In(sta)securities: Social Media’s Role on Body Consciousness

Every morning it is always the same routine: I wake up, turn off my alarm, then proceed to check every platform of social media I have before acknowledging anything and anyone. I crave the need to know what was happening while I was asleep. After I am finally caught up I can proceed to continue with my life, that is for about 15 minutes and this cycle continues for the rest of my day. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot go a day, scratch that a few hours (pathetic I know) without checking social media. In this day and age, technology is unescapable; no matter where you go, what you do, you cannot avoid it. That being said, since the advent of social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram it makes it that much easier to connect and follow the lives of friends, models celebrities, and even Youtubers who unapologetically promote tea. While it is amusing to see what the Kardashian/Jenner clan is up to, or gawk over Calvin Klein models’ bodies, herein lies the problem of society today of which I hope to explore throughout the duration of this semester in my blog. I want to understand the relationship between the immediate accessibility of social media today, and how it creating an unhealthy need for users to obsess over another’s body.

Before Instagram, Facebook and other apps, fantasizing over a model or celebrity meant going out and buying a magazine(RIP print industry), such as GQ, Vogue, orPeople. But now, I can open my phone, and literally be entertained on Instagram for hours on end just looking at one model after another, showing my friends, wondering, “how can people even look like this!?!” Often times, I digress after wasting hours of my day looking at profiles of people I do not know and need to remind myself that this is their job, their profession- they are paid to look like this. This factor alone is something I want to delve deeper into while exploring this topic, the notion that these celebrities and public figures have the resources, and means in order to work out, eat healthy, and even get plastic surgery(@KIM). What they have achieved is not something that comes easy for the average individual such as you or me, we have responsibilities as students, committing hours of our day to class, homework, extracurriculars, etc. Not to take away from the hard work that these people put in, but, it’s simply a different world that we live in from them.

Overall, I’m intrigued to see how this blog helps enlighten me about the prominence of social media in our world today and how my own constant consumption along with millions of other users have been shaped by these notable figures. Continuing forward I hope to answer the question of how social media’s presence has altered our newest generation’s body conscious mindset and the ways in which our obsession is becoming detrimental to the psyche of us as followers.