Social Media pushes us to be insecure idiots
With all the drama over Disney Princesses recently, it inspired me to write about female empowerment. No, I’m not a raging feminist but I’m a woman who has definitely suffered from the confinement of her own insecure thoughts. As a woman, we know that a prince is not going to sweep us off our feet just for looking pretty. So, why do we present ourselves as such fake social media idiots? On Instagram we are seen posing next to our salads and gym equipment when, in reality, we are in our pyjamas watching reruns of Friends. Any person that believes that we are not wearing any makeup in a photo that is captioned “Woke up like this” must be quite gullible!
I’m pretty sure that each woman has at least one insecurity; we feel trapped by our lack of confidence and we upset ourselves over the smallest of things. We paint a pretty picture on social media- only to be criticised somehow. Or what’s worse is when people, who we hardly know, comment on our looks with fake remarks. For example “Omg hun you’re so gorgeous! I would die for your hair.” which is replied with “Coming from you! You’re a stunner! You can have my hair babe haha” (evidence taken from Facebook comments on a friend’s profile picture from 2014, the girls will remain unnamed). A study by Anita Pomerantz (p.10, 1978) looks at the idea that women are likely to avoid self-praise. We often give in to criticising ourselves so that others will give us more compliments. We tell the other girl that she is more beautiful when, in fact, we are adding more bricks to the wall of self-doubt. It’s difficult not to think of our flaws when we compare ourselves to someone else who has it better. The grass is always greener and there’s always someone prettier. We focus on our defects and tell ourselves that we’re not right. This is all just because we posted a photo on social media.
In the past, I found myself thinking that I am less attractive than the girls at my school just because I have a smaller breasts. I would scroll past the various pictures and acknowledge that the word cleavage would never enter my vocabulary. Even now I am still told that big boobs are a hassle and it’s so nice that I can wear backless dresses. But that didn’t stop me from googling solutions to a flat chest when I was fifteen. Often I would Facebook stalk other girls (we’ve all done it). I would wonder why they have two hundred likes on their profile picture and mine hadn’t even reached double digits.
We joke about how our messages are read by boys and not replied to, but if we look closely the opposite gender (as well as other sexualities) it seems to have quite an effect. When we receive a compliment from someone we are attracted to, it builds our confidence- we feel more pretty. I remember having a conversation over Facebook messages with my crush in year nine. It led to him telling me about a girl he had been talking to at school, he said he had started to like her. Without thinking, I messaged “it’s because she’s got bigger boobs isn’t it?” as tears began to well up in my eyes.
It’s quite upsetting that many girls feel that they are not good enough. In a study carried out in America, it was shown that 31% of girls deleted their post if it did not get enough ‘likes’. On a personal level, if we feel as if we are not ‘liked’ it can often push us down even further. In some cases it can lead to mental illness and suffering. The NHS found that there was an increase of hospital admissions by 68% because of self-harm amongst girls under the age of seventeen (The Guardian, 2017). This was in the past ten years of social media.
On the flip side, as a society, we seem to be stepping in the right direction. Disney films are less about the characters finding true love and more about finding themselves. Female celebrities are starting to focus less on appearances and more about empowering others. We hear encouraging songs such as Little Mix’s ‘Wings’ (from 2012) where it mentions “don’t let what they say keep you up at night”. Two friends of mine have crafted an emotive and vulnerable song entitled ‘No Striving’. They attribute it to anyone who is struggling with self-acceptance. They include the phrase “another woman’s beauty doesn’t take away from mine” which emphasises the uplifting power that we can give ourselves if we just believe that we are enough. In doing this they are amongst others, myself included, that believe in a God called Jesus Christ who loves us unconditionally. Part of the caption of their video expresses “We believe our identity and worth is found in Christ.” which speaks through their lyrics. The song itself adds that there is “no striving in your love” which speaks about this endless affection. This song has truly stuck with me as it speaks such inspiring wisdom.
Over time, at first it may be difficult, we can start to be confident in ourselves. It may be hard to post a #nomakeupselfie on Instagram without actually having any makeup on. It may be tough not to bow to the pressure of insulting ourselves each time we get a compliment. But why don’t we post a photo of our mismatching pyjamas and our tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that we have just demolished after a long day? It’s cheesy I know but we’re not all perfect. Disney’s Princess Cinderella walked on glass and Princess Jasmine married a common thief. If we try, we can grow to be a princess of society and not a fake social media idiot.
References
Pomerantz, Anita. https://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=10738 . 1978.
Self-harm fact: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/23/stress-anxiety-fuel-mental-health-crisis-girls-young-women
Fact about girls deleting their posts: https://www.scarymommy.com/study-teenage-girls-social-media-bullying/ We Need To Talk About What Social Media Is Doing To Young Girls Cassandra Stone. Oct 6, 2017
Little Mix. Wings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOQDsmEqVt8 25 Jul 2012.
Jones, Maddie. Croucher, Charlotte. No Striving. https://www.facebook.com/madi.jones.1848/posts/2059358957609086
Cinderella from Disney’s ‘Cinderella’. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson. 4 March, 1950.
Jasmine from Disney’s ‘Aladdin’. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. 25 November, 1992.
