I was browsing my Facebook the other day and came across a short video that caught my eye. A girl posed in front of the camera with black dots all over her face, an extremely exaggerated unibrow, glasses, and even a blacked out tooth. She covered the camera and then, voila – this girl was transformed! Ladies and gents, I give you the #Don’tJudgeChallenge, also known as, one of the worst challenges to circulate the Internet in a while.
LE SIGH.
So, what’s this challenge all about? Well in a nutshell, it’s saying we shouldn’t judge people who don’t live up to society’s expectation of what beauty is. I’m totally down with the first part of the challenge, but it’s the second part of it gets really complicated. The challenge basically says, the reason we shouldn’t judge these people is because if you remove things like acne or facial hair, they are beautiful (well, they do live up to societal expectations of beauty).
If we break each and every one of these short videos down, people who already consider themselves beautiful/attractive first turn themselves into someone “ugly” by adding glasses, acne, a unibrow, blacking out teeth, and giving themselves double chins – things they consider to be unattractive.
Here’s my problem: by making themselves into caricatures of ugliness, the Don’t Judge Challenge just affirms the idea that whoever looks like that in real life is, in fact, ugly. Plus, it gives people a way to flaunt their beauty under the disguise of an actual cause. Making yourself look more attractive by mocking the way someone else might look isn’t cool, and it looks like these people just want attention.
Just because someone has acne or a unibrow doesn’t mean they’re ugly, and just because someone might look more attractive with make up on doesnt mean that they’re ugly without it on either. The whole point of this challenge should be about acceptance – and I feel the challenge itself just falls short of that.
Looking and feeling beautiful is something that shouldn’t involve bringing others down. I guess this challenge shows that what we really need to do instead of judge is to accept. Accept someone who looks beautiful with make up on, without make up on, acne, a double chin, whatever. And above all, don’t forget to accept yourself!
How about an #AcceptMeAsIAmChallenge instead?
Photo Sources:
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/dont-judge-just-love–3/
http://www.scoopnest.com/es/user/biobio/612956000304369664
http://hilight.kapook.com/view/123198
https://justjustine17.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/why-the-dont-judge-me-cha…