I saw this article going viral, Trapped in the hell of social comparison.
The typical narrative is that users on social media–which in this context almost always refers to Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook but never Twitter/X–only show off the ‘highlight reels’ of their life, leading to envy or anxiety among users who feel inadequate by comparison. The idea that social media is nothing but highlight reels leading to envy is treated as an unquestioned truism or article of faith, let alone challenged. But I have always been skeptical of this narrative.
Unlike Noah or others pundits, who write a lot about social media but without actually being end-users of the product, I use social media daily as an end-user. Like most Americans, I have accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. I have observed the opposite, actually: the overwhelming majority of users on social media are not super-successful and do not try to project success (or put on a front as being successful) or flaunt material goods much, except for celebrities or people who brand themselves as ‘influencers’, compared to typical end-users. There is actually very little to feel envious about.
He writes:
There were rich people like that in 1920, or 1960, or 1990. But you almost never saw them. Maybe you could read about them in People magazine or watch a TV show about them.
Which was 99% of media back then? It’s funny how he contradicts himself. Yes, in the ’90s people had no exposure to rich people, except for TV, magazine, or movies which also happened to be how everyone consumed media. It’s not like people needed reality TV or social media to be reminded of the existence of rich people.
But most people simply didn’t have contact with the super-rich. Now, thanks to social media, they do. And even if people don’t go hunting for “RichTok” videos, the algorithmic feed may occasionally throw some into their field of view. On a day-to-day basis, we are more aware of the Becca Blooms of this world than we were thirty years ago, or probably even ten years ago.
Anyone can contact anyone, if ‘contact’ is defined to mean a one-sided conversation or an unrequited parasocial relationship. There are hundreds of billionaires on Twitter or Instagram. You can tweet at Elon Musk right now. Good luck getting a response, but you can contact him. Likewise, in the pre-internet era, anyone could write fan mail; again, getting a response was the hard part.
Noah’s argument is that people feel like ‘financial losers’ on social media because it’s so easy to make contact with rich people. But statistically, this doesn’t make sense. Given the massive popularity of those platforms, we would expect the average user to be as successful as the median American, which is to say, a far cry from being wealthy or super-successful. Hence, the vast majority of Facebook/Instagram/TikTok users are not financially successful or celebrities.
Follow a hundred of so random people on Instagram or TikTok, and how many tech employes are you going to find among them? Or people posting about their envious AI jobs? Likely none, compared to Twitter, where everyone seems super-successful on there. This is confirmed by my own experience. On Instagram or Facebook, you see a lot of people posting random stuff…their cars, pets, outfits, or dining out at fast-casual chains. Not too many posts about fancy AI jobs or elite university credentials. Nor is there much virality in terms of the posts themselves, typically only garnering single-digit ‘likes’.
Compared to the rugged individualism common Twitter, where everyone is a ‘STEM genius’ or a self-made AI millionaire, one thing you notice on the other platforms, especially Facebook, is that people tend to share bad news a lot or request help, typically links to GoFundMe, to cover medical expenses. Having to ask strangers or even family for money isn’t a curated highlight of success–it’s a public display of financial distress and vulnerability. How else did GoFundMe become so successful, having as of 2026 surpassed $40 billion raised globally, with over 120 million individual donations? From people doing just that–confiding vulnerability on social media by sharing GoFundMe links.
For women on Instagram or TikTok, a lot of content is sharing ‘shopping hauls’ from Target and Walmart. I don’t know about you, but being able to afford clothes from a mass-retailer that in 2025 grossed $700 billion in worldwide sales, does not strike me as particularly envy-inducing or exclusive to the “1%”. Or vacation updates. Going to a popular tourist spot is much less of an exclude club than being hired by a company that rejects something like 99.9% of its applicants or being accepted to a university that rejects 96.5% of applicants, which describes typical Twitter user it seems. By comparison, on Instagram, it’s like, “Wow you bought a plane ticket…you and 1.5 billion other tourists in 2025.”
This is why Twitter is the lone exception to the ‘social media highlight reel’ narrative. Anyone who creates an account on Twitter is immediately bombarded by public personas getting tons of engagement in the form of ‘likes’, retweets and other visible signifiers of status. These accounts range from figures in tech or AI to random users who appear to have no clear talent or expertise beyond their ability to generate controversy or attract negative attention.
Yes, Instagram and TikTok have celebrities and other ‘esteemed’ people, but you typically don’t see that content unless you choose to follow it. By contrast, on Twitter, the richest guy in the world literally algorithmically inserts himself everywhere on the platform, being that he also owns it. But even he is dwarfed by the vast ranks of AI and other tech elite, or highly esteemed credentialed people. Even I found myself feeling inadequate after a while, thinking “I wish I had better takes on AI or politics, or better credentials.”
In conclusion, except for Twitter, the way people use social media and the type of content that is shared is the opposite of how pundits describe it as. It’s mostly average people doing average things, with the sort of problems (e.g. medical expenses) that ordinary people face, which is to be expected because social media users, by in large, are ordinary people.