A decade ago, if a girl bought a new dress, she would likely have flaunted it in the mirror, worn it to a party and received a few compliments from her friends. The key word in the phrase being “friends.”
Would she have climbed atop a podium and squealed “Look at me! Look at my new dress! Look, look!” into a microphone, to a crowd of hundreds of acquaintances?
I highly doubt it.
This brand of attention-seeking behaviour is restricted to the unfortunate group who are growing up in a world where the prevalence of social media has created a perpetual, overwhelming urge to receive positive feedback. No, our generation is not waving “Look what I’m up to,” signs in the faces of hundreds, but is updating a status to announce one’s presence at a party, posting a photo of a new haircut, or using hashtags such as “#TagForLikes” and “PleaseLike” for a vast audience of Facebook friends, Twitter and Instagram followers really any different?
I would be a hypocrite if I claimed that I do not use social media to inform friends of my whereabouts, post so-called “selfies,” or occasionally Instagram photos of my meals (only visually appealing ones, of course). Social media is an excellent way of keeping friends in the loop. However, one is venturing into dangerous territory when one’s happiness is defined by the number of the number of likes and comments received. It is my view this has become the philosophy of a vast number of young women who used social media in the present day. For the purposes of this article, I will call them, “Generation Likewhore.”
In spite of massive leaps in gender equality, women, especially young women, are still as apt as ever to be defined by their physical appearances. The advent of social media has served as a stage where this sad fact of society is exemplified.
Girls are competing with other girls for “likes” on their photos, even going so far as to delete photos that do not reach a satisfactory “like-threshold.” I am not inventing scenarios— I have witnessed this epidemic in action.
I frequently receive texts and private messages from girls which say “Like my photo, please” or “You forgot to comment on my profile picture!” At a party I attended last week, I witnessed a debate about the best hashtags to use on Instagram in order to increase one’s likes. I’ve even engaged in a good-natured discussion with a friend who revealed to me the tactics by which she maximized the likes and comments on her photos (creating facebook accounts for nonexistent people was one of them). She explained that switching between two profile pictures several times a day would ensure that one’s photo appeared frequently on others news feeds, which would, in turn, increase the number of comments and likes it attracted. At the time, amidst laughter, she watched me update my profile picture and promised she would coach me in the art of generating likes.
It was only later that I considered the serious societal flaw that this conversation reflected.
My philosophical wheels began to turn, and I wondered: Perhaps this social media-induced epidemic, grounded in a desire for positive reinforcement, is the reason why self-esteem is plummeting among North American girls.
I think my outlook on the nature of Generation Likewhore is best summed up in a quote from my favourite novel, Little Women. Amy March rebukes her friend, saying:
“You have grown abominably lazy, you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.”
Are the perceived “popular girls” on facebook, who receive 100 + likes, a victim of this desire to be “petted and admired” by the masses? Are they afflicted with a lack of self-esteem which leads them to seek pleasure in positive feedback from dozens of people with whom they are not necessarily friends?
Our worth should not be determined by the mindless clicking of people scrolling down their newsfeeds, nor by the number of variations of the word “gorgeous” below a photo of ourselves. Ladies: We are so much more than a series of compliments or a number.
Let us draw our confidence from, not the approval of others, but the goodness of our actions, the virtue of our intentions, and from that which lies in our minds and in our hearts.
– Maha Ansari
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