HELLO! I'M HAILEY
AND THIS IS MY WRITING PORTFOLIO
SOCIAL MEDIA
&
BODY IMAGE
One of the biggest issues that has been seen circulating our media today is the problem with body issue, specifically, negative body image. While this has always been a resonating problem in our society, in recent years it has become much more prominent especially due to the rise in use of social media. Social media and body image definitely come hand in hand and has a big influence on how negative and positive body image affects one another. Our “selfie culture” has a big influence on body image in both negative and positive ways and the problems that stem from body image issues correlate mainly to social and cultural media. In this research I’m going to be discussing a couple topics regarding negative and positive body image and their causes and affects concerning social media, cultural media, celebrities, and advertisement.
POSITIVE
BODY IMAGE
V.S.
NEGATIVE BODY IMAGE
LETS TALK ABOUT NEGATIVE BODY IMAGE:
In today’s society everything revolves around what people look like. What celebrities look like, what magazines tell you to look like, who in media we are told we are supposed to look like, etc. We have made what we look like define our value. Especially when it comes to social media. Social media isn’t about connecting with others anymore like it was way back when only Facebook and MySpace were ruling the social media world. Now, it’s about how you present yourself and what sort of image you are presenting to other people. How many Twitter followers you have, how many likes you get on Instagram, or how well you’ve edited your Facebook photos is how our success is defined. How we look or how other people view us defines our self worth. A study in 2000 looked at the media’s influence on young boys and girls and found that, “…data suggest that girls who perceive themselves as living up to the cultural ideal tend to feel better about themselves, with the converse also being true,” (Polce-Lynch, Meyers, Kliewer, Kilmartin, "Adolescent Self-Esteem and Gender: Exploring Relations to Sexual Harassment, Body Image, Media Influence, and Emotional Expression”). We use how many likes we have on our Instagram posts to determine how we feel about ourselves. This “selfie culture” has begun to distort our perception of others and ourselves. An article on BBC warns readers of the danger of our “selfie culture.” It links the amount of time spent on social media websites to increased negative body image and the creation of unrealistic images (Briggs, “‘Selfie’ body image warning issued”). This obsession of self fuels these unrealistic images then influence women to begin changing their physical appearance to measure up to these standards. What a lot of people don’t understand is that even if someone posts a “really good” picture, it’s been altered, filtered, edited, and probably took about twenty attempts to get just right. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is putting their best foot forward on these social media websites which is what a lot of people forget about. It’s all been altered, distorted, and contributes to the unrealistic and “presented perfection.” Not only is this sort of image altering a problem in social media but also with celebrities and photoshopping on the cover of magazines and in advertisements. A study of North Americana and Australian young women in 2007 tested to see how magazine covers with perfected images affected the body image of women. “Participants who viewed advertisements featuring a thin-idealized woman reported greater state self-objectification, weight-related appearance anxiety, negative mood, and body dissatisfaction than participants who viewed product control advertisements,” (Harper, Tiggemann, "The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on Women's Self-Objectification,”). It even led to anxiety, depression, restrained eating, and body dissatisfaction in the women.
This is a problem. As a result of our image-driven society we have had many more increased problems when it comes to the alterations of physical appearance. These outcomes contribute even more to the distortion of “how we should look.” There are serious health risks when it comes to eating disorders and plastic surgery. An article on USA Today discusses the internet’s influence on eating disorders and how social media sites are too “image driven.” People use websites like Tumblr to support “‘Pro-ana’ (pro-anorexia) and ‘Pro-mia’ (pro-bulimia)” (Rojas, “Social Media Helps Fuel Some Eating Disorders”). I did my own search on Tumblr by searching “Thinspiration” and images of girls with their hip bones and ribs protruding were praised and had comments written under them like “goals” with a crying emoji and “she is perfection” with hashtags like “#ana” and “#perfect.” These sort of things contribute even more to our obsession with body image and distortions of it as it is slowly destroying the confidence of women all over the world.
SCREEN-SHOTS
FROM TUMBLR SEARCH:
Illegal, unlicensed practices are also going on as women are getting botched butt injections to look like Kim Kardashian or using bruising “lip enhancers” to look like Kylie Jenner (Moyer, "Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge: The Dangers of ‘plumping That Pout’”). People are obsessed and want to look exactly like these famous people seen in media. Celebrity influence is perhaps the biggest contributors to negative body image and their prominence in cultural media and social media. Celebrities use social media just as much as anyone else but they hold much bigger followings that contribute to the “selfie culture.” Not only are they in the spotlight in media, but also online where everyone can see it, follows it, flocks to it and obsesses over it. As a celebrity culture, people obsess over and are infatuated with how celebrities look. Negative body image isn’t just a problem in a single person, but it’s the result of what women see and are influenced by and told to be by cultural and social media.
NOW LETS TALK ABOUT POSITIVE BODY IMAGE:
While negative body image is extremely prominent, there is also a lot of positive body image influences. Our society is slowly improving on this big issue in many ways. There have been campaigns and movements to promote a positive body image for women. Brands like Aerie and Dove are examples of companies trying to promote a more body positive view. Aerie’s Unretouched ads promote “real women” in their clothing and lingerie rather than using photoshopping for their models (Krupnick, “Aerie’s Unretouched Ads ‘Challenge Supermodel Standards’ For Young Women”). Dove’s Movement for Self Esteem is instilling good examples for body confidence in women and young girls in particular so they can grow up with a positive view of themselves ("Dove Movement for Self Esteem: A New Vision”).
In addition to the negative examples set by many celebrities, there are also celebrities that preach body confidence for a more positive view. They also preach the danger of the idolization of celebrities in media and how they just continue to contribute to the problem with body image in today’s society. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is by Tina Fey in her book Bossy Pants where she says,
“I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large- scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits.” (Dadds, "Tina Fey's Quotes On Kim Kardashian Really Are Breaking The Internet”)
A lot of celebrities like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are now encouraging women to think positively about themselves and not use social media and one another to discourage themselves about the way they look in order to contrast the many negative body image influences in our media today. Another example is in 2013 Jennifer Lawrence said in an interview with Barbra Walters, “I think when it comes to the media, the media needs to take responsibility for the effect that it has on our younger generation, on these girls that are watching these television shows and picking up how to talk and how to be cool,” (Sieczkowski, "Jennifer Lawrence: 'It Should Be Illegal To Call Somebody Fat’”). She makes a really effective point here when she talks about the responsibility the media needs to claim. The media needs to realize how much of an influence it has on body image and work towards a more positive movement. We are working towards that way, like on Instagram there is the “#20beautifulwomen” challenge in which women post a picture of themselves and tag their friends to promote positive body image, (Joseph, "#20beautifulwomen Takes over Social Media”). Things like this will help improve body confidence in women.
CONCLUSION:
Body image, while there are many positive and negative influences, still remains a huge issue in our society today. I think that what it comes down to is simply the media. It has such a great affect on the way women view themselves, the way they view other women, and the way they interpret body image. People who use social media in particular need to realize the negative affect that social media has on body image, myself included. We need to take a step back and look at what we’re doing, what other people are doing, and while these issues will always be around, not let them affect their view of themselves in harmful ways. Body image shouldn’t be this big of a problem. It should not be a cause of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and eating disorders like it currently is. The only way this problem will cease to exist is when the media takes control and responsibly for the power it has. People also need to realize the power it has over them and not let it affect them in such a strong and affective way. While I don’t know if that day will ever come that the issues surrounding body image are resolved, the best way to try and stop this is educating people and the media on the dangers of body image and social and cultural media.