If your birthday happened to fall within the academic calendar, it was probably one of the most exciting days of the school year. Every lesson was an opportunity to remind someone that the class was celebrating your day of birth. If your mates were worth their salt you’d have been kitted out with a garish sash (and a tiara if you were lucky), and your mum will have dropped you off with some cupcakes (or a box of celebrations if you weren’t so lucky) to share with your tutor group at registration.
Those were the days. But now that we’re adults and the internet outweighs real life, it’s a little less sincere bday fun times and more faux social media well wishes from ‘friends’ you’re not all that friendly with. The birthday brag is not what it used to be.
ICYMI, model Gigi Hadid turned 22 over the weekend. And if we just sidestep that feeling of jealousy induced resentment you get in the pit of your stomach at every reminder of how young these beautiful, rich and famous people are, you were probably already aware that Gigi Hadid’s birthday on 23 April. Because, social media.
There’s a whole lot of obligation that comes with ‘celebrating’ someone’s birthday online. Because if you don’t post anything in public acknowledgement do you even care about that person’s existence, you awful friend? Spoiler: you do, obvs. But we all know it doesn't always feel or reflect that way as soon as Instagram is brought into the picture.
In Gigi’s case, it’s a bit different, of course. You know, what with being one of the most followed and photographed models of generation 'gram. So obviously, there wasn’t a chance in hell of not knowing that it was her special day. But to be fair, unless my Instagram stalking skills deceive me, of Gigi’s equally famous pals, there weren’t all that many of those weird ‘happy birthday bbz, here’s a picture of me and you from forever ago where I look really good and you look a bit shit but I just wanted an excuse to post something online today’ pictures. Figures.
The heartfelt family tribute
Momma Hadid, of course, shared a beautiful black and white picture of baby Gigi with a loving message to wish her darling daughter the best in life and so on. Pretty standard and totally acceptable because it’s the sort of thing that all mums like to do on social media. Bar the fact that Gigi’s mum’s post was double tapped more than 73 thousand times and anything your mum posts about you on Facebook only gets the occasional like from aunty Linda, we’re totally on board.
The demonstration of a new social media feature (aka the ‘it’s about you, but it’s about me too’)
Sister Bella, on the other hand, went for the Instagram slideshow which is pretty much the updated version of that stressful period of time when everyone suddenly worked out how to make photo collages with the Layout app and turned every ‘Happy Birthday’ into a montage of our friends lives. And when I say lives I mean the bits of it we were involved in.
The ‘wish I was there’
Then you’ve got the ‘sorry I’m not with you for your special day so here’s a picture of this one time I was with you’ post, as opted for by model pal Lily Aldridge. Now, this is a situation that we’re all oh, so familiar with and probably guilty of too. It’s the one you look at and think ‘mate, you could’ve just given her a call or something’. It’s the one that makes me wonder how much the social media birthday is actually about the person whose day of birth it is, or about the social media post-er.
That said, Gigi did of course courteously like the post and Lily probably sent her a mahoosive bouquet of the most beautiful flowers on the planet and was super gutted to miss out on her friend's special day. But still, whenever I see this sort of thing happen between my own friends it normally means that one of them forgot to wish the other happy birthday so is posting a picture out of guilt/to make it look like they made an effort. That then will make me feel guilty for not succumbing to the pressure of reminding my other friends that I am indeed friends with this person who is having a birthday today.
The smug couple one
Okay, I’ll admit to doing that basic thing of being irrationally pissed off at past baes for not having acknowledged on any social platform that it was my birthday. That said though, it's yet another annoying way that we all feel the need to behave on social media to prove how much fun we're having with our loved ones.
Zayn is excused, of course. Because there's very little I wouldn't do for Zayn to post a mushy gushy picture to tell the world how much he loves me (swoon). But, can you imagine the uproar and suspicion if he *hadn't *have publically reminded the world that yes, he does love Gigi Hadid, yes, they are together and yes, he was indeed with her on her birthday? Oh, the drama.
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Follow Jazmin on Instagram @JazKopotsha
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.