Conclusion

As selfies continue to be a global phenonmenon within the online social media world, unrealistic social standards of beauty due to the pressures of conformity and belonging should not go unnoticed. Within the blogging community, for example, fashion and beauty bloggers from various countries attempt to break free from these barriers as they post selfies with captions encouraging others to acknowledge and reject these manipulations that the media has built upon us. They address the issues of posting selfies that are not a true authentic representation of the self, as many choose to alter and distort images through different applications and filters in order to obtain a ‘perfect’ and ‘model’ body. It is important that we understand the implications of these pressures, as we gain nothing truly advantageous in fulfilling them. With bloggers such as Cassey Ho, Essena O’Neill, Kaushal Beauty and etc. branding unfiltered selfies as appropriate and desirable, they create a more positive outlook for social beauty standards by inspiring others to follow suit and accept oneself and each other with their selfies unedited and completely genuine.

My friend taking a picure of myself taking a selfie, without any filters.

Works Cited:

Mascheroni, Giovanna, Jane Vincent, and Estefanía Jimenez. "“Girls Are Addicted to Likes so They Post Semi-     naked Selfies”: Peer Mediation, Normativity and the Construction of Identity Online."Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace9.1 (2015): n. pag. Web. 12 Dec. 2016

Hall, Kimberly. "Selfies and Self-Writing." Television & New Media 17.3 (2016): 228-42. Web. 12 Dec. 2016

Rettberg, Jill Walker.Seeing Ourselves through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Web.

Videos:

"The "Perfect" Body". YouTube, uploaded by Blogilates, 16 April 2015, https://youtu.be/PsL7W-GHhJA

O'Neill, Essena. "Essena O'Neill - Why I REALLY am quitting social media - (Original Video)". Youtube, uploaded by iKaryn, 03 November 2015, https://youtu.be/Xe1Qyks8QEM 

"Instagram Star Reveals The Truth Behind Her Photos". Youtube, uploaded by BuzzFeedBlue, 04 November 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsxSMdFC20E 

Images:

Ho, Cassey (blogilates). "Wow guys. The response on yesterday's post..."17 April 2015. Instagram. 

Harvey, Alexandra (lexirowan). "*honest caption: I was supposed to be going out..." 17 September 2015. Instagram.

Jonette. Digital image. Essena O’Neill: “Social Media Is Not Real Life”. Socialnewsdaily, 22 Nov. 2015. Web.

Kaushal (kaushalbeauty). "My go-to GLAM will be up on my channel at 5pm GMT today..." 02 October 2015. Instagram.

Kaushal (kaushalbeauty). "LEFT 👉🏽 No filter, no Facetune & no photoshop. RIGHT 👉🏽 Instagram filters, no Facetune & no photoshop." 02 October 2015. Instagram.

Sanders, Stina (stinasanders). "Can't believe it's a year ago today that I finished my social media experiment. Time has flown by!" 13 November 2016. Instagram.