given me a beautiful life with Him.

My, I long for the day in which that is the relatable content of this world.