An article was published on September 8th, 2016 titled “20 Of The Hottest UBC Girls On Instagram This Week” via NarCity written by Laurie Bergeron. After I finished reading the entire post, I was confused as to what it was trying to accomplish. All the women featured are beautiful human beings, that’s a fact! But was this supposed to be a kind of praise to these women? Was it supposed to act as a compliment to these women? I’m not sure how this post made you feel, but I definitely felt some strong mixed emotions that I’m not certain I can describe using one word.
Screenshot from NarCity
A questions came up in my head asking me why it was necessary to select 20 people out of approximately 60,000 human beings whom are each unique and wonderfully beautiful in 60,000 different ways?
Every individual is complex. Someone’s brain, heart, experiences, and values are all a part of who they are. The complexness and uniqueness is what makes us all beautiful. We all have the same rough frame but the picture within that frame is one in a billion. Humans are complex, intricate, and beautiful creatures. However, by focusing on someone’s “hotness,” we ignore the complexity of their character. After thinking about the article for a while, I realized that this is what was bothering me. The idea that physical hotness is the only subject worth mentioning. The article did not mention anything else about these 20 women. There was no mention of their major, their interests, their passions, it was all just about ‘hotness’. But here’s the thing, we are so much more than a place on someone else’s scale of hotness.
Source (including thumbnail artwork)
The second issue was that it seemed like it was almost intentionally excluding a large group of people whom I have a place within. It made invisible the large number of people that are wonderful as well. It’s almost as if the article is working to shame those who were not somehow “good enough” to make this person’s ‘personal preference’ list. I say “good enough” because no one should ever feel the need to be, act, or look a certain way to please someone else. No one should ever feel that they aren’t good enough for someone else!
We are all beautiful, all 60,000 of us at UBC. We are all crazy intelligent in our very own ways. We are all made of love. We are all full of life. There is no way to list us according to our level of hotness. We are meant to fall in love with everyone and everything around us. We are not objects for you to line up in an order you desire. We are complex. We are confidence. We are beauty. And we are so much more than that article made us out to be.
Note: NarCity has since taken down the article.