Don’t go changing to try and please me,
You never let me down before…
I’ll take you just the way you are…
-Billy Joel
Recently I saw a short video clip posted on Instagram showing a young adult woman with her natural face. She had no make-up on, her hair was down, she had beautiful radiant skin, clear of acne (if only that was me) and she was looking into a mirror. She was laughing, playing with her hair, being her playful self, but most important, looking confident. This was the beginning of the video – the next scene showed her browsing through her phone on a generic social media website. She was looking at pictures posted by other women with heavy make-up and their hair done which discouraged her a little bit.
Next she was shown to have changed her look according to those very pictures. She was happy again but this time that same beautiful, radiant, clear skin was now layered with concealer, foundation, amuse-bouche and whatever other paraphernalia used for make-up. She seemed happier with herself but still unsatisfied and for the next minute she was shown to be scrolling through the same website, through the same pictures of all these “perfect”, model-like women with big breasts, full, plump lips and obviously the “perfect” noses.
The video ends with her getting a nose-job, breast implants, and lip injections so that her physical appearance would match that of all these “ideal” women that were portrayed to be as the “IT” thing. Why is it so important for popularity and trends to be contingent with a person’s physical appearance? Why is physical appearance set to a certain standard by society? Why is that standard made to seem the zenith yet unattainable without extreme measures? Why is it deemed a matter of life and death if a person cannot accept another person for the way they were made naturally?
Check out the video on @karolinagriciute’s Instagram.
Social media plays such a vital role in our society today that it is imperative for us to not let it influence us into insanity. That video was completely and utterly appalling to me. In a society today where we are striving for equal rights for all sexes, removing stigma caused by sexual preference, encouraging acceptance, abolishing bullying based on physical appearance, trying to prevent eating disorders by denouncing size based discrimination, and an array of issues deep-seated with hate it is baffling to see that physical appearance still has a fixed code. What exactly are we gaining by pushing these values on the youth of today? What good does it do for the world in encouraging the over-sexualization of children? Yes, over-sexualization of children resulting from child-actors portraying this image of an adult ten times their age- both mental and physical –by wearing skimpy outfits, heavy make-up, high heels, using profane language, etc. Let children be children, and let teenagers be teenagers, and let adults be adults and simply let us all be.
Technology advances at an extremely fast rate, which then impacts the advances in social media. However these advances create new trends, and conventions and it seems that the age group to follow said trends and conventions keeps going lower. This is because more parents have started to introduce their children to technology, and thus social media from a very young age. According to a 2009 article published by CNN, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center showed that 38 percent of the respondents aged 12-14 said that they had an online profile of some sort. The year now is 2017, and not only have we managed to find a way of carrying our entire lives on a mini-screen in our pockets, but we have also managed to boss that screen around simply with our voices. In 2014, according to a Daily Mail article, the age at which kids began to use social media such as Facebook had gone down to 10 years old.
Human beings are a very impressionable species. We are very easily manipulated, and influenced by what we deem to be “shiny”, and “pretty”. We are after all a superficial species with deep roots in consumerism. It is after all a major driving force of the economy and social media more than anything impacts that economy along with advertisements. It is important for us to spread a better message to the younger generations because after all they are our future. Not less than ten years ago, my generation were the protegees being prepared to take over the world and mold a brighter, better future for our impending offspring. However, considering that we managed to elect a rotten moldy tangerine as our president our future is already pretty screwed up. Regardless lets leave the one thing that we have going for us and spread the importance of acceptance. Don’t discriminate based on skin, hair, clothes, sexual orientation, breast size, lip length, tattoo number, piercings in weird places, number of sexual partners, tons of make-up, no make-up etc. Let’s try and not spread this negative image of certain women being desirable as long as they reach these absurd ideals set by the image that social media has created and led us to believe as being perfection.
Remember ladies, and also gentlemen, you are all beautiful, and handsome… just the way you are!
Like @karolinagriciute says: