Why I take a selfie every time I cry

On how degrading women’s pain leads them to preform it.

I woke up this morning with a sort of all-consuming melancholy. The kind that greets you before you open your eyes. The kind that gets stuck in your veins. This primal pain gripped me, yet all I could think to do was to make a TikTok to the sad Bob Dylan audio I’d heard a few times the day before.

I needed to blankly stare into the camera while mouthing along to the song, then top it off with an appropriately cryptic caption. As I thought about my plan to make the video, I suddenly saw how insane the whole idea was. How detached have I become that the only way I can think to self-express was through a TikTok?

The moment made me think of all the girls I’ve seen with single-tears running down their beautiful faces as they lip-sync to a Phoebe Bridgers or Taylor Swift song. I thought about how easy it is to dismiss them. To laugh at how they have to stop crying to find the perfect song and set up their cameras.

Everytime I cry, I take a video. If I’m not able to, I take a picture, or I note it in my journal. No matter what, I will document the moment. Often, I am plagued with the feeling that I am not real. That my pain, anguish, and suffering is fictitious. The photos of me crying exist not as evidence of narcissism, but confirmation I can feel something.

Girls are raised to sit quietly and smile for photographs. Any sign of emotion is seen as dramatic. Our feelings are always seen as disingenuous, our tears exist solely for sympathy-points or emotional manipulation. Pain becomes a point of embarrassment, it’s a sign of frivolousness.

All of this exists because we want girls to be small, quiet and lifeless. When that is the standard, any sign of a complex inner world feels controversial. My tears show that I am not inanimate, there is something within me.

The most flattering thing anyone can ever want from a woman is to look at her. Women exist in the public square, as gorgeous little things for men to gawk at. That’s what the entire beauty industry exists for, to remind women they’re meant to be seen and not heard.

This means that self-realization as a woman often feels like it has to happen in public. If women only exist when being seen then that means their pain must also be seen in order for it to be real. Hence, crying on TikTok.

Bullying women for the way that they self-express is profoundly unproductive. A better use of our time would be a more candid conversation on why women’s feelings are not validated in the first place. Why do we put so much pressure on women to be pretty, and consequently make their ability to perform for others their most important trait?