Society tries to force us into narrow boxes where our personalities have almost no room to exist. We have to shrink into a predefined mold to avoid being labeled a "weird" or being ridiculed. However, in trying too hard to blend in, we end up destroying what defines us and what makes us unique. A sad reality that content creator Liv Nevill (@livnevill) managed to illustrate through a visual metaphor that was as powerful as it was brutal.
A stark image of the expression "to fit into boxes"
Throughout our lives, we've always learned to "follow the crowd." It started in the schoolyard, the ultimate test of how others perceived us. Instead of choosing clothes freely, we selected them based on their popularity and to conform to the group dynamic. We sported the side-swept fringe when it was all the rage, even though we knew it wasn't the most flattering hairstyle. We succumbed to the emo-goth trend, even though our true nature was more romantic-kawaii. Because if we deviated from this collective uniformity, we risked becoming a scapegoat, an easy target.
Sometimes, a single, ridiculous detail was enough to suffer the same fate as the ugly duckling: a festering pimple in the wrong place, braces, jeans devoid of logos, or a bag deemed too "childish" by a merciless horde of pre-pubescent teenagers. So we became accustomed to suppressing our tastes, our desires, our opinions, until our entire identity disappeared beneath a veneer of appearances.
Conforming was almost a means of survival. Yet, while we felt "protected" by adhering to these unspoken but unwritten rules, it ultimately destroyed us. Content creator Liv Nevill (@livnevill) captured this self-sabotage in a short, highly explicit video. She attempts to fit a round plate into a tall glass. You don't need to be a geometry expert to know it's impossible. So, to achieve this, she throws the plate on the floor, shattering it into tiny pieces. This way, the plate fits inside the glass, and it's about much more than just using tableware.
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"Stop breaking yourself": the underlying preventative message
This video isn't a math puzzle, nor is it some kind of brain teaser involving the contents of the kitchen cupboard. It's the embodiment of a bad habit we've all adopted at some point in our lives. Who hasn't ever given up on wearing an outfit simply for fear of the consequences? Who hasn't ever lied about their musical tastes or their favorite song, choosing instead a more "acceptable" and universally liked track?
This is what content creator Liv Nevill (@livnevill) is trying to convey, armed with her compassion. With this vivid metaphor, she aims to spark awareness. "What happens when you try to shrink yourself to fit in?" she captions the photo, emphasizing the consequences of such a "boxing."
As she also says, in trying too hard to conform to a societal ideal , "we separate ourselves from and neglect parts of ourselves in the process." The slivers of food are the personification of our identity, reduced to nothing, fractured, damaged. These boxes are actually cages, imprisoning everything that makes us who we are. Except we don't want to be like a Barbie doll locked in her plastic case.
An invitation to reconcile with oneself
This metaphor is so striking because it highlights a silent violence that we often trivialize: the need to constantly change ourselves to earn our place. We're not talking about a simple change of style or a desire to evolve, but about those small, repeated compromises that ultimately distance us from who we truly are.
In our quest for validation, acceptance, or simply to be left alone, we sometimes learn to suppress certain parts of ourselves. A passion deemed strange, a personality considered too exuberant, a sensitivity deemed excessive, a way of dressing that deviates from the norm… Anything that stands out becomes suspect. So, rather than risk being criticized, we sometimes choose to disappear.
For a long time, we were taught that being different was an obstacle. Yet, it is precisely these imperfections that create our charm, our memories, our encounters, and our unique way of seeing the world. What we have sometimes tried to hide is often what makes us the most memorable.
The pieces of the broken plate in Liv Nevill's (@livnevill) video can then be seen as another image: that of the fragments of oneself that one can one day recover. Nothing obliges us to remain trapped in the mold we tried to fit into. We can put the pieces back together, rediscover forgotten desires, reconnect with tastes we had abandoned, and learn to look at ourselves with more kindness.
