I don't know if this even counts as a confession, really. More like... am I the only one who feels this way? I went to art school, majored in fashion design, which sounds so glamorous, I guess. But it’s not. It’s a lot of sketching and sewing and late nights and then you graduate and realize you’re supposed to magically *make it* with, like, no money and absolutely no connections. So I started an Instagram. Just to put my work out there, you know? To show off my aesthetic, my eye. And then I started seeing all these other accounts, these influencers, just... wearing incredibly expensive clothes and getting thousands of likes. And I just wanted to be seen. I wanted my work to be seen, and it felt like the only way to do that was to be *part* of that world. Even if I couldn't actually afford it. So I started... doing things. I’d go to these high-end boutiques, try on clothes, take a few quick photos in the dressing room mirror, or even brave it out near the window for better light if I thought I could get away with it. Then I got a little bolder. I'd buy something, take it home, do a whole styled shoot – hair, makeup, accessories, the whole nine yards – get like, five different angles, make sure the lighting was perfect. And then, the next day, it would go right back to the store. Tags still on, perfectly folded. Because I couldn't afford a single one of those pieces. I still can't. I've got almost 50k followers now. Fifty THOUSAND people who think I’m some kind of fashion darling, that I live this incredibly chic life, that I have access to all these designers. And I don’t. Not really. I have maybe three nice pieces of my own. Everything else is... borrowed. And I hate it. I hate myself for it. Every time I hit "post," there's this pit in my stomach, this sick feeling that someone's going to find out. Or maybe that I’m just a total fraud. I wanted to create beautiful things, to contribute something real, and instead I’m just... lying. For likes. For followers who probably don't even care about my actual designs, just the clothes I’m wearing that I don't even own. I don’t know. Am I totally rotten? Is this just what you have to do to get noticed these days? I feel so… angry. At myself, at the industry, at how impossibly hard it is to just *be* an artist without all this other B.S. I just wanted to make art. And now I’m just a glorified mannequin, a thief, really. I don't know what to do.