by Yanichka Ariunbold, section editor

What number could be more perfect than five hundred?

Satisfyingly composite, infinitely divisible,  just right — its pristine three digits, bolded, now sit neatly above the dim gray label that designates the “followers” of my Instagram.

My thoughts, as I look at the number: I, @yaanichka, with this solemn initiation into 500-follower-hood, have now achieved almost-popularity and have thus secured the grudging respect of all who will thereafter stalk my account. Cue my acceptance speech. 

I can’t believe this is happening right now oh my god oh my god. [Audience smiles and claps politely.] Uh, thanks to my cousin for being my rock– I don’t know where I’d be if she didn’t harass her middle school friends into following me! Major ups to my mother, who bought me the iPod touch 4th generation when I was a little seventh grader with dreams of one day reaching the big 500. Haha. Love you, Mom. And most importantly, thanks to my editor, VSCO cam, for re-touching my pictures and making my face look better but in a way that people who know me in real life don’t get suspicious. [I begin softly sobbing, and the camera zooms in on my unfiltered, tear-stained face.] I…I couldn’t have done it without you.

 ***

I realize there are too many pictures of me smiling that same, hollow smile — a smile that by sheer force reaches the eyes but is fake nonetheless. I scroll through my posts, my initial elation at the “500” subsiding.

Each picture’s the same; I clasp hands with a friend in this one, and with a different friend in two others — grins plastered on, our torsos twisting towards the camera to show off our best side. Here, my eyebrows shoot up so my eyes aren’t hidden like they usually are when I smile, and my posture, awful seconds before this picture is taken, is suddenly queenly. And that flattering “candid” laughing face — not that I’m not actually laughing in this, because I am — but have you seen my actual no-camera-unphotogenic-snorting-laughing face? This isn’t it.

Of course, I detect these discrepancies when I post these very pictures. I know how deceptively natural and carefully edited they are, and I concede they’re more illusion than truth, that they’re only a distorted, albeit softly-lighted lens into my life. But no one will know, right? My five hundred followers, whoever they are — spam accounts, middle schoolers I’ve never met, people I sometimes have eye contact with in the hallways, “close” friends who say four words to me a week but comment excessive heart emojis on my posts as I do on theirs — they won’t suspect a thing. And that’s what’s important, in the end, right?

For months, it’s become more and more difficult to convince myself of this. I thought fueling my energy into gathering five hundred followers would allow me to keep pretending that this series of Aden-filtered smiles was who I am — but the “500” has arrived, and a sense of purposelessness is already creeping over me.

So here’s the truth: I’m not sure I even know what I look like anymore. Sure, I see myself in the mirror and on Snapchat daily, and I know it’s me. Then, I come across pictures my dad takes when I’m not looking, and somehow, that’s also me, even though I look like a stranger. And for a long time, I looked at posed pictures where I controlled how I appeared and thought that was me, all the time. But that wasn’t it, and here I am now, a self-obsessed, inconsistent teenager that can’t recognize herself in anything.

I wonder how anybody recognizes me at all.