When scrolling through social media, I’ve recently come across multiple videos of people criticizing celebrities’ bodies or creating insane beauty standards or trends. Society has marked Gen-Z to be the generation of body positivity and uplifting others. But recently I’ve noticed that beauty standards have begun to look a lot different from what they were. The question it sparked for me was, “Is our culture of beauty and media backwards?”
The first thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve come across multiple articles or videos with the question, “Is Hollywood getting skinny?” This question started while people were following Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo throughout the “Wicked” press tour. People had noticed that they now appear a lot skinnier compared to the last movie. They’ve been getting called words such as, “sickly,” “fragile” and “skin and bones.” People have immediately made assumptions that they’re either sick or have an eating disorder, but even if these words are a way of expressing concern, it’s not really going to help.
Eating disorder therapist Matthew Frener shared an Instagram post expressing how we must understand the weight of our words. “Body shaming, even when framed as concern, is directly linked to the development and maintenance of eating disorders,” Frener said in his post. “Concern does not give us permission to publicly dissect another person’s body.”
Meaning that millions of people and the press, “expressing concern,” is obviously not going to fix the problem. This issue has been what got me thinking our society is regressing in what we find to be beautiful or the standard of beauty. Our media has begun to reflect the same toxic trends we saw occur in the ’90s-early 2000s.
Pop culture was definitely at its peak during the 2000s, with pop star rivals Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson’s halftime show malfunction and the premiere of the Kardashians; everything was iconic. Though pop culture was good during this time, it had a very hurtful undertone.
The press during the early 2000s was known for relentlessly harassing celebrities and plastering their worst pictures on the front of magazines; there was no holding back. And a lot of what they said all had to do with weight. “Britney’s Bigger Than Ever,” “Scary Skinny,” “Eating Disorder Confessions,” these are just a few of the sickening headlines that made magazines.
Along with the headlines was the blunt, vain commentary in TV shows and movies. One that sticks out so bluntly to me is in “Mean Girls“, when Cady, Damian and Janis decided to make Regina fat so that she would be ugly and nobody would like her. They could’ve literally been so much more creative with it, but their first thought was to go after her weight.
Another aspect that reflects the trends of the 2000s media is the rise of the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Ozempic has become very normalized in society as an immediate fix to one’s personal weight problems.
The even crazier part of this is that Ozempic is only approved to help lower blood sugar levels for adults with type 2 diabetes. People like this easy fix because the molecules in the drug go to your brain, telling it you’re full and slow digestion by increasing the time it takes to leave your body. For people without type 2 diabetes, Ozempic can cause stomach flu symptoms, stomach paralysis, kidney issues, blurred vision, and the list continues on.
The worldwide addiction to Ozempic has gotten so obscene that there is now a shortage for people with type 2 diabetes. The epidemic started with Hollywood celebrities and influencers sharing their stories with the drug, both good and bad.
When looking at the societal impacts of Ozempic, I’ve begun to realize how dehumanizing it is to our society. People see how one person looks and decide they want to look the same way. It’s completely killing the definition of “embracing uniqueness.” This is very similar to how society was in the 2000s, everyone was expected to be the same weight and stay up to date on the crazed beauty trends.
Along with this, it shows us just how used our society is to quick dopamine level fixes. An article written by the Stanford Medicine News Center says, “social connection has become druggified by social media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.”
Every like, every comment, every notification are all quick fixes to our need for socialization, much similar to the quick fix people receive from Ozempic.
Nonetheless, though there will always be toxicity in the media, it is becoming evident that our morals toward body positivity are slowly returning to their washed-out, destructive standards. So, instead of bringing back the harmful beauty standard of the 2000s, let’s stick to bringing back the fashion trends.