Selfies continue to be an ongoing trend through various
social media platforms. As one takes a snap of oneself with any technological
device, the image becomes a representation of him/her, as it is displayed to
others (publicly/privately) into the online world. With the rise of such a
popular trend, many drawbacks have followed as well. The act of taking selfies
persuades oneself to conform to social beauty standards, bidding a need to fit
in and be accepted into a community. That is not to say that all selfie
enthusiasts encourage the ideas to conform, as some may express against the
concept through various social media outlets. In particular, beauty and fashion
bloggers post selfies that attempt to go against ideas of conformity and
distortion with the use of their captions.
A friend of mine taking a selfie from the application Snapchat, where she is seen playing around with filters which can alter her face and surroundings, depending on the filter used.
Cassey Ho, also known as Blogilates on YouTube, posted a
photoshopped selfie on Instagram addressing to haters about the need to conform
to a perfect model body. She slimmed down her body and created a thigh gap
between her legs, something that is desired by girls according to research by
Mascheroni et al. She expresses her concern as she receives hate, as well as
praise, for the unreal portrayal of herself in the selfie. Ho also posted a
video on her YouTube channel focusing on the issue, altering her body in an
effort to conform to social beauty standards and to please the public eye. She
demonstrates how such a quest for a perfect body should not exist, as it is an
illusion from reality that is unhealthy and reaps no benefits. The need for
social inclusion through likes and acceptance from others can take a toll on a
person’s self-esteem as they begin to believe in these social standards that the
media has influenced onto them. With bloggers such as Cassey Ho, who has a
large following of 1.3 million followers on Instagram, taking a stance against
these unrealistic ideas of beauty, one can anticipate others to follow along with
the movement as well, attempting to break these barriers of comformity.
Well-known fashion and beauty blogger/model Essena O’Neill
became a hot topic when she broke down in a YouTube video where she explained
how social media ruined her life. Much like Mascheroni et al., O’Neill
discussed how girls needed to feel validated through likes and conform to
unrealistic beauty standards. In an attempt to create a much more significant
impact towards her audience, O’Neill decided to edit the majority of her
captions to depict the true meaning behind each selfie/photo. From the series
of selfies I have chosen for this research, O’Neill proves to be the most vocal
as she now is an inactive Instagram user (with all selfie-related images
deleted) and is rarely seen or heard on other forms of social media. She
strongly addresses the issue of people validating themselves through the use of
edited photos and likes/comments from others in the community. “They [females]
identify with the [peer] pressure to always look “perfect” in their online
pictures” (Mascheroni et al.). O’Neill argues that these selfies go on to
promote overly sexualized photos of oneself because it is what provides
acceptance from others, which thus reinforces the unfortunate social standards.
Though some believe that O’Neill’s
declaration of quitting social media was a ploy for more publicity, she
ultimately deleted her photos in order for her message to stay strong and clear:
that we should not be susceptible to social standards that are based on
conforming to what is perceived to be ‘ideal’ as it is highly glamourized and
unauthentic from reality.
Similarly to Essena O'Neill, blogger Alexandra Harvey
captioned against her own ‘model-like’ selfie on Instagram, claiming it to be a
fake representation of her due to lighting, makeup and camera angles. Her
‘honest caption’ relates much to Kimberly Hall’s idea of the cue card
confession trope, where users would post selfies while holding written
statements that explained a deeper and significant meaning about them (229).
Through her online caption Harvey exposes her own selfie in a negative light in
order to emphasize the reality of having the need to conform in order to belong
and fit into idealized social standards. She ends her caption with the hashtag
#SocialMediaIsNotRealLife, indicating how selfies such as the one she posted on
social media does not truly reflect reality as it is an altered representation
of oneself. With the post being one of top liked posts, having a far larger hundred
number of likes compared to similar other selfies, it seems clear that her honest
caption fared well with her audience as many agreed with her message (as seen
with pricey0101’s comment in the screenshot above). Bloggers such as Harvey and
O’Neill continue to pave the way to a better understanding of social media and
how it manipulates social standards of beauty.
Beauty blogger Kaushal Beauty garners an audience of over
548 thousand and 1.5 million for platforms Instagram and YouTube respectively. In
this image, she comments on how she refuses to edit her selfies with
applications/programs such as Facetune and Photoshop that many bloggers use to
smoothen out their skin for a flawless and blemish free look. “Putting a filter
on our selfie…gives them a distance that makes them new to us” (Walker
Rhettberg). With filters and various editing techniques being added onto one’s
selfies, the images become distortions from reality as it steers away from an
authentic representation of oneself. Kaushal demonstrates this in a subsequent
selfie post with an untouched picture of herself paired with the exact image
with a filter added to it. Although she admits to using filters for some images,
she argues that changing one’s appearance completely (such as skin lightening
or face smoothing) is not desirable. She implies her discontent to conform to
societal standards of beauty as she encourages others to not be afraid of
accepting one’s own authentic self.
