How Media Impacts The Lebanese Perception Of Beauty
What does female beauty mean to Lebanese women? What do they think about it? What are their expectations of it? What effect does this perception have?
Nowadays, and for the last ten years, female beauty has undergone a significant evolution by introducing a new trend of plastic surgeries to conform to the “new standards of beauty” set primarily by the graphic media and television by promoting a new generation of female singers, actresses, and models who have undergone numerous changes to meet the beauty standards set since 2000: breast implants, a nose job, cheek and lip fillers.
The impact of this desire to meet the beauty standards set by social media has been felt throughout the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon. Female audiences, in specific.
People have a definite fixation with beauty, good looks, and the image of perfection in today’s culture, which is mostly due to the widespread usage of social media platforms. If you see any “ugly” looking female on any TV show, in any movie, or in any magazine, she must be playing the character of the “bad girl” or the nerd. To the people, the constant influx of images of ideology and beauty promotes a preoccupation with unrealistic and unhealthy appearances. What’s worse, people who don’t meet the “ideal beauty” requirements are ignored.
“I look fat” “No you’re not fat, you’re pretty”. Najwa Hubaishy, fashionista on MBC beauty match says people always link her weight with whether she is beautiful or not and that does not make sense to her.
Why don’t I look like her?
Joelle Mardinian, the beautician, and entrepreneur of Clinic Joelle has created a huge platform on social media simply by enhancing the fashion and beauty sense in young women.
“I have been in the beauty industry for more than 10 years” “I have met a lot of beautiful girls with beautiful features showing me pictures of celebrities like Bella Hadid with unrealistic features, asking me for change”. “When such young ladies approach me, It makes me feel like we live in a world full of just looks” Joelle mentioned.
Since the 1990s, the exponential increase of plastic operations among women, particularly young women, has doubled in Lebanon. These sectors send subliminal messages to their audiences that if they are physically fit, they would be able to find a better paying job and have better-looking partners. It has been established that a beautiful vocalist can achieve greater renown than an “ugly” singer, even if the attractive singer’s voice is below average.
Beauty establishes criteria for comparison, and those who do not conform to the “beauty ideal” may face resentment in their communities, as is the case in today’s Lebanese society.
“Most of the times I feel pretty, but after scrolling through instagram for hours, I start comparing myself to other models” said Tina Hamze, an 18 year old Lebanese instagram influencer.
Hamze started posting on instagram and gaining followers, she currently has 12.8k followers now. She shares stories with her natural bare face without photoshopping her photos to set an example for her followers that flaws are normal and they are what make us human.
According to Arab News, the impact of this phenomenon on the new generation of men and women where change is a necessity even when it is not needed is enormous and is undergoing radical change.
Rand and Dina Hiyari, these 2 Jordanian beauties started posting regularly on youtube back in 2015 and had thousands of followers.
“Today with a lot of new influencers and models, it is so hard to keep up!”, “It is not impossible to get there and make an impact, but it feels like society is waiting for you to act and look a certain way then when you don’t, they look at you as if you’re an outsider” said Rand.
“Be your own natural self,” said Dina. “Let people love you for who you are and not for who they want you to be”.
Who’s to blame?
Social media is more than just a website that people visit when they’re bored; it’s a gateway to many new businesses, and with businesses come advertisements that contain such perfect & flawless images, particularly of models with perfect lives, which is basically the point of them because they’re meant to catch the attention of customers and people. However, such posts have gotten out of hand and are easily spread through the internet until they target audiences and all hopes are built on them, many people start comparing themselves to these fake images, waiting to achieve goals that are little do people know fake advertisements made by people who are exactly like everyone else.
The same goes to another hijabi influencer, Noor Yousef always loved fashion and dressing up. She started posting on instagram by the start of 2020 and by the end of the year she gained 6,000 new followers. However, this year a lot of competition was out there, girls with tiny waists and bikini pictures started going viral. Therefore influencers like Noor started losing followers.
It is said that “Beautiful girls” have perfect figures, while the “ideal” guy is wealthy, masculine, and owns a large mansion. It’s always a good idea to take breaks from social media because everything is now a trend. Pictures and posts do not define a person unless he or she allows them to.
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