Self-love is everywhere. It’s in Instagram captions, therapy memes and TikToks featuring iced matcha lattes and voiceovers that whisper, “Romanticize your life.”  But for many young people, loving yourself isn’t a constant — it’s a question. Some days it’s loud and confident. Other days it’s shaky, awkward and half-believed. For the younger generations who have grown up with social media at their fingertips, it can be difficult to adopt the self-love mantra while also trying not to compare themselves to the millions of people posting. Self-love often exists in the in-between.   The Pressure to Love Yourself (All the Time)  Social media has made self-love look easy. It’s candles, skincare and…

Somewhere along the way, self-expression has become a shopping list.  What used to be just style — or personality, or even boredom — has turned into an aesthetic economy. The clean girl. The coquette girl. The “in my healing era” girl. For every identity, there’s a colour palette. For every mood, a curated cart. Suddenly, buying things isn’t just a part of daily life — it’s how people build a sense of self.  And the internet is making it easy. Too easy.  Between TikTok storefronts, Amazon hauls and “hot girl starter packs,” it’s normal now to scroll from one video to the next, barely realizing that every swipe comes with…