I Logged Off & Found Love. Now I'm Ready to Share.

canon t7i with kit lens. custom lightroom preset.

I've been thinking a lot about social media, how things have changed over the years on these apps, what that means socially for other people, and what that means for myself as a person who once thought I would "make it" as a star as long as I devoted myself to showing up.

Things have changed a lot...

People are gravitating towards more analogue lives, choosing to read "essays" on Substack, swapping streaming services for mp3 players, and hopefully going outside and interacting with their community in replacement.

And as I contemplate all these things, but more personally, my own relationship with the social media and how okay I am with the lessening of its importance in my life, I am also left with the realization of how this effects my day to day and more topically, my looks-- my hair.

I have fallen in love with my natural hair and that directly correlates with why I've barely been show up online.

The Accidental Way to Fall in Love With Your Natural Hair

So for starters, I never intended on cultivating a relationship with my natural hair, if I'm being honest. I have even gone back and forth with the notion that I might even loc it all up at some point because the idea of loving my natural loose texture was beyond imagine. And really, it's not that I hated my hair, it just wasn't something I was willing to put up with and so therefore I could almost do with or without it if it wasn't for everyone close to me reminding me how long it took me to get to the length that I'm currently at.

But during COVID, like most people, I found myself simplifying my routine and I wanted to "feel like I look the same" morning and night, which led me to sew ins-- first kinky straight, but then eventually kinky curly.

my first sew in

It didn't occur to me at the time, that I was teaching myself how to care for my own hair, training my eye to see myself with the look, and appreciating how to carry myself with a 'fro. None of this was on my mind, except for how easy it was to just spray water, a little mousse, run a brush, and then go, maybe doing twists every other night, but simple and cute otherwise.

I was pretty happy, nonetheless. I felt beautiful and put together and it fit my lifestyle. I didn't post very much during this time, or if I did, it was mostly introspection which fit where I was at in my life.

Does Wearing a Wig Mean I Hate My Natural Hair?

I kept the kinky straight and curly sew-ins on and off for about a year or so before I got an itch to go back to wigs again, which directly mirrored my going back outside the house. Obviously more glam for more partying, right?

(Put a pin in that because we'll get back to that statement...)

And I loved my wig era. Playing around with syntheticas again and sporting new colors after a successful bout of pink and burgundy braids (mind you, during the COVID era, I also fell prey to a "naturally beautiful" stint so colored hair seemed CRAZY despite my younger hair rebellion). I have a whole collection of wigs that I'm proud to own, particularly the bleach blonde ones I've been stockpiling.

But lately, when I put on my wigs, I feel... different. Not necessarily bad or good. But not myself. Almost like I'm putting on a persona. And that's not bad, but at 32 years old, I've finally come to love all of me including my natural hair and to put on a persona just to go to the grocery store, karaoke with friends, but not on the stage for a performance, or even just for fun? It feels... off.

I unintentionally fell deeply in love with the look of myself sans wigs, that to put them back on as coverage and rule, but not for fun feels like putting on one of my old ankle-length dresses to appease prudish relatives. Like it fits, it's cute, I guess, but it's not really me. And while it feels nice to know the option is there, I don't feel the need to abide by this old appeasement behavior anymore and it's okay that it's tucked away in the back of my closet for now.

Let's relate this back to social media.

Persona vs Person: Why it's Hard to Change on Social Media

So when I first started social media-- Facebook, Instagram, I was just me, Anjuli. But years passed, and I decided I wanted to make social media a job, along with my drag and burlesque career and had changed my stage name to my real name and then Anjuli became "Anjuli", a brand. I wasn't just a girl online anymore, but a character. This branding is quite common for a lot of influencers. Whether you know them by birth name, username, or whatever, you usually see them go from just someone who posted random pictures of their dinner, to someone who cultivates a message or vibe of some sort. Some happen to be really good at doing it where it feels down-to-earth, but make no mistake, they are a brand too. Most everyone who wants to be a public figure online is.

So "Anjuli" is glam, she's real to some degree, but mostly positive, hot, the epitome of self expression in its freest form. She was a performer and an artist. Everyone who met me online and in real life has met "Anjuli". She was the "face" of my brand.

And Anjuli, the person, was back burner-ed. She was a mess, healing, figuring it all out, failing, then coming back together, but still stumbling all over the place... you know, it was my twenties! It was messy, ya'll. The lines were blurred. I can even recall one close friend of mine remarking that they loved the version of me that existed on my private Tumblr account, which at the time, I had to explain both versions of me online were me, but it was just fact, there was a public facing version of me that pervaded my life and made the "real" me hide away. It protected me from a lot as well-- in the strip club where I worked, online where I had "fans", and irl when someone would camp outside my neighborhood for god knows what reason, and I suddenly felt like I could only exist online because I was too scared to leave my house, restarting my agoraphobia journey.

At some point, I took a step back. Stopped talking about my life as I tried to sort things out. Rediscovered my passion for things that initially drove me to the internet in the first place. Tried to honor the change by presenting them online, but fell flat when the algorithm had no idea what to do with my content so my audience and new people alike weren't seeing it. And I started to feel like nobody gave a shit about Anjuli, just "Anjuli".

The thing is, the internet doesn't let you change and grow because remember, you are a brand, a character. People find comfort in that character. You don't fuck with people's comfort characters and get away with it.

But sometimes you have to.

Because you're not a character.

You are a real person.

And fuck social media, the algorithm, and the audience it feeds for making you think otherwise.

Who Am I? And How Do I Show the World That?

Anjuli and "Anjuli" both live inside me. I am human. I am multifaceted. I am ever changing and there are times when I am over the top, drag, dramatic. all that because at my core, I am a performer, but then there are times where I am introspective, learning, moving at a different frequency because at an even deeper core, I am just trying to understand humanity.

I love to look good, feel good at all times, and the way I do that isn't always in full glam, but most of the time with minimal makeup, hair in a puff, and something I can move my body in because I am always buzzing around, dancing, walking, doing yoga, whatever!

To completely dismiss both sides of me would be a disservice because they both carry equal weight in my life, my heart, and who I am as a person, but to be honest, I haven't given Anjuli a fair chance... online... or in real life...

And I love Anjuli!

canon t7i with kit lens. custom lightroom preset.

She's such a great friend, empathetic, patient, loving, forgiving, gives amazing advice, has laughs for those who are willing to repeat themselves so she can partake in the conversation. Sure she can get too excited and interrupt others, she's also quite critical towards herself in a way that she'd never be towards anyone else, and honestly, she's done some things in the past that she wishes she hadn't. But she's so incredibly loved by others close to her. It's unfortunate most people just know me as "Anjuli" because she's been my comfort blanket for the last decade. But I don't need that comfort blanket anymore. Or rather, I'd like to feel like I don't need that comfort blanket anymore.

Why is the only valid version of me this overly manufactured one?-- a valid one, but not the one I resonate with most of the time? Why can't I give space to both? I just simply refuse to know, but not live in the knowledge that I can be glamourous and hot and smart and introspective with and without the wig.

Why Is it Important to Show The "Real" You?

I write this and I propose these questions because as we move into the age of authenticity, the age of analogue, as we see stories being wiped away along with the communities these stories belong to, it's the authentic we need to push forward into the spotlight.

I'm not saying our personas, our brands, they don't matter, because like I mentioned earlier, "Anjuli" is just as much me as Anjuli is, but "Anjuli" tells one story, and Anjuli tells my story and my story and who I am as a person, is just as important as the version of me who will get on stage and shake a dollar out of you.

With the boom of AI and all the fakery it can create, the most valuable asset you have now is you, the real you, and your story. It is the thing that when people are scrolling past a sea of perfection and monotony, they'll see a person being themselves, sharing their real life and story, and they'll want to support that because we are a lonely, deprived society and we want that (unless you're a horny man.)

The people want reality! They crave it! And they need it because it's going away...

You don't have to share your trauma. Please don't use this as permission to rip open your chest and bare yourself raw (unless that feels right to you). But people do crave just normality again because it's fading. It's being erased. It's being pushed underground. It's being shamed. It's being told that it's wrong. It's being redacted. It's being bombed. It's being destroyed in a genocide. Everything.

The best thing you can do right now is show up. Really show up. In real life and/or online. With or without the wig.

I hope you have a great day,

signed both anjuli & "anjuli"