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Nature is blooming on social media, but not in the wild
TIWN
TIWN
PHOTO : TIWN
New Delhi, May 12 (TIWN): It’s bluebell season and the dandelions are full. The woods near my house are dense with the last wild garlic. Tulips in the garden are blousy and drunken, and nature is everywhere. I’ve long identified as someone who casually spurned nature, agreeing it was too green and badly lit, but this year something appears to have shifted. Now I spend evenings coaxing strawberries to grow and weekends at garden centres the size of new towns, nodding knowingly at strangers over their hopeful magnolias.
A stroll on Sunday through the woods is mirrored by a scroll through social media, where blossom and the greenness of plant life is as ubiquitous as a fancy latte, and signifies similar – moments treasured, a spiritual glee, a display of healthful joy. In a recent Atlantic piece about influencers, they explain that the Instagram aesthetic of pink sofas and artful avocado toast has quietly gone out of fashion, to be replaced by more “authentic” feeds – private moments, stories about mental health. So it makes sense that green spaces (as opposed to staged sets) are accruing likes online as spring births summer and bluebell woods stand strong under trampling picnickers. Green spaces, of course, are proven to boost mental health. “Having access to green spaces can reduce health inequalities,” says the World Health Organisation, “improve wellbeing, and aid in treatment of mental illness.”
And yet access is often restricted: children in the most deprived areas of Britain are nine times less likely to have green areas to play in. This season’s pictures of trees in the wild, it could be argued, are as accurate a visual representation of privilege today as an influencer’s winter tan. Like green juices and no-makeup selfies, they have become status symbols for people keen to show their depth. Unlike an expensive handbag, which anybody can save up for, the nature selfie requires things beyond cash, too – time and travel, a sly superior spirituality.
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