By Jolie Multack
Boston is honestly one of the most mixed places ever. You walk like five minutes and the whole vibe changes. You hear a million different accents on the Green Line, people from everywhere, and you kinda feel all these cultures bump into each other every day. But if you ask any teen or college kid where they feel the MOST pressure about who they are, it’s not school it’s their phone.
Social media makes everyone feel like they have to be “someone.” Especially kids from mixed or multicultural backgrounds. Online you feel like you have to show every part of yourself but also not TOO much. It’s like a whole performance. And it’s exhausting.
“I feel like I’m always switching versions of myself,” Maya, a 19-year-old from Dorchester, told me. “There’s home-Maya, school Maya, and then Instagram Maya. And Insta Maya is cute but she’s not always the real me.”
Same. Honestly, same.
A lot of students said the same thing: it feels like you have to “brand” yourself. Like we’re all some tiny influencers even though we’re just trying to pass our classes and remember to eat dinner. Your feed has to look clean, aesthetic, whatever. But who even is that person?? Nobody wakes up looking like their Instagram grid. I mean I wake up looking like I fought a bear half the time.
Boston kinda makes this whole thing louder. Because here, culture overlaps like crazy. A kid in Chinatown and a kid in Allston live 10 minutes apart but the way they feel online? Totally different worlds.
“Boston is super diverse, but online it doesn’t feel that way,” Jacob, a high-school senior from Chinatown, told me. “People don’t see the full picture. They just see what fits into a square.”
A square, he’s right.
Dr. Talia Greene, a Boston psychologist who studies digital identity, said the pressure comes from the fear of losing connection. “Young adults want to belong,” she told me. “And the constant comparison online makes it hard to be authentic especially if you’re juggling multiple identities.”
And honestly, that hit me. Because so many students, especially at Northeastern, are either international, first gen, or just far away from home for the first time. Everyone’s trying to figure out who they are here. And social media becomes the place you document it all… even if you’re still confused half the time.
It creates this double-life thing: the one you’re actually living and the one you’re curating. And somewhere between that is the whole “who am I becoming???” question that Gen Z is constantly spiraling about at 2am.
But it’s not all awful. Like yeah the pressure is real, but a lot of students told me that social media actually helps them feel seen too. Boston meme accounts, culture pages, TikTok’s about being a chaotic college kid it kinda comforts you. Makes you feel less alone. Even if it’s silly.
Boston’s a lot. In a good way. It’s layered and weird and beautiful and not one thing at all. And maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe you don’t have to pick a perfect version of yourself to post. Maybe you can just be a little messy, a little mixed, and a little more human.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
RSS