After watching a TikTok video, I opened the camera app on my phone and stared into my eyes looking back at my reflection. I said to myself, “Maybe there is something wrong with my nose.”
Social media is ruining perceptions of beauty and forcing people to not only compare themselves to people who look differently, but also make them want to undergo procedures and look different.
Physical appearance is huge in social media. It is filled with endless photos and videos of what people believe to be the beauty standard, and if you do not fit exactly into what is being shown in the photos and videos, you are then believed to be not conventionally beautiful. Which then will take a big toll on not only how you view yourself, but your mental health.
You may not realize it, but people can use filters and Photoshop so seamlessly in the content they post, which then leads you to think that this person is the definition of perfect, and you are so far from it. When truly, no one is perfect, and that is not what they really look like either.
Social media will not be going away anytime soon. According to recent studies, “Social media is not likely to disappear entirely as it continues to see user growth and engagement.”
Next time you find yourself scrolling through the endless void of photos and videos being posted slow down and compliment them on the things that you find beautiful not what society thinks that they should deem as what is beautiful.
Unfortunately, the only solution is to be taught at an early age that everybody is beautiful in their own way, that no one is the same and that perfection does not exist.
But there is still a big chance that will not work. Everybody has so many different opinions and everyone looks at beauty so differently that no one will ever have the same exact definition for beauty.
It truly makes you rethink and understand the common saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Categories: Contributed, Opinion
