There is a pressure to be perfect all the time, and that has trickled down to the girls who are much younger. I think it really shows in what the internet has labeled at "sephora kids". these are kids, young girls typically, between the ages of 9 to 12, that are getting into skincare and make up that is objectively too old for them. A lot of times to the skin care has ingredients that is more harmful than it is helpful for their young skin. I think social media has driven a lot of people to have a obsession with having all of the same things that influencers or celebrities have and it is incredibly harmful. Additionally I believe we are starting to see that teenagers are starting to look older and older and I think that is because again people are so focused on presenting a perfect image and looking perfect. In the video link down below, the creator makes a really good point that teenagers are going through incredibly transformative years and changes. They are not supposed to look perfect or have everything together. I think that's a really important thing that a lot of teenagers on the Internet need to realize because having it all together is a myth in general but having it all together in high school will most likely never be accomplished. I think the creator of this video brings up a really good point in that teenagers are supposed to be a little ugly, a little awkward, and they most likely will have acne or quirks that are not portrayed in the influencers and social media and that is because they are a lot older and have matured. Overall, I think, a lot of influencers and celebrities overall incredibly harmful to teenagers and young kids. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYfVPaS7/

While this may be true, it is also important to acknowledge that the people who are doing the modeling also are at risk for eating disorders and other body image related mental health concerns. In an article called Eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, and body image pathology in female Australian models, they found that, "Ninety‐two models met referral criteria for an ED and 26 for non‐weight related BDD, compared to 53 (ED) and 2 (BDD) students. Models also reported greater body image disturbance, dysmorphic appearance concern, depression, stress, functional impairment, and ED symptoms, but equivalent degrees of anxiety, self‐esteem, and home‐based functional impairment."

I think this shows that even the people we see online who we deem "perfect" or "the beauty standard" are not immune from the grasp that social media and even traditional media have on body image and mental health. I think its important to understand that everyone is struggling with something, and that everyone deserves a little bit of grace. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/cp.12208#:~:text=Female%20models%20were%20more%20likely,between%20models%20and%20non%E2%80%90models.

this reminds me a lot of something that Taylor Swift mentioned in her documentary Miss Americana. She talks about how she would always see photos of herself online and pick herself apart. An article by Vanity Fair lays out the dialogue,

"After being pictured facing a phalanx of photographers after she emerges from her front door, Swift is heard in voiceover saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Although she says “it’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it,” Swift admits there have been times in the past when she’s seen “a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or… someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit — just stop eating.”

No one should be looking at themselves constantly. I think its kinda like how when you say a word over and over again, it starts to not sound like a word. I think the same goes for photos. The more you look at something the more you are going to notice about it and sometimes I don't think its a bad thing if a couple things go unnoticed. https://variety.com/2020/music/news/taylor-swift-eating-disorder-netflix-documentary-miss-americana-1203478047/

In order to truly understand the impact of social media, I think it is going to take many years. I am apart of the first generation that has truly grown up with social media so there should be continued research that extends into the future.

Sometimes I think that one may not feel bad about their own body, but wish they looked different. I think you can be okay existing in a body but wish that you looking slightly different for different situation. I think envy might play a role.

Kendall Jenner has somewhat recently been called out for photoshopping photos of herself on red carpets. The differences are shown in the video below, but either way, she edits the photos thats she herself posts on her instagram but the ones produced by the paparazzi show the real photo. i think this just proves that not matter how thin someone is, they will have insecurities that they are wanting to hide. But at what point do we, as a society realize that social media culture is toxic and do something about it. I am worried that that day may never come.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYfDtq8Q/

This goes back to the algorithm aspect of social media. Once you interact with one video or post about dieting or weight loss, it is not uncommon that that will soon take over your feed. There are so many different diets and fads that are posted all over the Internet, claiming to be the best one for you But often times they don’t work. What they do tend to do is create a relationship with disorder eating and could even spiral into an eating disorder. And an article entitled “does TikTok contribute to eating disorders? A comparison of the TikTok album or them belonging to individuals with eating disorders versus healthy controls.” it was found that,

"Algorithms for users with eating disorders (EDs) delivered 4343 % more toxic ED videos. ED users' algorithms delivered 335 % more dieting videos, 142 % more exercise videos."

I find this very interesting because eating disorders are not as uncommon as people may think.

I think this is really telling to the idea of "fat-phobia" that has been ingrained into society and our beliefs. I feel like we are so worried about not being considered fat, that is we see someone who may be larger than ourselves, we think "well at least I don't look like that"

I think the influx of people who are considered plus size creators are doing a lot to try and change the narrative behind this. They are spreading what it means to be 'body neutral' and show that it is okay to exist in the body that you are in no matter the size.

Body image is something that a lot of people struggle with, i had my fair share of struggles in middle and high school, and it is important to understand the impact the social media does have. According to and article published by Johns Hopkins says that "Teens’ minds and bodies undergo many changes very quickly. Along the way, teens are developing their sense of self-identity and how they see themselves in the world." because bodies at that age can change so quickly, it is not surprising that social media has an impact. i assume they don't have time to come to terms with the changes the body is making them start comparing themselves to other people.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/body-image-in-teens

Social media is an all consuming beast for a lot of people, and although sometimes there is good community present, there can also be bad community. The digital keywords book helps explain online community.

"Lawrence Lessig has noted: “Cyberspace is a place. People live there. They experience all the sorts of things that they experience in real space, there. For some, they experience more. They experience this not as isolated individuals, playing some high tech computer game; they experience it in groups, in communities, among strangers, among people they come to know, and sometimes like.”22

While his words can be more directly related to gaming, I think it is also important to consider community amongst the social media world. it is not uncommon that influencers consider their fans to be apart of their own community. I think idolizing someone as a community, while it is a common interest, may not have the best impact on the person at the top. I feel like if i was getting all of my photos and actions picked apart constantly, I would spiral into a very dark place.

this reminds me of a trend that is going around the internet recently where people show just how easy it is to slightly photoshop photos to make themselves to make just enough to fit the beauty standard just a little more. I think this shows how despreate people are for other people approval. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYfkJGcb/

This isn't isolated to normal women either, many celebrity women and men have talked about how they see photos of themselves online and pick themselves apart. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYfhTkwy/

This is an instance of that no matter what you do there is not way to go about something the right way. If this star had stayed on social media, which might have been deeply impacting her body image or mental health, she could have been doing more harm to herself. But if she leaves the platforms her fan accuse her of doing it for attention or trying to get more fame. There isn't a way for social media stars to "win". Its a damned if you damned if you dont.

Social media relies on algorithms to run because there is no way that a human can do that job. In the digital key words book, in the algorithm section it explains,

"What we are really concerned with when we invoke the “algorithmic” here is not algorithms per se, but the insertion of procedure into human knowledge and social experience. What makes something algorithmic is that it is produced by or related to an information system committed (both functionally and ideologically) to the computational generation of knowledge or decisions. This requires the formalization of social facts into measurable data, and the “clarification” (Cheney-Lippold 2011) of social phenomena into computational models that operationalize both problem and solution. These often stand in as proxies for human judgment or action, meant to simulate it as nearly as possible. But the “algorithmic” intervenes in terms of step-by-step procedures that one (computer or human) can enact on this formalized information such that it can be computed. This process is automated so that it can happen instantly, repetitively, and across many contexts, away from the guiding hand of its implementers."

Here it explains how it stands in as human decisions making sometimes and I feel as though this has a lot of to do with peoples algorithms being hyper targeted to one thing they like.

the idea of something being ingrained into someones life almost feels like it has been carved into someone and made a part of them forever.

Just like a lot of photos go unposted, a lot of experiences do too. Some people strive to have complete transparency on their socials. One thing that comes to mind is when influencer Remi Bader went on a brand trip and was humiliated by a company because they told her she was too big to ride a horse, and while that may not have been an issue at the beginning, she posted about her experience and how she was struggling with her body image and self worth and how this experience made it worse. She posted about how she was feeling and the ranch owners son went on to post about how they don't let "fat bitches" ride horses and she was then torn apart on the internet. This happened a few years ago and she is still asked about it today. I think this just goes to show that no one is immune to prejudice and bullying on the internet.

https://www.tiktok.com/@bffspod/video/7132976263303679274?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7408628116136871467

I’ve worked really hard over the past two years to shift a lot of the people who I follow from people like the Kardashians or incredibly famous people who have access to a lot of plastic surgery or things that make them unrealistic. I’ve worked really hard to change my algorithm to be filled with people who look a little bit more like me and have “normal bodies”. Well, I think a lot of these people still face a lot of insecurities, there’s almost a sense of camaraderie that I feel in seeing people who look like me have a platform.

I think the culture of social media and traditional media has pinned eating disorders and body image issues on women. Well, they may hold a majority of the space in this conversation, there still needs to be space for men as well. These types of mental health issues aren’t exclusively for one gender or another. They affect every single person in a different way. I think a lot of stigma and issues for men’s stem around jim culture and jim bro culture. There’s a lot of pressure to have the physique that is muscled and incredibly fit and can often be incredibly toxic.

I find these videos to often be very problematic. A lot of the times I feel as though it promotes unhealthy expectations of what eating might look like for someone. Additionally, they also come along with what some people would call body checking. This often means people are showing off what their body looks like or how flat their abs are. A lot of the times these videos seem incredibly unrealistic and unbalanced.

The "beauty standard" is something that effects everyone, wether they realize it or not. Constant exposure to edited and idealized images can lead individuals to develop unrealistic expectations about their appearance, resulting in dissatisfaction and distorted self-perception.