PRINCETON, NJ—Behavioral psychology researchers have announced an exciting new discovery in the area of self-esteem and wellness. In a nation-wide study conducted at Princeton University—the gayest Ivy—researchers have discovered that gay men are ostensibly capable having self-esteem within the 10 seconds between waking up and opening Instagram.
Describing the results of her study, Dr. Lynn Geoffries explained, “Kindness for oneself and others—which we associate with individuals who have self-esteem—isn’t something we’ve historically seen among gay men.”
Results from the study indicate that during the first ten seconds of conciousness, gay men reported feelings of both self-worth and compassion at levels that were consitent with well adjusted people. However, all this seems to go out the window as soon as they see another gay man in a tank top with facetune and excessive color correction.
According to Dr. Geffories, “Not only was there a loss of self-worth, we consistently saw spikes in cortisol, a hormone linked to stress, as soon gay men see photos of a same sex couple’s Mykonos vacation.” While these findings offer insight regarding gay men’s capacity for self-esteem, further investigation is needed to better understand the causal patterns connecting opening Instagram and lost self-esteem. Dr. Geoffries postulates that seeing fitness instructors in Andrew Christian sponsored posts about wellness could be the key to unlocking this cognitive behavioral conundrum.
However, non-influencer content on the platform also caused spikes in stress levels. When asked about the effects of viewing memes by gay men referring to each other as a Dumb Ho, Sloppy Pig or Stupid Bottom, a participant in the study said, “Instagram makes everything look so glamorous, but it makes me really anxious when I think I’m not being the right kind of bottom to also look glamorous.”
Dr. Geoffries plans to continue studying the effects of positive emotions on gay men. “These results are an important first step,” said Dr. Geoffries. “If gay men are capable of feeling good about themselves for longer than the 10 seconds between opening their eyes and opening Instagram, they might also be capable of higher-level phenomena such as compassion and building community. It would be really groundbreaking!”
As of press time, researchers were also looking into gay men’s ability maintain their grasp on reality in the critical 5 seconds between closing Instagram and moving to Twitter.
